Kieran Healy, Duke University

Specialization and Status in Philosophy

Rating and ranking systems that aim to quantify excellence,prestige or quality are increasingly common and increasingly influential in settings as varied as hospitals, wineries, baseball teams, and business schools. Using an influential reputational survey, The Philosophical Gourmet Report (PGR), I describe and analyze the relational structure of prestige in English-speaking Philosophy Departments. I am interested in three problems. First, an "internal" one: what is the social structure of status in the discipline? Second, an "external" one: what effect has the PGR had on the discipline of philosophy? And third, the harder problem of linking the internal and external perspectives: how have philosophers and other interested parties used the information supplied by the report? I will try to take advantage of some nice features of the PGR data to say something about each of these questions.