Abstract

In recent years, the "science of science" has combined computational methods with novel data sources in order to understand the dynamics of research communities. As the name suggests, science of science is primarily focused on science and technology, with less attention to the humanities. However, many of the questions investigated by science of science are also relevant to academic philosophy: To what extent can the discipline be divided into subfields with different methods and topics? How are prestige and credit distributed across the discipline? And how do these factors interact with other factors, such as gender, to shape job market outcomes? In this paper, we provide some empirically-informed answers to these questions by applying computational methods to job market data for Anglophone academic philosophy. We find, first, evidence that is consistent with the analytic-continental divide, but is also consistent with other, more complex ways of organizing academic philosophy into distinct intellectual traditions; second, a clear prestige hierarchy, dividing PhD programs into two distinct prestige categories; and third, evidence that gender, prestige, and country have notable effects on academic job market outcomes for recent philosophy PhDs.