"It's gained a certain authority which some of us think is completely unjustified," said Porter Professor of Philosophy Christine M. Korsgaard, Harvard's department chair. "He does some survey work, but it hardly meets social scientific standards. One shouldn't treat the Philosophical Gourmet as anything other than the opinions of a very small number of people."

Professors at other universities hold the report in similar esteem.

"I don't put any stock in Harvard being ranked number six by Leiter," echoed Frederick W. Neuhouser, a former Harvard junior faculty member who was denied tenure by the University in 1995 and now holds a tenured position in Cornell's philosophy department. "Harvard is clearly in the top five American philosophy departments."

A Real Dip

But if Harvard's philosophy professors frown on Leiter's methodology and conclusions, they do not dispute that the department does not hold the position of primacy it has in the past and that Leiter's assessment that the department is "now more stable" is valid.

"We all have our own theories about what led to Harvard's dip, which was real," said Professor of Philosophy Richard G. Heck, whose recent tenure was the department's first internal promotion in two decades.

The most obvious obstacle recently confronted by the department is the retirement of two of its patriarchs-former Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value Stanley Cavell and former Cogan University Professor Hilary W. Putnam. Cavell, who retired in 1997, and Putnam, who followed suit in 2000, defined the department's discourse in the latter 20th century, according to Visiting Professor of philosophy Edwin W. McCann.

But both Leiter and professors within the Harvard philosophy department contend that whatever woes it has suffered began well before the millennium.