Leiter points to Heck's tenure as a sign both that Quine's legacy may be waning and that the attitudes towards promotion that hurt the department may be changing.

Heck got his Ph.D. just 10 years ago and works in so-called "core areas" of philosophy-philosophy of language, mind, and epistemology-as opposed to ethics, which Leiter says remains a Harvard forte.

The department recently added three new non-tenured positions, doubling the size of its junior faculty, and its hires have come from a wider cross-section of fields within philosophy.

"What's really significant about these hires is how diverse they've been," Heck said. "I'm from MIT, [Professor of Philosophy] Richard Moran is from Cornell and Princeton. The legacy of [departmental] doctrine doesn't happen anymore. We mostly look like a good department, not so fussy about being Harvard."

Leiter concurs that the department is moving towards the mainstream.

"They've had doctoral students unlike any Harvard has had in 25 years," he said. "Now they're doing what everyone else is doing."

In addition, Heck's promotion may signify that these new faculty may have a brighter future at the University than their predecessors. Although Heck is a single case, department faculty say that each professor makes a substantial difference in a department as small as Philosophy.

"What's going to happen with the administration is anybody's guess," Heck said of the tenure process. "But the sense is that if you do what you're supposed to do, the department will recommend you. That's a big change."