“Brian Leiter”:http://webapp.utexas.edu/blogs/archives/bleiter/000945.html notes that the Daily Princetonian has an article on “Scott Soames’s departure for USC”:http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2004/03/08/news/9870.shtml. Brian notes some corrections to the piece, as well as noting that in covering some of the losses (often tragic losses) the Princeton department has suffered recently, it doesn’t mention the additions to philosophy at Princeton. Brian mentions Michael Smith, Philip Pettit, Anthony Appiah and Daniel Garber as being significant recent additions, and they are. He could also have mentioned, as he does in “another context”:http://webapp.utexas.edu/blogs/archives/bleiter/000940.html, Tom Kelly’s move to Princeton, which I think will be great for the department.

I’m not exactly in the best position to comment on all the changes, because I’ve been enormously influenced by Michael and Philip over the years so I can’t really make an objective judgment about the quality of their work. So I think they’re great philosophers, but I would think that, wouldn’t I? Still, I think while it’d obviously be an even better program with Scott Soames there, reports of Princeton’s fall from pre-eminence are premature at best.