Glasperlenspieler

I think it's totally fine to have your argument be for a conditional claim (i.e. I will argue that, given Y, X). No one expects you to be able to give a defense of hedonistic utilitarianism in order to say anything about applied ethics. But I do think it's worth motivating why that conjunction of positions is at all compelling. Why is this ethical question pressing, important, relevant for someone who holds those positions? You don't want to make it seem like you're just randomly choosing these positions. I think it's also worth asking yourself how necessary those background claims really are to your argument. I can see why the normative framework would, but does it really matter whether moral realism is true for your argument? I mean maybe it does, but I think a lot of the literature on topics in applied ethics can work fairly independently from meta-ethical claims.

Welcome to academia, the land of disillusion

Good to have a collection of public statements, but please, applicants: don’t get your hopes up about any other top programs not listed here. 

With that many high-quality programs not accepting applicants this year, it's also a good idea to contemplate the fact that others are, and why that might be the case. 

I was originally considering some interdisciplinary PhD programs, and honestly might still be, so I can give you the advice I was given by my undergrad professors, since I asked three different professors a bunch of these questions... The gist that I got was that it really depends on the prestige of the school, and how you can spin your dissertation into something that helps you fit into a specific humanities department. But, the name of the degree does carry some weight (ex. having an English PhD looks better to English departments than having an interdisciplinary PhD in which you used skills that you would use in an English PhD). I've also heard from them that sometimes these departments are less cohesive-- if we consider universities as the neoliberal institutions that they are, these sorts of departments are often a money-saving measure. Professors within them might not know each other or communicate with each other as well as professors in a traditional humanities department.
I would also argue that many humanities programs tend to be fairly interdisciplinary at this point anyway-- you can usually take courses in other humanities departments, and your dissertation can certainly include elements from multiple fields, so long as, say for example, your English PhD dissertation is at least reasonably focused around literary analysis/theory. I was advised into the recent dissertations coming out of different humanities programs as well as Professor interests to see if there are programs where you feel you could explore your interdisciplinary interests while also having a degree that might look more attractive to departments during the hiring process. For me personally, I have been looking into English programs that have strong faculty in using a continental philosophy lens for literary analysis. But of course don't check specifically interdisciplinary programs off your list if it really is where you think you would fit in best and have the most fruitful experience! Hope some of this was helpful

You're better off with one 15-25 page writing sample. Programs want to see that you can produce a strong, extended argument, and they want to know that you can enter the program and hit the ground running, which means writing several 15-25 pages seminar papers at the end of your first semester while managing other responsibilities.

I think it's totally fine to have your argument be for a conditional claim (i.e. I will argue that, given Y, X). No one expects you to be able to give a defense of hedonistic utilitarianism in order to say anything about applied ethics. But I do think it's worth motivating why that conjunction of positions is at all compelling. Why is this ethical question pressing, important, relevant for someone who holds those positions? You don't want to make it seem like you're just randomly choosing these positions. I think it's also worth asking yourself how necessary those background claims really are to your argument. I can see why the normative framework would, but does it really matter whether moral realism is true for your argument? I mean maybe it does, but I think a lot of the literature on topics in applied ethics can work fairly independently from meta-ethical claims.

Depends on what you mean. Certainly you can deeply engage with philosophy in a literature PhD program, take courses focusing on philosophy, discuss philosophers in your dissertation, etc. However, I expect most English and Comparative Literature programs are going to expect you to take significant coursework in literary studies and produce a dissertation that deals significantly with literature or another form of cultural/aesthetic production.
You can look at the titles of recent dissertations on many departmental websites, and I think it's pretty rare for most programs to find a dissertation that is "primarily" dealing with philosophical texts. 
It's pretty unlikely you'll find much support for pursuing analytic philosophy in a literature department. You will certainly find support in many departments to pursue studies in continental philosophy (I hate that distinction, but that's a different can of worms). But if you want to "primarily" focus on philosophy, why would you want to be in a literature department?

I think it's totally fine to have your argument be for a conditional claim (i.e. I will argue that, given Y, X). No one expects you to be able to give a defense of hedonistic utilitarianism in order to say anything about applied ethics. But I do think it's worth motivating why that conjunction of positions is at all compelling. Why is this ethical question pressing, important, relevant for someone who holds those positions? You don't want to make it seem like you're just randomly choosing these positions. I think it's also worth asking yourself how necessary those background claims really are to your argument. I can see why the normative framework would, but does it really matter whether moral realism is true for your argument? I mean maybe it does, but I think a lot of the literature on topics in applied ethics can work fairly independently from meta-ethical claims.

But if they defended this summer, that would mean they probably got hired during last years job market (or left academia). There was actually a job market this past year, but I'm not sure there will be one to speak of this year.

I think it's totally fine to have your argument be for a conditional claim (i.e. I will argue that, given Y, X). No one expects you to be able to give a defense of hedonistic utilitarianism in order to say anything about applied ethics. But I do think it's worth motivating why that conjunction of positions is at all compelling. Why is this ethical question pressing, important, relevant for someone who holds those positions? You don't want to make it seem like you're just randomly choosing these positions. I think it's also worth asking yourself how necessary those background claims really are to your argument. I can see why the normative framework would, but does it really matter whether moral realism is true for your argument? I mean maybe it does, but I think a lot of the literature on topics in applied ethics can work fairly independently from meta-ethical claims.

I'd be surprised if any UChicago humanities program take students. I think the change to their funding structure worked on the assumption that some students would actually be graduating this year, but given the fact that nobody is hiring, it's likely most students will stay on for another year of funding. Hard to pay for that and let in a new crop of students.

My username is a little outdated now, but I did my M.A. in philosophy then went to a top-10 law school on a scholarship and now a practicing attorney. Happy to answer any questions about the path. 
I would just add - law as a day to day job is nothing like an academic pursuit. I spend my days in excel spreadsheets and dealing with really small problems that are taken too seriously and the stress is constant. Happy to discuss more, but as far as the law world, I have probably a top 1% legal job and it is still insufferable and awful. 

1. I'd say it's generally a bad idea to publish a book before you have your Ph.D.
2. Getting a good grade on something doesn't necessarily mean the professor thinks it should be published.
3. For many (most?) fields it's not necessary to have any publications to get admitted to a good Ph.D. program.
4. At this stage of your career, all publication decisions should be made in close coordination with a knowledgeable and sympathetic advisor (random people on internet message boards don't count).

Depends on what you mean. Certainly you can deeply engage with philosophy in a literature PhD program, take courses focusing on philosophy, discuss philosophers in your dissertation, etc. However, I expect most English and Comparative Literature programs are going to expect you to take significant coursework in literary studies and produce a dissertation that deals significantly with literature or another form of cultural/aesthetic production.
You can look at the titles of recent dissertations on many departmental websites, and I think it's pretty rare for most programs to find a dissertation that is "primarily" dealing with philosophical texts. 
It's pretty unlikely you'll find much support for pursuing analytic philosophy in a literature department. You will certainly find support in many departments to pursue studies in continental philosophy (I hate that distinction, but that's a different can of worms). But if you want to "primarily" focus on philosophy, why would you want to be in a literature department?

Hi,
I wanted to add a little perspective as a current PhD candidate at an ivy currently organizing to pressure my department to follow Yale and Chicago in suspending admissions for Fall 2021. The response of most programs to the disruptions presented by the pandemic has been atrocious. PhD students of all disciplines find themselves looking at what amounts to a year loss of progress towards degree--many students have had to abandon research in the US and abroad, obviously library access has been severely limited. Hiring freezes set in pretty quickly after the pandemic's outset, so the class of students meant to defend this year have had to drum up funding to keep themselves afloat, with no guarantee that any kind of job market will exist next year.
At my institution, after a flurry of action largely organized by our student union in the Spring,  university admin made it clear that the only way departments could issue a blanket funding extension for current grads would be to forgo future admits. Every slot canceled frees up 10 semesters of funding to be redistributed among current students. I imagine the decisions at Yale and Chicago were made under similar conditions. This is a form of austerity, and all evidence points to it getting worse, not better in upper ed, with, as usual, outsize effect on the humanities.
I think its quite easy to focus on "how" to get into grad school rather than "why" to go to grad school (which this forum obviously abets). Now more than ever I would urge all prospective PhD applicants to REALLY think deeply about the latter. To be able to ask yourself and answer honestly: am I emotionally, mentally, and financially capable of putting 5-7 years of work into a career path that most likely will not lead to employment in my field?
Towards answering this latter question and getting a better idea of the wrecked landscape that is graduate work in the humanities currently I highly recommend perusing discussions on the Chronicle of Higher Education such as: https://www.chronicle.com/article/how-the-coronavirus-will-or-should-transform-graduate-education/
and also discussions on Karen Kelsky's website: http://theprofessorisin.com/ 
(her 2015 book "The Professor is In" remains a really useful read)
 

Welcome to academia, the land of disillusion

I know it sounds really discouraging.  But honestly, do you want to enter in a PhD program when departments are fighting for funds to help people finish their degrees once those people have exhausted their 4-5 year funding packages? Departments do want to be able to commit to their PhD students to the fullest extent, thus not abandoning those further along. To do that, they would prefer not to admit (w/ blessing of the Powers to Be) new students who they cannot provide the same amount of support for the next 5-8 years. They are also freaking out about graduate students who have recently passed their exams and now need to travel to archives. Those students are supposed to be able to travel to the archives but because of travel restrictions (mostly imposed by the universities), they can't go anywhere to get going on their research.  Instead, those students are using up a semester (or two!) of their guaranteed funding packages and working as TAs and doing what they can with online archives.  Essentially, they are losing out a semester or two of guaranteed funding to the pandemic and no one knows if they will be granted extensions later on to make up for that kind of loss.  Current students come first, not any considerations for next year's cohort.

Welcome to academia, the land of disillusion

As @TMP mentioned, PhD admission decisions are not being made now in many places. We are preparing for a very uncertain semester, we are all panicking that X university is going online and our campus is beginning to receive students. 
At my own UG-centered institution on the West Coast, we are kind of dealing other priorities. I'm sorry, but triage dictates that we cannot possibly think about our admissions to graduate degrees if we can BARELY make sense of the next two weeks. 
Remember also that in many programs, admissions and funding for graduate students depends in many cases from administration higher up. This is not a decision all programs can take unilaterally, especially if graduate students are TAs. 
Follow @TMP advice. Just decide how much time you want to invest. This is excellent advice and advice you will use over and over again. You will, at some point, be preparing for comps and writing grant applications. At another point you will be deep into your dissertation and applying for conferences. You will also be writing your dissertation and applying to any job that appears on H-Net. 
For now, be patient and trust the information you are given. If in doubt, contact by email the department administrator. At best, they will give you an answer. At worst, they will tell you there is not policy in place yet. 

Welcome to academia, the land of disillusion

Welcome to academia, the land of disillusion

Welcome to academia, the land of disillusion

To be fair, people in PhD programs sometimes stop at an MA.

Going to give you the answer that pretty much everyone on this forum will (because it's true!): not inherently implausible, but a much, much more likely path is getting into a good MA and then a legit PhD from there. Even if you have a great deal of philosophical skill without formal training, you need time to learn the conventions of the field, write a good writing sample, build relationships with philosophy professors who could write letters of rec, etc. This is exactly what terminal MAs are for: helping students with non-traditional philosophical backgrounds learn the ins and outs of academic philosophy before applying to a PhD program.
Also, I said this recently to another poster with a similar question, but you should note that even substantial self-study and writing is very different from studying philosophy formally, or doing philosophy professionally! This is certainly not to say you don't know what you're talking about/you wouldn't actually like it or anything like that - just something to keep in mind as you keep exploring this.