The blog post below has a very nice graphic which details the proven skills that one obtains with a degree in philosophy. While I am tired of having to justify this over and over, I think it is important to not give up. Especially in light of how many “business” folks whisper in the ears of legislators & regents that colleges should be undercutting or doing away with humanities courses in the increasingly “vocationalized” university.
Andrew wants to hire smart, articulate people who can identify problems, take them apart into manageable bits, and solve them in unique ways. In philosophical terms, this is the ability to perform critical reasoning. Critical is defined as “the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.” Elmhurst College, like most colleges and universities, offers Reasoning as a 200-level philosophy course. The skills learned in this course are strengthened as students advance in their major via their application to increasingly difficult problems in courses such as Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology, Environmental Ethics, and Biomedical Ethics.