WHY STUDY PHILOSOPHY?

From the time of its conception in the 6th century B.C. Western Philosophy has been concerned with critically formulating and attempting to solve complex philosophical problems. In doing so, philosophers have developed analytic and verbal skills applicable to almost every imaginable problem, and as a result, are professionally involved with almost every area of human endeavour. This explains the title of a recent article by the American philosopher David A. Hoekema: "Why not study something practical, like philosophy?" (National Forum, 1987; APA Proceedings, 1985).

Hoekma's information, compiled from 1981-82 U.S. statistics and confirmed by later data, attests to the advantages and "practicality" of the analytic and verbal skills developed by philosophy majors when it comes to new undertakings. In fact, philosophy majors outperform most, if not all, other disciplines in this function. The evidence is based on the test performance by undergraduate majors in the following: the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test); the GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Test) T; the GRE (Graduate Record Examination).

The GRE is divided into two parts: the verbal and the quantitative. The general result of all the data was that philosophy majors performed substantially better (5% points or more) than the average. Not one other group of majors showed this consistent pattern -- not even economics or the physical sciences, whose majors did exceptionally well in three of the four areas but only marginally better than average on the verbal portion of the GRE. Biology majors performed better than average on all tests, but the margins were consistently smaller than those of philosophy majors. On the verbal portion of the GRE, philosophy majors outperformed all other humanities majors (only English came close) as well as individuals majoring in all other fields (social sciences, natural sciences, business, engineering, computer science). On the quantitative portion of the GRE where the highest scores were attained by engineering and science majors, humanities majors made a poor showing. But even there philosophy majors scored higher than average -- indeed their quantitative scores were higher than those of all the social sciences except economics.

On the LSAT and GMAT (which few students would think to prepare for by studying metaphysics and ethics) philosophy majors performed substantially better than majors in any other humanities field, better than all the social science majors except economics, better than all natural science majors except mathematics, and better than all business and applied fields, including engineering.

There is also some interesting material on the employment of U.S. Ph.D.'s in philosophy. First, the percentage of Ph.D.'s employed full-time is slightly higher than in other humanities fields. In fact, it is the same as the average of all science and engineering fields. But in one respect philosophers differ markedly from others: the percentage employed outside the humanities is substantially higher than other humanities fields and far higher than doctorates in science and engineering: 82.5% of philosophy Ph.D.'s are employed by educational institutions; 11.2% - the highest proportion of any humanities field - are employed or self-employed in business and industry; 3.0% work for government; 0.7% work for hospitals; 2.5% for other non-profit organizations.

Second, the employment rate for Ph.D.'s in philosophy is higher than the average in the humanities and higher than the rate in biology or the social sciences: 98.9%.

Third, the median salary of philosophers is only 14% less than of scientists and engineers, (A highly paid group.)

Fourth, philosophy the only field in which the employment rate is the same for men and women.

Philosophers work in industry, government, and education. They become lawyers, doctors, administrators, teachers, diplomats, consultants, stockbrokers, bankers, and managers. They are accepted and respected in all professional schools and welcomed into management training programmes.

So who says philosophy isn't practical? Judy Pelham/ Department of Philosophy, York University / last revised April 6, 1999

TEST PERFORMANCE BY UNDERGRADUATE MAJOR, 1981-82

Total number of respondents: 398,768

Table lists percentages by which majors in each field scored above or below the mean scores of all test takers in 1981-82

Undergraduate GRE: GRE: Size of

Major LSAT GMAT Verbal Quant sample

Humanities

Philosophy 8.7% 11.00% 17.6% 4.6% 3,410

English 5.6% 4.1% 14.5% -5.7% 17,757

History 2.9% 4.6% 10.8% -5.5% 15,123

Foreign

Languages 5.7% 3.3% 7.9% -4.2% 17,068

Arts and

Music -0.5% -1.2% 1.7% -8.4% 9,670

Other

humanities 4.7% 1.8% 7.3% -5.0% 8,341

Social Sciences

Economics 9.6% 7.3% 0.8% 12.4% 17,562

Government 3.3% 4.6% (Included below)

Political

Science -1.6% 0.6% 3.5% -5.0% 27,337

Psychology 0.9% 0.8% 3.1% -4.0 % 24,885

Sociology -0.7% -0.5% -0.7% -1.5% 8,693

Anthropology 4.0% ND 16.4% -1.7% 1,863

Natural Science

Biology and

bioscience 4.0% 3.3% 5.4% 8.0% 22,820

Chemistry 7.6% 7.5% 2.1% 18.3% 6,867

Mathematics 12.8% 13.3% 2.7% 26.3% 6,564

Physics ND ND 6.6% 29.5% 3,183

Other science 2.8% 0.8% 3.5% 14.5% 9,154

Business

Accounting 3.4% -1.5%

Finance 3.4% -0.8%

Marketing ND -8.1%

Business -4.5% ND -9.1% -2.3% 77,679

admin.

Management -5.4% -7.7%

Other

business -0.9% -5.0%

Other Majors

Computer

Science ND 5.4% -1.5% 22.9% 5,035

Engineering 8.0% 10.0% -7.3% 25.1% 29,718

Journalism 0.7% ND 5.7% -8.6% 2,767

Social Work -10.1% ND -9.1% -20.8% 2,999

Speech -2.7% ND -6.0% -14.3% 2,159

Education -8.7% -4.2% -10.4% -15.8% 22,978

SUMMARY OF COMPARATIVE DATA FOR PHILOSOPHY MAJORS, 1977-1982

Academic Year LSAT GMAT GRE: Verbal GRE: Quant

1977-78 8.9% 11.2% 18.4% 5.4%

1978-79 8.6% 9.9% 19.4% 5.2%

1979-80 7.2% 10.8% 19.5% 5.0%

1980-81 8.8% 11.4% 17.9% 3.3%

1981-82 8.7% 11.0% 17.6% 4.6%