WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

Philosophy is a Liberal Arts discipline which seeks to feed our human sense of wonder, and to investigate the foundations of everyday life and the other disciplines, including the arts and the social and physical sciences. Philosophers tend to ask a new question in response to any given answer. "How do you know?" is a favorite.

This method has been driving people crazy for 2500 years. It is still the best way of exposing the assumptions on which the other disciplines are built. Our ultimate goal is to make the foundations stronger, or at least to understand their weaknesses.

At North Carolina Wesleyan, Philosophy is a discipline within the Humanities Division. The faculty offer a variety of courses each semester.

What Can I Do With Philosophy?

Apart from personal enrichment, how can a student expect to benefit from coursework in Philosophy at North Carolina Wesleyan College?

Corporate managers consistently state that, when hiring college graduates, they are seeking intellectual breadth, reasoning ability, and moral maturity. Thus they prefer students with degrees in humanities subjects over those with a narrow specialty.

Statistical review of the LSAT, MCAT and other tests required for entry to professional schools shows that students with undergraduate majors in Philosophy consistently do better than most others. In fact, Philosophy majors do better than most science majors on the MCAT. This should not be surprising, since such tests emphasize reasoning abilities which are developed in philosophy courses.

Recent studies suggest that by the fourth or fifth year out of school, persons with solid grounding in the humanities are higher in earning power than those who stick to a more technical curriculum. In today's rapidly changing world, specific technical information becomes obsolete in a few years. Then too, surveys show that most people change careers more than once. Merely technical studies do not yield as much adaptability to changing conditions as do broader subjects that promote the understanding of human nature and human experience.

Study of Philosophy and Religious Studies provides cultural background information, critical reasoning ability, and the opportunity for moral reflection. Thus it promotes the ability to adapt, learn new skills, and apply old lessons to new situations.

For these reasons courswork in Philosophy is a good foundation for any career track.

Full-time faculty in Philosophy and Religious Studies:

Courses in Philosophy are taught by adjunct faculty as of this date.

Fred Grissom teaches most of the courses in Religious Studies.