Rooting out fallacies

I’d like to tell Gov. Pat McCrory and Dr. Bill Bennett that a philosophy major from UNC-Chapel Hill can get a job.

I was in 1973 one of about a dozen in my class who majored (for me, a double major, with religion) in philosophy. Granted that advanced degrees from Duke (in religion, with philosophy as a minor) might have helped, but I left school to enter a now 34-year career as a teacher of philosophy.

I may make a small fraction of the salaries McCrory’s administration will pull down, but it is a job. In my field. And while I disagree with the assumption that a paycheck education is the only education the state should offer, I can safely say that even a philosopher can get a job.

I may not cure cancer, but it’s possible that I’ve taught a few students to think clearly enough to see through the fallacies in the governor’s logic.

Steven W. Esthimer, Ph.D.

Chair, Humanities and Social Sciences Department, St. Mary’s School, Raleigh