I NOTICED your swipe at literature and philosophy in your editorial of Tuesday, December 9. Since I think literature is better known and understood in this country than philosophy is, I will restrict my comments to philosophy. The Caribbean does not have much of a tradition in academic philosophy, so there are many misconceptions about it. I think both educators and students may be interested in the following bits of information.

In the United States of America, philosophy majors have the highest scores on the LSAT to get into law school, as well as on the MCAT to get into medical school. For the MBA exam, they outscore business majors by a very wide margin.

Engineering and agriculture

Philosophy is taught in high schools in many European countries. It is a required subject for first degrees in most North American universities.

As the subject which aims at the highest levels of generality, it has a bearing on virtually all disciplines. It is a mistake to think that the philosophy of science is not relevant to engineering and agriculture. It is also a mistake to think that subjects like logic and ethics are not central to national development. Logic is one of the foundation areas of information technology. Development ethics is a thriving area of philosophy, although very little of this is happening in the Caribbean.

In our rush to promote engineering and agriculture - as important as they obviously are - let us not lose sight of the subject that gave birth to both the natural and social sciences. Philosophy has an excellent and demonstrated record of developing critical and analytical skills, and these are valuable, whether you are studying engineering, agriculture or anything else.

I am, etc.,

EARL McKENZIE

Department of Language, Linguistics and Philosophy

University of the West Indies

Mona, Kingston 7