Philosophy is not a Mickey Mouse degree

In response to my previous post, someone brought my attention that BA in Combined studies in my own School of Mathematics also includes a number of seemingly bizarre combinations:

This honours programme leads to the degree of BA, although the Mathematics component can make up about two thirds of the overall course. Other subjects will usually be selected from the following areas:

• Historical studies
• Philosophy
• Languages
• Literary studies and Drama
• Linguistics and related subjects
• Classical Civilisation and Art History
• Religious Studies and Comparative Religion
• Built and Natural Environments
• Jewish Studies
• Film Studies

All these (with a possible exception of Built and Natural Environments and Film Studies which may have a different justification, and I do not want to argue against or for them) belong to a range of degree courses that I myself on many occasions proposed for paring with Mathematics: they are essay-based disciplines with strong emphasis on working with original sources and reading very hard texts. A combination of Mathematics with Philosophy produces a provably numerate and literate graduate who has good job prospects and, which is even more important, who had a chance to develop the intellectual and emotional core of his or her  personality.

I understand that it was great Sir Christopher Zeeman who, when he founded Mathematics Institute at Warwick, pioneered combined courses like Mathematics with Art History.