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St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

sjc.edu

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Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#31

Post by skottk »

wk_end wrote: post #17

A former partner of mine was a St. John's alum (and champion), so I heard a lot about and thought a lot about their undergraduate program. Of course this is a wonderful list of brilliant works. I don't know if reading nothing but primary sources is the most efficient way to become a critical thinker or knowledgeable (e.g. reading Euclid might be a treat for those who know geometry, but is it the ideal way to learn ge…

The greatest weakness of the school is that the list of works was compiled in 1922 and has changed only incrementally since. It's also a great _strength_ of the school, but you could enter the world in 1988 from SJC knowing absolutely nothing about it. I'm sure that that's still true now.

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#32

Post by aik »

thebooktocome wrote: post #25
tgv wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that list is ... eclectic, to put it politely. If you want to learn maths, I wouldn't recommend Aristotle, Descartes and Darwin. Perhaps I don't understand what "The information presented is for illustration purposes only and may not reflect the current reading list" means, and why one would link that page anyway.

It has been trendy in the last fifty or so years to strip historical and cultural content from math classes in favor of rote computation (as the former is easiest to test in a “standardized” setting), but I’d argue that dehumanizing mathematics makes it far harder to understand, or indeed even care about. Word problems are the last edifice of natural philosophy in the high school mathematics curriculum and there’s co…

Agreed. The book "A Mathematician's Lament" I found enlightening on this topic.

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#33

Post by a_techwriter_00 »

tgv wrote: post #16
codybontecou wrote: post #4

Huh, this is neat. If you click on a book's subject(s), it will then take you to the specific topic and a reading list tailored to it. For example, this is their Mathematics reading list: https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/undergraduate/subjects... .

Except that list is ... eclectic, to put it politely. If you want to learn maths, I wouldn't recommend Aristotle, Descartes and Darwin. Perhaps I don't understand what "The information presented is for illustration purposes only and may not reflect the current reading list" means, and why one would link that page anyway.

St. John's graduate here. It looks like that list includes a lot of what we read in "lab" class mixed in with what we read in math class. Freshman math was almost entirely the study of Euclid and Nicomachus.

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#34

Post by viscanti »

spekcular wrote: post #24
ticviking wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Great Books approach involves reading the actual historical development of a subject and seeing not only what the state of the art is but how we got from here to there.

I believe the person you're replying to understands that. The claim is that this approach is really bad way to learn math. As someone who has learned and taught a lot of math, I agree with that claim.

It appears to be a liberal arts program. Is this substantially different, with respect to the rigor of mathematics, than most other comparable programs? They might cover more calculus (maybe at a theoretical level?) than most liberal arts programs.

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#35

Post by daseiner1 »

tgv wrote: post #20
wk_end wrote: post #17

A former partner of mine was a St. John's alum (and champion), so I heard a lot about and thought a lot about their undergraduate program. Of course this is a wonderful list of brilliant works. I don't know if reading nothing but primary sources is the most efficient way to become a critical thinker or knowledgeable (e.g. reading Euclid might be a treat for those who know geometry, but is it the ideal way to learn ge…

> a very serious view in the postmodern, post-WWII academy is That's just a load of edgy nonsense to get attention. Unfortunately, it seems to have worked.

Which part, exactly, is “””edgy”””?

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#36

Post by daseiner1 »

rebolyte wrote: post #10
mistrial9 wrote: post #6

I have read many of these works listed. I don't like this database-looking list format; too many books there. Some of them are quite challenging. Freshman Reading: Homer - Illyad, Odyssey ... ok! if you read the Odyssey in your own native language (not greek), you probably will enjoy it, but how are you going to know about the grand themes unless someone tells you about it? seems sad in a way that these great works a…

> how are you going to know about the grand themes unless someone tells you about it? SJC grad here. The Program encourages you to encounter the works for yourself and see what _you_ think the themes/ideas are. You’re lightly discouraged from reading the translator’s preface, since they share their own opinions. Different students bring different translations of the material, and additionally the language class that…

For most works I’ve read, classical or otherwise, I’m baffled that the preface isn’t a postscript.

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#37

Post by spekcular »

viscanti wrote: post #34
spekcular wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the person you're replying to understands that. The claim is that this approach is really bad way to learn math. As someone who has learned and taught a lot of math, I agree with that claim.

It appears to be a liberal arts program. Is this substantially different, with respect to the rigor of mathematics, than most other comparable programs? They might cover more calculus (maybe at a theoretical level?) than most liberal arts programs.

Yes, it is substantially different with respect to content than standard undergraduate mathematics programs. It covers a few historically important texts and does not teach (if those texts are any indication) most of what is usually taught in an undergraduate math degree. (A poster above writes: "Freshman math was almost entirely the study of Euclid and Nicomachus.")

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#38

Post by thow4533566 »

wk_end wrote: post #30
dr_dshiv wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really disagree with the implication. It’s not like Hitler or the slavers were well read in their Greek philosophy. Traditionally — and I hope going into the future — the classical works of western civ have been a source of enduring liberalism. They show the value and meaning of freedom — and nuanced, complex, non-black/white thought. But of course I’m biased because I’m deeply immersed in the classics—and I draw f…

Which "slavers" are you referring to? Almost all of the American Founding Fathers owned slaves, and they were of course very familiar with the tradition of liberal thought. I can't speak for Hitler's knowledge of the Greeks specifically, but he was democratically elected by the nation of Germany, which - like I mentioned - was considered to be one of the most "civilized" in Europe (and thus the world). It's easy enou…

Hitler was only sort of democratically elected. He lost the direct vote for president by a landslide against Hindenburg. Later, his party became the largest in parliament though without a majority (37%). He was only made chancellor after another election were his party lost ground (33%), through a backroom deal.

Hitler's highest formal education was finishing secondary school.

Re: St. John’s Reading List: A Great Books Curriculum

#40

Post by yamtaddle »

viscanti wrote: post #34
spekcular wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the person you're replying to understands that. The claim is that this approach is really bad way to learn math. As someone who has learned and taught a lot of math, I agree with that claim.

It appears to be a liberal arts program. Is this substantially different, with respect to the rigor of mathematics, than most other comparable programs? They might cover more calculus (maybe at a theoretical level?) than most liberal arts programs.

I'd expect the rigor is fine, but the particulars that are learned differ.

I doubt the distinction matters at all for the vast majority of grads, especially ones who don't intend to become mathematicians. Learning how to math is probably more important than the specific material, outside a handful of things. You can pick up the rest as-needed, and for the vast majority of people, "the rest" that is in fact ever needed for the entire rest of their lives, will be very little. Especially if they're pursuing a classics-based liberal arts degree.

I doubt many of their grads are planning to become actual computer-scientists or mathematicians or mech. engineers or any of that. Lawyer, maybe doctor, maybe writer, maybe an ordinary computer programmer, that sort of thing. As long as you're not afraid of math, you'll be fine in any of those not having had a typical PDE class or whatever.

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