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

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

#41

Post by yamtaddle »

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…

This coupled with a weird fixation on achieving a sufficiently "high" level of mathematics, typically without a strong justification for any non-grad-school-bound students. Reeks of gate-keeping. I've known multiple people who've failed to finish a degree solely because of math classes covering material that they'd almost certainly never have seen again their entire lives, even if they achieved a middling-successful career in their desired field.

If "thinking mathematically" is the actual, vital part of that education, for most students, I have some doubts that a classics-based approach is any worse than the modern kind. Maybe better, except for a small slice of students who will continue to engage with advanced mathematics after they finish undergrad and do need the modern version.

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

#42

Post by korse »

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.

Perhaps it is a bad way to learn 'applied math'? Bertrand Russel might disagree...

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

#43

Post by yamtaddle »

skottk wrote: post #23

Class of '87 here. Most valuable takeaway is that you can read almost _anything_ directly or in translation. You don't need to read a summary of Hegel, you can read Hegel. You don't need to read an article about a Supreme Court case like Marbury v. Madison, you can read the case itself. When you go into technology, you're then willing to dive into the guts of the actual docs instead of waiting for a book or blog post…

> Most valuable takeaway is that you can read almost _anything_ directly or in translation. You don't need to read a summary of Hegel, you can read Hegel. You don't need to read an article about a Supreme Court case like Marbury v. Madison, you can read the case itself.

I think what's under-appreciated is that, a fair amount of the time, for these sorts of enduring classics, reading the original is both better and easier than reading later takes on the same material. If you read the later derivative works and go back, often you'll find they've misinterpreted certain parts in strange ways, or left out things that seem important, and the original is not-uncommonly also both an easier and more entertaining read.

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

#44

Post by voisin »

a_techwriter_00 wrote: post #33
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.

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.

Can you give your thoughts on the approach at St. John’s and whether you would recommend it?

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

#45

Post by neaden »

thow4533566 wrote: post #38
wk_end wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is just how elections work in a parliamentary system though, it's not unusual to have a ruling party without a majority of the vote.

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

#46

Post by skottk »

yamtaddle wrote: post #43
skottk wrote: post #23

Class of '87 here. Most valuable takeaway is that you can read almost _anything_ directly or in translation. You don't need to read a summary of Hegel, you can read Hegel. You don't need to read an article about a Supreme Court case like Marbury v. Madison, you can read the case itself. When you go into technology, you're then willing to dive into the guts of the actual docs instead of waiting for a book or blog post…

> Most valuable takeaway is that you can read almost _anything_ directly or in translation. You don't need to read a summary of Hegel, you can read Hegel. You don't need to read an article about a Supreme Court case like Marbury v. Madison, you can read the case itself. I think what's under-appreciated is that, a fair amount of the time, for these sorts of enduring classics, reading the original is both better and ea…

And that in some cases they assume familiarity with a large body of knowledge of _other_ people's commentaries on the works, and in fact, those second-hand sources are what they're really responding to.

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

#47

Post by uxp100 »

spekcular wrote: post #37
viscanti wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.")

So this is the books used in an undergraduate liberal arts degree (your degree is IN liberal arts). These are the math tagged books in a quirky bachelors in philosophy degree, essentially. They do not have a math degree (or any degrees aside from bachelors in liberal arts?).

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

#48

Post by spekcular »

uxp100 wrote: post #47
spekcular wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.")

So this is the books used in an undergraduate liberal arts degree (your degree is IN liberal arts). These are the math tagged books in a quirky bachelors in philosophy degree, essentially. They do not have a math degree (or any degrees aside from bachelors in liberal arts?).

I see - I understood "liberal arts program" above to mean a liberal arts college in general (typically offering a mathematics major). I agree that this reading list is better suited for something like "history of math for humanities students."

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

#49

Post by drstewart »

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…

> There seems to be a decent selection of works reckoning with American slavery, which is good, but if I recall and AFAICT not much about European colonialism, the Holocaust, CIA-backed coups in South America, the horrors of Stalinism, rising Asian powers, the postmodern condition, any post-sexual revolution gender politics

Not much about Japanese horrors in WWII, Chinese imperialism, Mongol raids, African-originated slave traders, African tribal genocides, machismo anti-homosexual Latino culture either.

Just seems you forgot to mention these for some reason. Maybe because the culmination of 3000 years of Asian, Africa, and South American history isn't utopia either?

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

#50

Post by yamtaddle »

jdmoreira wrote: post #19
sys32768 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tried to get my oldest to go here. She reads super fast with high comprehension and loves to debate, but she's so terrified of going into debt that she's now in a state college taking computer science and saying Chat GPT is way more helpful than her professor for understanding or fixing code.

Smart kid. I would even skip the whole state college thing as soon as she can be dangerous enough to get a job.

If it's cheap enough, the paper's worth it just to never worry about having to explain your lacking a degree. Even if you rarely actually have to, it's always in the back of your mind. A potential question that you'll need to be ready to reframe positively, plus that constant worry that you're receiving extra scrutiny, just... go away completely.

It'll also be very handy if one ever wishes to leave the US—most countries one might want to live and work in will be much more likely to let you in with a degree, and especially a CS degree.

I went back and finished mine. Removing that stressor from interviews was worth it, even if that was basically the only benefit, which it was—nearly all the benefits I can point to from college came from the humanities degree I nearly finished, years before completing the CS degree. For the CS degree, perhaps two or three hours worth of instruction or material have proven either useful or edifying since. But, I'm glad to have the paper.

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