> "Great Books" is mired in fairly a ridiculous fetishism of the Greek classics, the Enlightenment era, the American founding, and the Anglo view of the western world.
The webpage clearly states that the list is of foundational books of greco-roman civilization. And SJC is an american university. What do you expect?
Also, fetishism? Greek classics are the foundation of european civilization. That's like going to a christian seminary and whining about their fetishism of the bible.
> But it's a much larger problem in Mathematics where the field is essentially unrecognizable from the way it would've been taught in 1920 or whatever.
The foundation of european mathematics goes back to the ancient greeks. It's a foundational books list.
> Russell is predictably floating around (see paragraph 1) even though... well, yawn.
Yeah, yeah, Evropean, we get it. You know that even SJC grads eye-roll at that stuff, right? One of them even does in this comment section.
Anyways. Even then -- typical Great Books curricula still sample from a tiny subset of literature that fits the mold of "greco-roman civilization". It was chosen by a very particular set of people at a very particular point in time. Some choices work more or less well enough. Others not so much.
The choices for what to emphasize in Natural Philosophy and Mathematics are mostly bad imo. They reflect what a 1920s humanist might conceive of as a Great Book in those fields. Which is to say, mostly weird and sort of mired in a very particular 1850s Oxbridge sensibility that most people don't even realize is being read into the whole project.
And here's the issue: those guys had well-informed opinions on what to emphasize in Philosophy and History. We can agree to disagree, or not, whatever. But in Mathematics and Science, they were barely following the plot or even already ossified in their own lifetimes. And that was a century ago. The choices there aren't a matter of opinion. They are just... bad.
>> > Russell... yawn
> Are you serious?
First of all, the text listed is his Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. It's literally a 1920s textbook on Mathematical Philosophy. It is what it is. Doesn't really belong in a Great Books curriculum, imo, but the indignation at the idea that it's a yawnfest (too verbose) is kinda weird. It's... a textbook. Yawn.
Second, the indignation at Russell being a yawnfest in general made me LOL. Principia Mathematica is WAY less readable than the yellow pages.
Third, if you're including Russell as part of your coverage of Foundations -- but also excluding Goedel and Church and Turing and Hilbert -- then you're doing it horribly wrong! Russell is the foil in this plot, and a horribly pedantic and boring one at that. Not that a Great Books curriculum would ever treat Russell as a foil ;-)
Fourth, to the stuff you probably assumed was being included from Russell: I also found Russell's History boring and at some moments annoyingly preachy/opinionated for a History. Even his more red meat-y opinion stuff is... important for understanding the development of a certain strand of modern intellectualism. That's not meant to be dismissive; I'm in that strand!!! But let's just say not what I'd spend my best years pouring over.
The webpage clearly states that the list is of foundational books of greco-roman civilization. And SJC is an american university. What do you expect?
Also, fetishism? Greek classics are the foundation of european civilization. That's like going to a christian seminary and whining about their fetishism of the bible.
> But it's a much larger problem in Mathematics where the field is essentially unrecognizable from the way it would've been taught in 1920 or whatever.
The foundation of european mathematics goes back to the ancient greeks. It's a foundational books list.
> Russell is predictably floating around (see paragraph 1) even though... well, yawn.
Are you serious?