The Great Books curriculum

[benrickert]

Started reading St John's College Great Books Reading List. I try to always have one of the books on my reading rotation. Through with Homer and Aeschylus. Found Homer entertaining, Aeschylus a little dry.
May be skipping some to get to newer books if the greeks takes me too long.

Longing for somebody to discuss them with. Looks like there are many Great Books book clubs in the US. Not so much in Scandinavia. Need to create one perhaps?

https://www.sjc.edu/application/files/4 ... g_List.pdf

[frihet]

That’s a full list to get truly aquatinted with the western tradition. Although with my interest I miss esoterica.

We dipped into some of those names in reading assignment on the entry level course in “history of ideas” i’m taking and read about many more of them. The only full book from the list I read during the course was Darwin - Origin of Species, which I very much enjoyed, a well researched and comparatively easy read about a paradigm shift in biology, recommended.

I see you are in Norway, maybe you could access some of the discussion you are looking for through part time distance courses at the university?

Enjoy your reading benrickert

[Hristo Botev]

Longing for somebody to discuss them with. Looks like there are many Great Books book clubs in the US. Not so much in Scandinavia. Need to create one perhaps?

I'm 2 years into this program: https://onlinegreatbooks.com/, and I love it (though I just hit the pause button for a few months as I need to study to take another bar exam). It's not cheap, but the books come with the subscription, which is essential because translations differ pretty drastically, and it's very challenging to have a Great Books seminar when everyone isn't working from the same translation and the same edition.

For https://onlinegreatbooks.com/, you get assigned a "seminar" of about 10-20 people with whom you read through the great books from Adler's list (without most of the sciences) in roughly chronological order (though thankfully the Plato and Aristotle readings are broken up with plays, histories, and some other material interspersed, otherwise you'd be reading Plato for 8 months straight!), and then you meet virtually once a month with a paid seminar host to discuss that month's readings (the best seminar hosts take a very hands-off approach to the discussions).

It'd be difficult to do as a European due to the time difference, as seminars meet in the evenings which would be late at night in Europe. That said, I know there are several Europeans who do it and just deal with the time difference.

Best options obviously is to try and arrange an in-person club locally to read through this stuff, but that is easier said than done. I tried doing that here and it's just difficult to find folks who are interested in taking on the great books project--my attempts in the past all turned into run-of-the-mill book clubs, which are fine, but that's not doing the Great Books thing.

If you have any questions about https://onlinegreatbooks.com/ let me know. Good luck!

FWIW, for the plays, it's fun to contrast Aeschylus with Euripides, Sophocles, and even Aristophanes, and then to read Nietzsche's take on the whole thing in his Birth of Tragedy.

[7Wannabe5]

I don't have a lot of regrets in life, but one of them would be deciding to be practical and enroll in an engineering program rather than applying to St.John's College. I think this decision was due in part to having recently read one of the not-Great books by Ayn Rand. I had mostly recovered from the affliction caused by youthful exposure to this flavor of weak Romanticism within a few months, but by then the damage had been done. This is one of the reasons I believe it is bad advice to encourage youngsters to "just get a plumbing license" rather than attending college. It's difficult to discipline yourself towards independently reading Hume or Homer, and it's more difficult to find others with whom you can discuss your reading.

[chenda]

@7w5 from an unknown blogger:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year-old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

[mathiverse]

Another +1 for onlinegreatbooks. I joined recently due to Hristo's mentions in the past. With my book group, I've read Adler's How to Read a Book and I'm reading The Iliad. With other people in the program, I did a very in depth read of Federalist Paper No. 51 over the course of two meetings and about 6 hours. I've gotten what I wanted out of the program so far. I don't know any people in real life who would be interested in such a reading project otherwise I'd create an in person group.

[Hristo Botev]

Another +1 for onlinegreatbooks. I joined recently due to Hristo's mentions in the past. With my book group, I've read Adler's How to Read a Book and I'm reading The Iliad. With other people in the program, I did a very in depth read of Federalist Paper No. 51 over the course of two meetings and about 6 hours. I've gotten what I wanted out of the program so far. I don't know any people in real life who would be interested in such a reading project otherwise I'd create an in person group.

That's great! I've only been on pause for a week and I already miss it; looking forward to getting back in August. Virtual seminars are definitely a poor substitute for in-person, but you're going to have a hard time finding grown adults who want to do this, and the only real opportunity for doing an in-person great books seminar thing would be doing it in college (for those handful of places that still have programs), and let's be honest: nobody wants to spend any time around a college age kid with Socrates floating around in his head asking people to "define their terms" all the time. One of the highlights of the "Americans" sub-seminar with OGB was reading Ben Franklin's autobiography, which has a funny line about what an insufferable little shit he was as a 14-year old or something who'd gotten access to Plato's Dialogues and used Socratic inquiry to basically piss off everyone he came into contact with.

Perhaps we're not really meant to read these books until middle age. IIRC Socrates said exactly that in Plato's Republic.

[benrickert]

@frihet
is part time courses at the university what you are currently doing? Have been looking into it actually but I’m afraid it’s too stylized/interpreted by the professors and set up to memorization. The idea behind the great books would be to read, think and discuss based on the books only.

@Hristo Botev @mathiverse
Thanks for your recommendations. Have been looking into OGBand been listening to the OGB podcast quite a bit. I think it’s too much on a computer for me at the moment - day job is enough computer time. Would like to meet like minded people in person.

There’s one at work who would want to do it and I have found a couple more who are interested but afraid that it would split up quite fast due to the time commitment and extensive curriculum. May have to set up a lighter version in order to make it doable.

I have been wondering if i should use my FU money power to ask for part time at work in order to take classes in great books subjects at the university at the same time as starting an in-person great books club? Perhaps there’s even a way to monetize the knowledge/experience that doesn’t require too much?