Also the point of reading Euclid is not really to learn geometry but rather to investigate and examine the oldest, most primordial expression of the idea that math should be formalized using a few axioms.
> Also the point of reading Euclid is not really to learn geometry but rather to investigate and examine the oldest, most primordial expression of the idea that math should be formalized using a few axioms.
Yeah, Euclid is important. It should be studied carefully in any Great Books program. But there's a lot of other important stuff to talk about and the extreme emphasis on Euclidean constructions is IMO a bit of a shibboleth.
I always got the impression SJ is more about an “originalism” towards knowledge. But of course they’re going to have to pick and choose. Maybe it’s time for them to revisit math and add computing.
Edit-read the math curriculum. They threw Darwin, Feynman, and Einstein into there as electives. Seems a little of a catch-all. Also they could add Shannon entropy.