/lit/ - Literature

I mean, you can still read those authors.

>>7116973
>>7116975
>>7116981
>>7116986
Noice. Senior year seems a bit more specific, but overall it's really good generalist phil and lit education.
>>7116992
Yeah, but there are class discussions, professoral tutoring and guidance, plus graded essays which is really good if the prof doing it knows what he's doing.

>>7116973
>tfw you didn't go to a school that requires latin and/or greek and a year abroad in rome

instead i went to a school full of dudebros and sluts and played a lot of xbox with some indian dude on my floor

>>7116986
>Stopping at modernist lit.
>No pomo lit etc
You had me right until there

>>7117003
Seems nice enough tbh. Hope you fucked dem sluts and had some nice homemade curry.
>>7117010
You gotta do something in gradschool, anon.

>>7117003
Yeah, I fucked up, too. As Western society stands today, 18 is too young, too immature, too unaware, too ignorant, to make irrevocably life-changing decisions

>>7117029
Let's be honest, mature and aware irrevocably life-changing decisions are hard to come by even at age 50. And man, if you thing college is the end of everything, then you've got some ageing to do. For what you know getting into this shitty college was actually your best chance.

I liked the idea of St. Johns, however I am glad that I didn't go. For one, I would be in a mountain of debt. Secondly, I feel I've a more well rounded education at state school, and find much enjoyment of works that are outside of the western canon.

what the fuck kind of degree is this?

>>7116973
This is mad silly. If you want an alternative education, then get into Deep Springs and transfer to Harvard or UChicago after your two years are up. St. Johns and Shimer (same program, even less famous) lack to opportunity to interface with scholars from an awful lot of disciplines.

>>7117073
probably an expensive pointless one now in the year of our lord 2015, in the age of autodidactism

>>7117088
I think he major in The Greeks, but you are only suppose to start with the greeks.

>semi-automaticdidactism
the only question is what it's chambered in

>>7116973
>tfw you didn't waste $200,000 to start with the Greeks

Resident Johnnie-poster here.

>>7117073
It is a liberal arts degree with credits equivalent to a double major in Philosophy and The History of Math and Science, and a double minor in Classics and Comparative Literature. There are no majors or minors.

>>7117010
This is a problem the professors know about. Each year there is a 9-week long preceptorial seminar that delves into any work the professors want to explore in depth. Lots of people get the chance to do work with the French wave, post-modern novels, and contemporary science there.

We still do not like the analytics though so you are lucky to find someone doing Wittgenstein or the rest.

>>7117094
>$200,000


Land of the free.

i would only do something like this if i was a trust fund kid tbh

>>7116986
I agree with stopping before post modernism since it is not even over yet. Anyways I think Hegel should be read way earlier, or at least introd earlier since he is distinguishable to other philosophers.

>>7117094
silly anon, you only start with the greeks during freshman year

having like a hundred people in your year seems like a nightmare...plus being in maryland or new mexico
>The college offers many community seminars and lectures that are available to the public.
if you're already in the area though

the wiki has a more specific reading list btw

>>7117098
>We still do not like the analytics though
ah it truly would have been perfect

of interest:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/06/13/where-i-learned-to-read

>>7117118
>tfw I didn't spend $50,000 to start with the Greeks
still works tbh

jesus christ this is like /lit/ as an institution. they even have you start with the fucking greeks

>>7117003
>tfw you didn't go to a school that requires latin and/or greek and a year abroad in rome

We only require a year and a half of Greek, no Latin, no year in Rome.

>>7117019
You're gunna go to grad school w/o any idea of any of the proper names who could be involved with your thesis who aren't members of the high modern or classical canon? Good luck getting tenured.

so they don't study math and scienes at all. typical libtards

>>7117161
You still get a year and a half to learn those names at masters level and like another two at minimum to learn them before your dissertation. Also nobody gets tenure at a grad school level what are you talking about.

>>7117113
>Anyways I think Hegel should be read way earlier, or at least introd earlier since he is distinguishable to other philosophers.

What? We do Hegel at the beginning of Senior year, exactly where he fits with respect to the Junior year readings and the rest of the Senior readings. We do an Ecyclopedia Logic reading and something like six or seven readings of the Phenomenology.

>>7117160
did you learn enough to really be able to read much greek though? can you still read greek?

>people spend this much to go to /lit/ : the college

>they still subvocalize at the end

>>7117167
There is four years of math and three years of lab.

OP just posted the seminar reading list, which is one class out of four per year.

>>7117167
wat

Did you just plain ignore the fourth column of math and science readings we do? We do more math and science than philosophy.

The difference on 4chan b/w:

>tfw you couldn't pay $50k to start with the greeks
>tfw when you were black and weren't given the opportunity

is hilarious and telling of the irrationality of fascists

>>7117174
As with any subject, that all depends on how much the students give a shit. I'm not great with vocab, but I've got the grammar down strong, and I usually try to read Plato in Greek these days.

>>7117183
Holy shit. I just graduated and ain't got shit left of Greek. Were you one of those people that fell in love with it or kept on with it through the junior/senior years?

>>7117135
got damn

>>7117135
>>7117146
>>7117094


...Loans. Grants from the college and the government. Jobs from asbestos remover to library clerk. I carried bricks and mortar to rooftops during the summers....

>>7117183
>>7117207
if you don't mind me asking, what do you guys do (or plan to do) as a profession?

>>7117238
I'm a PhD student now, looking to get a professorship. On the humanities side of things, not the science.

>>7117183
that's pretty awesome. i'm starting greek this year. looking forward to reading plato in the original!

>>7116973
And here we are just studying straight Lussac

Sounds like a lot of work.

here's an article on the 2nd smallest accredited college in the US (the 1st being a religious place in Alaska
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/dec/06/shimer-college-illinois-worst-school-america
>This is a ‘great books’ college....Da Vinci’s Notebooks and Aristotle’s Poetics and Homer’s Odyssey and de Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity and Kafka and Derrida and Nietzsche and Freud and Marx and Machiavelli and Shakespeare and the Bible.
>Textbooks about the great books are forbidden. That would be too easy. It is primary sources only here. Students can concentrate on humanities, or natural sciences, they can take electives in feminist theories, or Auden, or Zen masters, but it’s all great books and nothing else. There are no lectures. Each class takes the form of Socratic dialogue between the students, guided by a professor if necessary.

>>7117258
some wild shit
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/education/edlife/shimer.html

>Walk into a class at Shimer — with students talking earnestly, sometimes painfully, about the meaning of a classic — and you might think you had stumbled into a group therapy session for young literati.

>>7117237
I'm not asking how you pay for it, I'm saying that it's a waste of money even if the degree is intellectually useful

also there's no way I or anybody else I've ever met could obtain that much in loans

>>7117272
It's a quote from the article.

The guy sounds stockholmed to me.

>>7117264
Great Books colleges are truly therapeutic. I had no fucking clue what I was doing with my life, didn't want a job, but knew I wanted to teach. Depression all around.

Then St. John's came up and yeah, it's kind of culty to say that something like that gives you meaning in life, but it's more like a four year book club than a cult. It's not indoctrinating. You just learn how to read and speak and write.

Four years of all seminar class really does work to build character, if not simply a persona. I'm not trying to sound like a recruiter or anything, but it was a good decision I made, and if I hadn't gone I probably would have ended up a true NEET for life. Fellow /lit/izens should think about it if they have the money and the time and want to pursue higher education afterwards.

>>7117279
lol

>>7117281
I'm not hating (at least not on St. John's), the quote was picked because I thought it'd speak to /lit/.

so are they actually reading the primary works of those listed in the science column? Unless they are doing phil or history of science that is an incredible waste of time

>>7117297
It's history of science.

>>7117297
i can't imagine so. probably excerpts

some wilder shit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Aquinas_College

for /lit/ residents who want a Roman Catholic Great Books college- including masses in Latin, and a dress code (looks like women can't wear pants?)

http://www.thomasaquinas.edu/admission/rules-residence

>>7117325
Haha, this might be the worst thing I've ever heard of.

Catholics have a hard time with accepting that the middle ages weren't the pinnacle of human existence. I mean, just look at how salty all the other catholic universities get about Georgetown being by far the most prestigious and also the most liberal.

>>7117325
some highlights for the lazy

>Proper dress is proportionate to the dignity of one’s activities; coveralls, for instance, are suited to manual labor but not to divine worship. Those who dress improperly display an indifference towards nobler pursuits. Accordingly, more formal dress is to be worn throughout the week in the chapel, offices, classrooms, laboratories, dining hall, and library and for more formal Friday dinners and Sunday brunch. Women are to wear skirts or dresses of modest length with modest sleeve lines and necklines and dress shoes or sandals. Men shall wear slacks, shirts with collars, and dress shoes (or sandals) with socks.

>It is customary for the students to address one another in class as “Mister,” “Miss,” or “Misses” since this aids in keeping classroom discussions objective and serious.

>In accordance with the College’s policy to limit Internet access to that provided in the library and the student mail room, the use of cell phones, or cell phone service, to access the Internet is prohibited.

>>7117341
Good Goy: The College

>present day fashion conventions are very important to God
>but socks and sandals are A-okay

>instant access to information?
>nah, you should have to blow your professors if you happen to disagree with them
Limited internet serves only to reinforce the professor's authority in the classroom, which has to be the most Catholic concern possible.

I actually dig calling each other by titles in classroom discussion, though that's usually circumvented by just not using a name or title at all unless addressing the professor.

>>7117341
absolutely disgusting

>>7117207
I don't even really care about Greek that much, I just really want to be able to engage with the Greek thinkers. That drive's just helped me remember what's important.

>>7117238
I just got out, so nothing as of yet; I'd like to be a teacher, but really, whatever lets me philosophize in my spare time is good enough.

>>7117341

jesus christ I'm glad porn is free now

what a life

>>7117297
Depends; for the most part, we do read the material itself, or most of it. (An example of what we skip would be something like portions of Maxwell's "A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field" that would be beside the point of why we're reading him).

And hardly a waste of time. The point is neither to learn how to do modern science nor a lame "history of science" wankathon, but to work through the thinking of these figures as they describe it. Galileo didn't have empirical evidence after all, but rather relied on Neo-Platonic mysticism for his support of the Copernican model (and Copernicus didn't do any empirical work either).

>So Anon, it says here you got your degree St. John's College. How will you bring your experiences there to help us meet our customers' needs here at Starbucks?

Going there is a complete waste because they read translations.

>>7117388

>>7117370
What you are doing sounds like history of science with a philosophic perspective. Still reads like a waste of time to me for an undergrad, reading through old science books to try and draw out the reasoning of those figures. Those texts are loaded with all sorts of unreadable notation and archaic language that I would only bother if I was scholar of a particular figure or subject. This type of study is good as a compliment, but a compliment should only require limited reading of the primary texts.

>>7117428
lrn2english

>>7117431
Waste of time because you would be far better off learning actual science and contextualizing it with a history of science from secondary sources. You could be enhancing your understanding of reality via science, instead you are rending science into humanistic mush.

>>7117428
It's still not "history of science". It's *doing* science as it *actually* was done. And it's not a waste for anyone who cares about knowledge or wisdom.

>>7117444
I don't think you know what "actual science" is as much as you think you do.

>>7116973
Good decision. Pretty much everybody knows how to play the game by sophomore year.

>>7117460
Wisdom? The stuff one finds inside of fortune cookies?

>>7117464
please enlighten me on actual science, I only have a pleb tier degree in Physics.

>>7117478
>please enlighten me on actual science, I only have a pleb tier degree in Physics.
You know, the thinking that *actually* set the ground for the stuff you look at. The physics you studied isn't self-generated, and the positions it takes on subjects weren't always taken by experiment or empirical observation. Again, acceptance of the heliocentric model of the solar system was *not* based on either experiments or empirical proof.

>Wisdom? The stuff one finds inside of fortune cookies?
The stuff your science is still after, or do you deny that there's any interest in a grand unifying theory of everything for reasons other than productive knowledge?

>>7117444
>learning actual science

Science is the opium of the suburbs. All scientists should be enslaved to work and make inventions for us.

>>7117535
Not that guy, but any decent university will teach the history of a scientific field in courses on that field. I was assigned all the same stuff you've listed so far on physics when I took the basic two semester intro course.

As to the reason for and goals of science, most conventional universities now teach philosophy of science at both the survey and field specific levels.

>>7117478
Another STEMfag who doesn't know what science is about. Just what the world needed. Enjoy writing for Popular Science.

>>7117535
>Again, acceptance of the heliocentric model of the solar system was *not* based on either experiments or empirical proof
The conditions were primed by empirical evidence contradicting the geocentric model even with all the attempts at corrections. Actual science is not pre-science or proto-science.

>The stuff your science is still after, or do you deny that there's any interest in a grand unifying theory of everything for reasons other than productive knowledge?
Science is about understanding, that understanding can inform you on what to do in a certain context. Though that wisdom is generated from one's interpretation of the knowledge imparted by science.

>>7117636
>The conditions were primed by empirical evidence contradicting the geocentric model even with all the attempts at corrections. Actual science is not pre-science or proto-science.
Actually, they weren't; those empirical conditions were discovered after the Copernican model had already been developed. This is what Galileo's great discovery really was, the use of the telescope to discover the phases of Venus, which empirically falsified the Ptolemaic model (to the extent that the Catholics rejected it; until the rotation and revolution of the earth could be demonstrated, they settled on the Tycho model). But let me emphasize again, that there was *no* empirical evidence that led up to the Copernican model, that the Copernican model was *merely* a mathematical model, and that while math was used in the natural sciences, without empirical evidence that the heavenly bodies were physical, the Copernican model was also *only* a mathematical model that was *equivalent* to Ptolemy's.

The dismissal of the science of earlier ages as "pre-science" or "proto-science" is based on what exactly? Because otherwise, depending on what conditions you'll (and let's be honest) arbitrarily accept, then we have an account science either only existing *maybe* within the last two centuries, or at some point within the last century. Let me point out that if the demand is on the necessity for observation-oriented experiments, then we'd have to deny most of Darwin's ideas. (And one would have to wonder about whether to admit Einstein at all for his work on special relativity, since it was most certainly not gained by experiment).

This is all just to note the trivial fact that science isn't monolithic, and the denial of older findings *as* scientific probably doesn't have much of a reasonable basis.

>Science is about understanding, that understanding can inform you on what to do in a certain context.
What does the study of theoretical physics contribute *at all* to informing us what to do in a certain context?

>Though that wisdom is generated from one's interpretation of the knowledge imparted by science.
The "interpretation" of the knowledge is most often the *same* as the knowledge generated by science; that's because that's what science fundamentally *is*, and in being that, it's really no different from the Aristotelian conception of comprehensive account-giving that science was born from. The "facts" aren't special, for the most part, but the theory that sets the facts together to offer a coherent and/or comprehensive account of things.

>boast about using primary texts
>Marx, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Proust, Seneca, Plato, American scientists
>German, Russian, French, Latin, Ancient Greek, English

So I logically conclude that all students at St Johns know all of those languages or else they would be boasting about reading the primary texts while reading translations by translators, therefore lying about using the primary texts.

Also I really disagree with this idea of "teaching people how to think". It's really a dumb elitist academia ivory tower idea. There's basic logic (inc. chalenging assumptions), and there's facts / knowledge, that's it. You get frameworks (like theory of atoms, natural selection) which are like facts but more powerful, but that's it IMO.

Despite the one jokey and one srs point, the degree does look much much better than most arts degrees.

>>7117150
There is a reason start with the greeks is a meme, if you any type of /lit/ course it's going to have the greeks in some capacity

>>7116973
>>7116975
>>7116981
>>7116986
>no Stirner

shit course tbh

>>7117895

lel, they give them tools to bring mental structures but not the tools to break them down.

close minded environment tbh fam

>>7117098
>It is a liberal arts degree with credits equivalent to a double major in Philosophy and The History of Math and Science, and a double minor in Classics and Comparative Literature. There are no majors or minors.

Jesus. That sounds perfect. Do they happen to accept foreign students?

>>7117902
Yeah, i wish they had an equivalent here, just because college is basically free. They do accept international students but i imagine it being super expensive.

>>7117010
Only so much you can do in a few years anon. You aren't going to get through all the 'great books' of history in that time.

>>7117902
All the time. Almost every year for the last several there've been students from China, the Republic of Georgia, Nepal, Korea, and Turkey.

>>7117881
>>7117901
the fuck are you both on about

>>7117010
Used to have a problem with it, but pomo lit and philosophy are already so deeply entrenched in most English and Humanities departments that it's superfluous since we're bound to encounter it if we look around at other liberal arts programs.

>>7117388
Well i paid a lot of money for an overpriced shitty degree so i think it will help that i have the same mentality as the customers who buy overpriced shitty overpriced coffee everyday.

Did any famous writers actually go there?

>>7118006
>famous
you dun goofed, the right question is whether a good writer went there

>>7117895
Formal education is a spook man. Did you even read On the False Principle of Our Education?

Adler made me jealous of this college but I can just do it on my own while doing STEM at state school so I don't care.

>>7118006
>>7118168
The guy who wrote the new yorker article is the only fiction writer listed on the wiki who's become a name...I imagine most people who go there go into academia afterwards.

>>7116973
They started with the Greeks.

My biggest concern with this program is that it doesn't go far enough. I was just looking through the reading list on Wikipedia, and I don't they read every bit of every work they have posted.

I don't think they read the entire Bible in nine months. And which books constitute their Bible? I also doubt they read all of Leviathan. Same with many of the other works on that list.

It can be bad to only read selections from a work, taking it out of context of the rest of the work.

It's also embarrassing that they don't read all of Shakespeare.

And how do they decide which translations they should use?

>>7117920
>>7117929
I didn't know it belongs to Cambridge. Just looked at their fees table, it's about 65-70k$ per year. Could be interesting to ask them about international scholarships though.

How would one live the literary lifestyle? I've studied finance, but I want to learn Greek and Chinese in order to study the classics and improve my thoughts.

In ye olden days people who wanted to pursue studies but had no money left the home and joined a monastery. However, I have no wish to pursue celibacy, as that would go against my very nature. I am after all, a romantic.

I actually have found some very fantastic online sources. My current project is to write out the entire san guo yan yi in chinese characters until I can read it through and through. I also use the ABC's method.

http://ctext.org/sanguo-yanyi/ch1 (has characters AND English)
http://www.purpleculture.net/chinese-pinyin-converter/
(anyone know of a similar resource for greek?)


My major problem is, it feels like I have to make a choice between my filial duties, supporting my family, providing them with descendants, the true cost of which I know with mathematical certainty, and improving myself, an act which may contribute in the long term to those goals, but definitely not in the short term. As for my family, patience is running thin. "You went to a good school, why do you not have a job?" We claim that ignorance is an evil, but to seek to dispel it within oneself brings great shame.

Is there something like a group home for scholars?

in b4 finance major without finances lol

>>7118628
Make a bunch of money and then you will have time to study whatever the fuck you want.
Or am I just naive to think a finance major would know how to make alot of money easily?

>>7118334
>It can be bad to only read selections from a work
not really. leviathan can be exerpted pretty easily

>It's also embarrassing that they don't read all of Shakespeare.
shakespeare wrote a lot of shit. you're an idiot of you think otherwise.

>>7117860
Retrograde motion was well known to astronomers before Copernicus's time, epicycles within epicycles were required to try and make the geocentric model not contradict empirical observations. These issue were well known and alternate models were being proposed because of this, including Tycho's. Copernicus's model the data without the need for correction after correction to make the geocentric model work. The empirical evidence that is at the foundation of Copernicus work is the actual astronomical data that his model accounts for! This data is accounted for in Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres.

Also Einstein work on special relativity was primed by contradictions in Maxwells equations and by Michelson Morley experiment. His work was preceded by Lorentz and Poincare because of this work. Einstein's work did not come out of nothing, there were reasons why he purposed the two principals of Special Relativity. As for Darwin, see Darwin's Finches or look up artificial selection, you are full of shit if you are saying that he did not have empirical reasons to purpose the theory of evolution.

I said science can inform one what to do, not that it always does. High end theoretical physics does not right now, though it does give a better understanding of our universe. The interpretation of knowledge is not the same as science. Science demands that the principals within theories are purposed not for mystical reasons, but principals are proposed from observation. It is clear that you education is deficient or your school is trying to push scientific relativism on you, what you are spouting is classic STS garbage.

>>7118692
Thomas Hobbes suffers the terrible fate of being quoted more often than read. People do misunderstand Leviathan when they just focus on the state of nature stuff. Hobbes's entire theory is how to get society to not slip back into the state of nature, and a good portion of the book is making his theory apply to Christians, who may die for their beliefs and the hope of salvation. Also his takedown of Aristotle is vastly important. But no, Hobbes is rarely taken seriously because of the standard undergrad interpretation and laughable secularization of Hobbes which is disgustingly prevalent. If you read the entirety of Leviathan, you will know that it cannot be summed up by just reading some selections from book one.

Shakespeare wrote maybe two bad plays. He should still be read, especially since he is one of the authors those kids don't have to read in translation and his plays are probably what are most quoted in the English language, after the Bible.

>>7116973
The St Johns curriculum will only lead you to being very one-dimensional. You will have a better understanding of logic and you'll know how to think which can be applied to outside places but overall is too focused in the past and the abstract.

>>7118773
Reading something because it's quoted a lot is the most stupid reason to read something. If that's your definition of the canon then it's literally just an empty echo chamber.

>>7117029
>too young, too immature, too unaware, too ignorant, to make irrevocably life-changing decisions
you'll always think something along these lines when reflecting upon decisions (that you probably regard as mistakes) made by your previous self (even if this isn't strictly true)

>>7118691

Honestly, like everyone who studied finance/economics during the "Great Recession," most of what I learned was how to lose money, or how not to. Honestly, the futility of the discipline is what led me to Zen. Markets are efficient, so the optimal decision is to do nothing, and accept the cyclical nature of things.

I'm also assuming that the vast majority of people ITT are not into business or finance, my question was, are there resources available for modern scholarship that are equivalent to the resources of antiquity? That is to say, if I want to study under a certain philosopher, do modern philosophers take disciples? Or do they only take tuition?

>>7117003
>instead i went to a school full of dudebros and sluts and played a lot of xbox with some indian dude on my floor

Hey I went to Queen's too!

>>7118793
I don't think he should be read because he's quoted. I think he should be read because he's great.

>>7117010
That's a good thing.

Why the fuck isn't there any music for Freshman Year?

>>7118954
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8yWpQfN-V8

>>7117042
>For one, I would be in a mountain of debt.
Are you white and/or middle/middle-upper class?
>>7117272
>intellectually useful
>waste of money

>forced myself to apply to the ivies
>wasting my freshman year at SUNY Ithaca
>didn't know a program this comprehensive existed

Why can't they advertise better? I'd apply in a heartbeat if I knew St Johns existed

>>7118792
Yeah, I've gotta say that my university was very forward-looking (not in the tumbr way) and we were keyed in on the way actual working scientists and policy makers think with just enough classical background to see where it came from.

St. John's used to send me brochures all the time when I was in high school because I had scored high on the practice SAT. I actually really wanted to go. But I live in California and going to an out-of-state school was pretty much out of the question because my family is dirt poor.

But I'm at Cal now so it worked out, I think.

>>7116973
>Names rather than genres/concepts/context.

Wow what a bunch of pretentious cuntery.

>>7118732
Firstly, retrograde motion isn't relevant to with respect to empirical evidence concerning the coriolis effect and parallax, both of which were the hard things to prove.

>The empirical evidence that is at the foundation of Copernicus work is the actual astronomical data that his model accounts for! This data is accounted for in Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres.
Copernicus didn't *do* any empirical research, and his model was hamstrung by the very old data that he was using, data that ended up being off more often because of copyist errors; he was still using *Ptolemy's* data.

>Also Einstein work on special relativity was primed by contradictions in Maxwells equations and by Michelson Morley experiment. His work was preceded by Lorentz and Poincare because of this work. Einstein's work did not come out of nothing, there were reasons why he purposed the two principals of Special Relativity. As for Darwin, see Darwin's Finches or look up artificial selection, you are full of shit if you are saying that he did not have empirical reasons to purpose the theory of evolution.
Go back and read what I actually said.

Are you just going to ignore that everything I brought up was with specific reference to your claim about "pre-science" or "proto-science" not being science? Because I brought up Einstein and Darwin since their work is revered in modern science, and yet Einstein didn't do any empirical observations with special relativity, and Darwin's work didn't use designed experiments. But that's all *trivially* true.

>The interpretation of knowledge is not the same as science. Science demands that the principals within theories are purposed not for mystical reasons, but principals are proposed from observation. It is clear that you education is deficient or your school is trying to push scientific relativism on you, what you are spouting is classic STS garbage.
Well first off, I didn't say facts weren't real, and secondly, it's trivially true that theories, those systematic and comprehensive explanations that science provides, are interpretations of the facts. This isn't pomo bullshit; this is how theorizing has been understood since Aristotle, and it hasn't changed significantly.

>>7119045
>my family is dirt poor.
Don't most private unis give out tons of aid to poor students?

>>7118334

>>7118433
>it belongs to Cambridge
That's be news to me; I think you're confusing their St. John's College with the one talked about in this thread, which has campuses in Annapolis and Santa Fe.

>>7116975
nigga, Epictetus is all you need from that list.

Heard a lot of Johnnies go onto to top grad programs. Applying this year.

If nothing works out, will just end myself.

I never went to college, what did I miss?

>>7119806
Cultivation of your genius my boy.

>>7119814
Oh damn is it too late to go

I'm dirt poor and I don't want to get a student loan

>No Cicero
Shit reading list

>>7119829
It's never too late son

>>7119806
>what did I miss?
Being surrounded by qt3.14s.

>>7119829
If you're dirt poor there's always time to study the fuck out of the standardized tests and git gud at essays if you really want to go to college for free or nearly free. If you fucked up your GPA in high school though you're probably out of luck.

>>7119939
literally this
I don't know how someone could find a gf or get laid without going to college

>>7119625
>Firstly, retrograde motion isn't relevant to with respect to empirical evidence concerning the coriolis effect and parallax, both of which were the hard things to prove.
Retrograde motion is the evidence that contradicted geocentric models, it forced these models to take on all sorts of complicated corrections (recursive epicycles, highly variable orbital speeds, deferents, ect). Also accounting for parallax and the coriolis effect is not relevant to this conversation.

> He had 1500 years of post-Ptolemy data to work with, and needed quite a lot of epicycles to make a new set of accurate predictions for the motions of the planets.
Complete and utter bullshit, he had 1500 years of post-Ptolemy data to work with, and needed quite a lot of epicycles to make a new set of accurate predictions for the motions of the planets.

>Are you just going to ignore that everything I brought up was with specific reference to your claim about "pre-science" or "proto-science" not being science? Because I brought up Einstein and Darwin since their work is revered in modern science, and yet Einstein didn't do any empirical observations with special relativity, and Darwin's work didn't use designed experiments. But that's all *trivially* true.
theorists make use of empirical evidence or work on top of theories that are founded in empirical evidence. Einstein theories solved problems in physic where the empirical evidence contradicted the theory or where working theories had domain issues. What matters is that the axioms or principles of any theory are observable in some way, this what separates science from proto-science and prescience. For this reason modern science deals with the 'how' and not the 'why'.

>Well first off, I didn't say facts weren't real, and secondly, it's trivially true that theories, those systematic and comprehensive explanations that science provides, are interpretations of the facts. This isn't pomo bullshit; this is how theorizing has been understood since Aristotle, and it hasn't changed significantly.
Some thinking pattern may remain the same, but the tools used to critically evaluate theories have significantly changed. Theories must make measurable predictions or in the case of higher end theory must be deduced from theories that have made predictions. Modern theorizing makes a significant effort to root out dogmatism and mysticism.

>>7117544
> All scientists should be enslaved to work and make inventions for us.

but they are anon, enslaved in boring, petty lives to create things for people like you and me to enjoy while actually living a fulfilling life.

>>7117544
>>7119970

>>7119939
This man knows what's up. College should be a time for developing yourself in every way, from your intellect, to your body to your sexual prowess. If you don't go to college you will always get cucked by college men.

It's also the only way you have access to women in their prime (inb4 too old) who aren't complete trailer trash retards.

>If you love your wife, why don't you let your wife fuck college guys? Every woman deserves to experience such pleasure.

>>7119012
You could study most of these people at Cornell and probably have better professors too.

>>7118628
what college did you go to?

If you really want to be literary you should probably start by going to Oxford. Until you've done that you're pretty much condemned to plebdom.

>>7119979
I didn't go to St. John's, idiot. I went to a school ranked like 5 spots behind Cornell.

>>7119979
>Cornell
HAHAHA thanks bud, I think most of the threads on /lit/ are better education than literally not an Ivy: The Ivy. Pynchon only went there as an elaborate pomo critique of everyone else who goes there.

>>7119694
>Epictetus
>not the least essential thinker on the list

>>7119988
>>7119992
I meant to respond to this poster >>7118996

>>7119964
>Also accounting for parallax and the coriolis effect is not relevant to this conversation.
not him but lo wut?
one of the main reasons the Copernican system wasnt adopted suddenly was because there wasnt any observable stellar paralax, thus failing to give empirical evidence for the system, which was considered to be a refutation of the model by astronomers

>>7120021
Well in that case you're right. If the cunt can't get into Cornell, The New School, NYU, U of Rochester or Columbia then he deserves whatever he gets.

>>7119992
It's not HPYS, but you can still get a great education at Cornell

>>7118957
>still live with and/or supported by your parents
>obviously have absolutely no concept of money
>$200000 in tuition costs alone for a single fucking degree
it IS a waste of money

>>7120031
He goes to Cornell. People call Cornell "SUNY Ithaca" as a joke.

>>7120032
>leaving out MIT
I didn't even go there but I'm smart enough to know that MIT is master race.

>>7120023
fair enough for that aspect, but with respect for accounting for planetary motion it is not relevant

>>7120032
>leaving out oxbridge
Why do amerifats even pretend to like literature?

>>7119776
>spend $200,000+ just to spend more money

>>7120034
Your intellect will grow leaps and bounds.

>>7120048
Money ain't shit kid, I die. I ain't paying shit back lol

>>7119942

If you fucked your highschool GPA you should go to community college, get really good grades, do honors, and try to do a club or something interesting extra-circularly. You'll be able to transfer into a good college easy.

>>7120084
what, besides the fact that that debt doesn't just disappear, you realize being $200,000 actually inhibits you, right? and the irony here is, is that you think nothing matters outside of your lifespan yet you're going to let all this happen just to learn the defunct, archaic methods and notion/language of some long dead iconoclasts that only actually matter in contemporary society in the same way that Freud matters to psychology today

>>7118006
I think the guys from The Partially Examined Life went to St. Johns, if I recall correctly...

>>7118433
nah nigga cambridge st johns aint st johns nigga cambridge is a whole other university in a different country boy

>>7119964
>Retrograde motion is the evidence that contradicted geocentric models
No it isn't; the phases of Venus knocked the Ptolemaic model out, and it wasn't replaced by the Copernican model but by Tycho's model, since Copernicus's model still didn't have any empirical evidence dealing with Coriolis effect and parallax. Evidence of parallax and Coriolis effect are certainly important in this conversation which is about pointing to the complexity of how science has been done throughout history--again, Copernicus's model was not accepted on empirical or experimental evidence, but very few seem to want to dismiss Copernicanism as "bad science."

>Complete and utter bullshit, he had 1500 years of post-Ptolemy data to work with, and needed quite a lot of epicycles to make a new set of accurate predictions for the motions of the planets.
Complete and utter bullshit; the lack of new data was what caused Tycho and Kepler to develop new observations. Copernicus's data was ruined by copyist errors; again, the data was neither new, nor was it gathered by Copernicus. Again, Copernicanism wasn't founded on empiricism or experimentalism.

>theorists make use of empirical evidence or work on top of theories that are founded in empirical evidence. Einstein theories solved problems in physic where the empirical evidence contradicted the theory or where working theories had domain issues. What matters is that the axioms or principles of any theory are observable in some way, this what separates science from proto-science and prescience. For this reason modern science deals with the 'how' and not the 'why'.
You're ignoring that Einstein's work on special relativity, while yes, it did solve problems in physics, *was not itself based on empiricism or experimentalism*; go read his papers--you won't find those elements. Your take on it again misses my point--Einstein can be denied his place in science on the basis of a push or emphasis on observation and experimentalism. The distinction between "science" and "pre-science" and "proto-science" is silly, especially now when math is so closely tied to theoretical physics. I mean, good luck looking for a thorough empirical foundation for calculus.

>Some thinking pattern may remain the same, but the tools used to critically evaluate theories have significantly changed. Theories must make measurable predictions or in the case of higher end theory must be deduced from theories that have made predictions. Modern theorizing makes a significant effort to root out dogmatism and mysticism.
That's still not any different from the ancients. Mind, the "good" science of Ptolemaicism is "bad science" when technology (in the form of the telescope) caught up; you should know better that today's "good science" could well be tomorrow's "dogmatism" and "mysticism."

>>7120138
You realize that that doesn't always come out to $200,000 in loans, right? My loans are still shitty ($60,000), but they're not THAT shitty, but neither are they unmanageable.

>>7120258
how?

>>7120279
Financial aid, scholarships, etc. Mostly financial aid.

>>7120145
One of them did

So if I wanted to end up being a writer, what would be the benefits of this over a creative writing degree? A little research has definitely piqued my interest.

So if I wanted to be a writer, what would be the benefits of going to St. Johns over getting a creative writing degree? Because a little research has definitely piqued my interest.

>>7117981
kek

>>7120352
>>7120358
apologize for double post

>>7120250
http://inference-review.com/article/ptolemy-versus-copernicus

Copernicus's model was far superior to Ptolemy even using observations of the 16th century. Copernicus' model was far simpler and had predictive power that Ptolemy's model did not.

>You're ignoring that Einstein's work on special relativity, while yes, it did solve problems in physics, *was not itself based on empiricism or experimentalism*; go read his papers--you won't find those elements. Your take on it again misses my point--Einstein can be denied his place in science on the basis of a push or emphasis on observation and experimentalism. The distinction between "science" and "pre-science" and "proto-science" is silly, especially now when math is so closely tied to theoretical physics. I mean, good luck looking for a thorough empirical foundation for calculus.

What am I ignoring? His work was not dreamed up. Special relativity was purposed from looking at the contradictions in the E&M and the lack of evidence for the ether. This is the empirical foundation on which Einstein built SR on. You are trying to equivocate Einsteins method with pre-science which is horse shit.

>That's still not any different from the ancients. Mind, the "good" science of Ptolemaicism is "bad science" when technology (in the form of the telescope) caught up; you should know better that today's "good science" could well be tomorrow's "dogmatism" and "mysticism."

yep STS relativism

>>7120138
We're all gonna die anon. Money is no object.

>>7120384
http://www.amazon.com/Cold-Hard-Truth-Business-Money/dp/0385671741

Educate yourself.

>>7120352
I guess it depends on how you conceive of writing. I think a fine argument could be made that you'd have a richer sense of content to work with (I mean, look at all the shit you'd be thinking about). As far as composition goes, our language classes have that as a primary consideration; we don't learn Greek and French for any other reason that to see how authors writing in those languages wrote, and to have to deal with the relationships between presentation and thought. Generally, we're also encouraged to be close readers of texts; you could argue that this teaches us to write with a sense of what's necessary to write (do away with what's superfluous to our actual purposes, etc.).

>>7120381
>Copernicus's model was far superior to Ptolemy even using observations of the 16th century. Copernicus' model was far simpler and had predictive power that Ptolemy's model did not.
not him, but your missing the point. Copernicus didnt make his model out of empirical evidence, his model was purely mathematical. It was simpler, but it wasnt worked out on empirical evidence (which is what the system lacked, based on an unobservable stellar paralax)

The point is that the pre-science/protoscience/science distinction doesnt have any basis in reality and is supported by pure ideology. I mean, people are even doubting if the "Scientific" Revolution was in fact scientific at all.

>>7120413
Really, so he just purposed a theory willy nilly? Now that is some ideological garbage. He purposed a counter model because Ptolemy's model failed to account accurately for empirical observation. His model won out because it was superior in terms of predictive power. Copernicus's reasoning may have been muddled, but it was still constrained by the empirical data. Empirical evidence is what accommodated his theorizing. There is a real and significant distinction between science and pre-science.

>>7120358
I call myself a writer and I'd say no.
The thing is, while you should always read as much as possible, no amount of reading will fix any of your flawes as a writer, if you have any (major ones obviously).

>>7120381
>Copernicus's model was far superior to Ptolemy even using observations of the 16th century. Copernicus' model was far simpler and had predictive power that Ptolemy's model did not.
Now I know you're full of shit. Copernicus's model got rid of the equant, but introduced MORE epicycles, not less. And Mathematically, *it's equivalent*.

[google "tofspot" and "the great Ptolemaic smackdown table of contents"]

>What am I ignoring? His work was not dreamed up. Special relativity was purposed from looking at the contradictions in the E&M and the lack of evidence for the ether. This is the empirical foundation on which Einstein built SR on. You are trying to equivocate Einsteins method with pre-science which is horse shit.
Do you simply not understand the differences between empirical work in science, experiment in science, and mathematical calculation? Because I have his papers right here, and I'm looking forward to you informing me of *what empirical observations or experiments he made*. That you're even trying to defend Einstein should be proof enough of my point that *science isn't monolithic*; *science gets done in many ways*.

>yep STS relativism
Wow, you *really* don't have any idea of what science is. Have fun being a dataslut.

>>7120483
You know shit about shit concerning science; Copernicus's model didn't offer anything different than the Ptolemaic model, and for all your bullshitting about "empirical data", you ignore that Ptolemy used a great mass of empirical data, among which was data he himself observed, and Copernicus *didn't*.

>>7120352
>>7120358
I dunno about a creative writing degree, but you'll have much more flexibility and the option to challenge yourself in more ways if you attend a top university and take creative writing workshops alongside a Literature, History or Philosophy major(s).

>>7118691
>Or am I just naive to think a finance major would know how to make alot of money easily?

You can't really just make money though. It's easy to make money if you already have capital, but then you have to get that capital in the first place.

>tfw my mandatory high school classes covered nearly all of it, the literature, philosophy and music sections in particular

talk about the bonkers Catholic version of St. John's instead of Coperdweebus nerds

St. John's alumni anon/s- is there any rivalry with the other great books schools?

>>7118334
How does it not go far enough? There is only a certain amount of books you can read and study in 3 years.

It takes a lifetime to get through the 'great books'. They study a good amount in my opinion. Just passively reading through them and studying them are different things, and the second is going to take a lot longer.

>>7120575
I could go to a workshop for my masters though, right?

>>7120621
Not that I've ever been aware of. We're pretty sympathetic to Shimer's and there's some minimal sense that Thomas Aquinas exists, but otherwise, nada.

More often than not, you're more likely to encounter students shitting on the program for being made of old dead white men, apparently completely oblivious to the curriculum of the school they chose to go to.

>>7120621
>is there any rivalry with the other great books schools?

nah. The most rivalry there is is between Santa Fe and Annapolis campuses, and even that's just in fun.

Wouldn't want to put down other great books schools or even present the image that St. John's is an insular environment (though it is) that only competes with other great books programs.

Johnnies want great books programs to spread more than anything.

>no Joyce anywhere
>a whole year devoted to Wagner

And you should be glad.

>>7120632
I mean, if you've already been to college then that could be a good plan but you can easily get your fill of workshops as an undergrad if your school has good faculty.

>>7120306
140k worth? in financial aid and scholarships? That's worth it obviously; im making fun of the people who spent at least six figures for it

>>7120643
Those "music" portions are pretty deceiving. We do a year of chorus (Freshman year), and a year that's made up of the study of music theory and some of the scores of certain pieces, usually Bach's St. Matthew Passion, and that's usually followed by a Mozart opera, either the Magic Flute or Cosi Fan Tutte.

The only music we touch during Junior and Senior year we deal with for one two-hour seminar, and we're lucky if anyone bothers to do musical analysis for it.

There was a Ulysses study group running I think two years ago, and included a number of our professors and the president of the college. There was a preceptorial offered for Finnegans Wake, also about three years ago. Senior language classes usually read several of the stories from Dubliners.

>>7117124
lmao

>>7120664
Yep. If you po', then the school wants to help you however they're able.

The other side of that is that I've known people who pay full tuition get away with significantly more shit, cause, well, fuck, they pay full tuition.

>>7120384
if you think the pros of being 200k in debt and having a degree in archaic science outweighs the cons, then by all means

>>7117098
>We still do not like the analytics though so you are lucky to find someone doing Wittgenstein
Heh, we still have Verdi tho. And I guess D.H. likes or appreciates Frege.

>>7120674
wow I'm poor as fuck, I get $13,000 for going to community college for both years; maybe I'll apply for shits and giggles

what were your grades like and whatnot?

>>7120483
>>7120483
>He purposed a counter model because Ptolemy's model failed to account accurately for empirical observation.
no, Ptolemy's model was the one based on empirical evidence, even if it was limited and later turned out to be false.
Copernicus used Ptolemy's data and tried to make a unified system to account for planetary movement, which ended up in heliocentrism. But the empirical data at the time was accounted more or less equally between the two models (Galileo later changed that, but his evidence was accounted for equally by Tycho's model).

In his time, Ptolemy's model actually had a system of physics that accounted for the movement, while Copernicus' model didnt have a solid system of physics AND it couldnt account for the lack of the parallax (it offered a unified and organized mathematical system, which is why it was used to make the calendars, but empirical arguments werent it's strenght)

>>7120542
did you even look through that data on that link Copernicus's model is significantly superior using 16th century data. Have you done any calculations using equants with epicycles? If you have then you would know that the additional epicycles of Copernicus's model are still significantly simpler than Ptolemy's epicycles + equants.

>Do you simply not understand the differences between empirical work in science, experiment in science, and mathematical calculation? Because I have his papers right here, and I'm looking forward to you informing me of *what empirical observations or experiments he made*. That you're even trying to defend Einstein should be proof enough of my point that *science isn't monolithic*; *science gets done in many ways*.
Einstein's theories were inspired and constrained by empirical evidence. He did not purpose his principles out of thin air, they were significantly constrained by evidence and by previous theories. This constraint by empirical evidence is the difference between Einstein and Aristotle. Have fun with your relativism

>>7120554
that is something from the guy that is calling science pure ideology. Take a look at the link, Copernicus model is significantly better than Ptolemy's model at cohering to the data and in predictive power. Just because Ptolemy collected data and did observations first hand does not mean that his theorizing corresponding to the data better. What accommodated Copernicus model were the faults in Ptolemy's model and the lack of correspondence with the data.

>>7120693
they are both based upon evidence, what is being argued is which one cohered to that evidence more accurately. The lack of high degree of correspondence between Ptolmey's model and observations is what allowed multiple theories to exist.

>>7120691
Bs, and the occasional C for lack of participation in class discussion.

>>7120781
ITT: Nerds

>>7120781
>Copernicus model is significantly better than Ptolemy's model at cohering to the data and in predictive power.
it still wasnt accurate, it just was more organized and tidy
>they are both based upon evidence,
Copernicus' evidence was purely mathematical, not empirical

>what is being argued is which one cohered to that evidence more accurately.
no, what is being argued is that the pre-science, protoscience, science stuff is bullshit and not based on reality

>>7120800
so you got that much financial aid with less than a 3.0 gpa?

>passing up far better colleges to do something you should have done in your free time already
You should be saying ">tfw you didn't get into MIT", because you could meet some Mark Zuckerberg autists to mooch off of and live a literary NEET life after you sell off your stock and make a few million.

>>7120824
It's based on need.

>>7120781
>did you even look through that data on that link Copernicus's model is significantly superior using 16th century data. Have you done any calculations using equants with epicycles? If you have then you would know that the additional epicycles of Copernicus's model are still significantly simpler than Ptolemy's epicycles + equants.
Except Copernicus's model *as he actually formulated it* didn't use 16th century data. And, again, *explanatory power for the movements of the planets IS NOT evidence for the rotation and revolution of the earth*. No one cares about Copernicus's account because HERP DERP BETTA EXPLANATORY POWER OF PLANETARY MOTION. People give a shit about that whole *HELIOCENTRIC* part of his work; the part for which he had no evidence.

>Einstein's theories were inspired and constrained by empirical evidence. He did not purpose his principles out of thin air, they were significantly constrained by evidence and by previous theories. This constraint by empirical evidence is the difference between Einstein and Aristotle.
The work on special relativity is done by means of MATH , asshat. At no point did I deny that it had grounds in empirical phenomena, but THE WORK ISTSELF IS NOT EMPIRICAL. Go ahead and quote from his paper where *Einstein makes empirical observations that directly lead to special relativity, or experiments tat do the same*.

And that constraint on empirical evidence is exactly the kind of arbitrary qualification that I'm calling bullshit on. Until you have an empirical account of mathematics, then you can't reduce Einstein's work empirical work, and ignore all the math that goes into it.

And that's bullshit, RE: the empirical claim being the difference between Aristotle and Einstein. Aristotle uses empirical observation, and Einstein resorts to math.

>that is something from the guy that is calling science pure ideology. Take a look at the link, Copernicus model is significantly better than Ptolemy's model at cohering to the data and in predictive power.
No it didn't, again because that link you posted showed that Copernicus's model only worked especially well when using Tycho's (later) data, and a lame conflation that mathematical simplicity is proof the same as truth (by the way, that's not empirical, I'll remind you, and Copernicus and Galileo both held onto the model out of a love for Platonic circles, i.e. mystical woo).

Also, check your reading comprehension:

1) You decided to conflate me at >>7120554
with a different anon at >>7120413.

2) That anon did *NOT* say that "science is pure ideology", but rather that "the pre-science/protoscience/science distinction doesnt have any basis in reality and is supported by pure ideology"; if you'd like to take him on with respect to that claim, how about taking on what his claims actually *are*, hm?

>>7120781
>what is being argued is which one cohered to that evidence more accurately
And again, neither of them *adhered to evidence better than the other*; support for Copernicus for*instrumental reasons* is not support for Copernicus for empirical reasons.

Convince me not to drop out of my second year in college and apply here, do a bachelors, then do a STEM bachelors at Stanford or Cal, finishing this all at 28 (I have a trust fund, so money is not an issue).

>>7121173
They'll overwork you until you become like Hal at the beginning at Infinite Jest. You won't recover until you're fifty and your life is already behind you.

Copernicus fit the data less securely than Ptolemy. Ptolemy was used for predictions for the 250 years following Copernicus because it worked better. Copernicus was seen as a crackpot not because of religious sentiment, but because he was proposing a model that fit the data worse. It was a theoretical advance completely unprecedented precisely because it was proposed despite all data and predictive capabilities of earlier models. If Copernicus had simply fit data points better, we wouldn't all know his name. We wouldn't give a shit. That would tell us nothing meaningful. What matters about Copernicus is that he offered new ways of thinking that propelled us into new directions for science and philosophy, despite all the empirical odds being against him.

>>7121192
Haven't read IJ.

>>7121173
I won't discourage you, but you I'd personally prefer Deep Springs and a transfer to Stanford. More efficient.

>>7121192
And I doubt that St. Johns is much more rigorous than where I currently go to school.

>>7121173
oh god do it

>>7120819
no you dumb shit if it was purely mathematical then it would not be constrained to fit the data at all. He had to purpose a mathematical model that constrained by the data. It is more accurate, that is a fact.

>>7120876
>No one cares about Copernicus's account because HERP DERP BETTA EXPLANATORY POWER OF PLANETARY MOTION. People give a shit about that whole *HELIOCENTRIC* part of his work; the part for which he had no evidence.
no you dumb twat, by the time Galileo endorsed his position it was because of the predictive power. Heliocentric model was endorsed because of its better coherence to empirical evidence. Copernicus did not purpose a model out of his ass, it was bounded by empirical data and the accuracy of the previous theories.

Einstein's principles and axioms are bound by empirical phenomena. He does not have to gather the data first hand, he just has to respect the observational data. This accounting for the data is the difference between science and proto science. Einstien's MATH makes many predictions that can be observed. The mathematics used in formulating SR can easily be rooted to realist position, even the mathematics in GR can also be. The principals that Aristotle uses to posit his physics can not be observed. This is a massive difference.

>No it didn't, again because that link you posted showed that Copernicus's model only worked especially well when using Tycho's (later) data, and a lame conflation that mathematical simplicity is proof the same as truth (by the way, that's not empirical, I'll remind you, and Copernicus and Galileo both held onto the model out of a love for Platonic circles, i.e. mystical woo).
Galileo endorsed Copernicus's model for more than mystical reasons (tides, sunspots, 16th century data, ect). Copernicus's model was closer to reality than Ptolemy's model, as more and better data was gathered it superiority was established further. This is why it superseded Ptolemy's model, not because of aesthetic preferences.

>>7120877
Copernicus's model adheres to evidence better than Ptolemy's and has more predictive power, you are acting as if Copernicus model won out simply because of mysticism or aesthetic preference, which is not true.

>>7121211
Rigor is actually an issue at SJC. I got a lot out of that program, and I wouldn't do anything differently, but my peers at that school barely gave a shit about the material, were too busy trying to show off for each other and our professors (usually unimpressed but politely so), and I feel that what I got out of my classes was kinda all in spite of that. There was some definite rigor involved in the language, music, and math, and depending on the professor, in the science classes (the portions where equations became important), but seminar, the part that everyone talks about, can be a terrible jack-off party or the even more lame book club instead of an opportunity to learn from our texts.

>>7121195
This. Copernicus's work was also dismissed as mathematics (physics and math hadn't quite needed each other, and there wasn't any reason to think that the heavenly bodies were valid subjects of physics if we couldn't even tell if they were physical or not; that happened to actually be one of Galileo's great finds in his use of the telescope, and it was a find informed by his background in art, of all things.)

What's more curious is how much attention is paid to Copernicus and Galileo while Kepler was quietly setting up the model that was actually right. I guess because his story can't be manipulated into a sexy polemic between the church and science?

ITT: two autists sperging out over copernicus and ptolemy

>>7121216
This is hilarious now. You're so deeply uninformed, that I just can't help continuing.

>no you dumb shit if it was purely mathematical then it would not be constrained to fit the data at all
It was mathematics. There was no evidence that the heavenly bodies were physical at the time Copernicus was working, as far as he and everyone else knew, they were just lights that moved around. His model is *mathematically equivalent* to Ptolemy's, that is, it explains all the same phenomena. Mathematical simplicity was not evidence of that model being anything other than instrumentally useful, AND THAT'S IT.

>no you dumb twat, by the time Galileo endorsed his position it was because of the predictive power
Galileo endorsed it before he had ever looked through a telescope and before any empirical evidence supporting it had been found; his support was HERP DERP I LURVE PERFECT CIRCLES.

>Heliocentric model was endorsed because of its better coherence to empirical evidence
Trivially untrue; it was eventually supported for that reason, but not during the time of Copernicus and Galileo.

>Einstein's principles and axioms etc. etc.
1) Is Einstein's special relativity *already* present in the empirical work before him? 2) *If not*, where does empiricism take place in his demonstration of it? Saying that it respects empirical phenomenon is *not* the same as saying that the means to achieving the standpoint of special relativity are empirical; they're mathematics, after all. I have the essay "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" on my desk--point to the empirical evidence that he uses in his demonstration.

Also, I don't think you know Aristotle's physics enough to determine what's observable and what isn't.

>Galileo endorsed Copernicus's model for more than mystical reasons (tides, sunspots, 16th century data, ect).
No he didn't, 1) the sunspots came in *after* he endorsed it. 2) The "argument of the tides" was one of the factors that in his youth made him excited about the Copernican model, BUT his theory called for a twenty-four hour cycle, and after talking with sailors who informed him of the twelve-hour cycle that they experienced, he decided to go with his dumb instinct instead of maybe check the matter again. Mind, he was also busy ignoring Kepler's work on the tides, his idea that the Moon changed the tides through some kind of attraction, but to Galileo that was just more crazy talk from crazy old Kepler (again, whose model was actually right, since Copernicus's model was *falsified*, if you'll remember). 3) Aren't you still just ignoring the point that there was no empirical evidence at the time demonstrating that the earth rotated and revolved around the sun?

But I'm going to emphasize again that Copernicus's model was wrong, and we have *not* in fact accepted it; we have accepted *Kepler's* model (see included image). No, Kepler's model isn't the *same* as the Copernican model.

>>7120876
>>7121334
>HERP DERP
kill yourself

>>7121380
I thought so!

Looking forward to your erudite display! ;^)

>>7121395
I'm not even that guy, I don't even disagree with the point you're trying to make, but you sound like a fucking retard and should kill yourself for that shit.

>>7121398
Everyone's a critic. Ho hum.

I didn't have the money to go to college when I was 18, and am just now considering it at 22. Do you guys think they'd accept an older student into the undergrad program? I have complete confidence in my essay ability and my grades in high school were great, so that part isn't an issue.

>>7121418
Kill yourself

>>7121534
Yeah, most good colleges want a few more mature students in the mix. If you gained anything from the last four years tell them about it and you should be golden.

I'd urge you to consider going to a normal private university, joining a fraternity and becoming the ultimate pussy slayer just by dent of being older than the girls.

>>7121334
>It was mathematics. There was no evidence that the heavenly bodies were physical at the time Copernicus was working, as far as he and everyone else knew, they were just lights that moved around. His model is *mathematically equivalent* to Ptolemy's, that is, it explains all the same phenomena. Mathematical simplicity was not evidence of that model being anything other than instrumentally useful, AND THAT'S IT.

The mathematics was constrained to model what was seen regardless of whether they thought they were just lights or not. That is what it means to be empirically constrained, Copernicus's model was empirically constrained by the DATA. He did not purpose a model that contradicted the data MORE THAN Ptolemy's model. His model is not mathematically equivalent, see the data on latitude predictions. His model is mathematically equivalent to Tycho not to Ptolemy.

>Galileo endorsed it before he had ever looked through a telescope and before any empirical evidence supporting it had been found; his support was HERP DERP I LURVE PERFECT CIRCLES.
you are truly ignorant

>1) Is Einstein's special relativity *already* present in the empirical work before him? 2) *If not*, where does empiricism take place in his demonstration of it? Saying that it respects empirical phenomenon is *not* the same as saying that the means to achieving the standpoint of special relativity are empirical; they're mathematics, after all
1)the independence of the speed of light with respect to the frame of reference and the lack of evidence for ether. 2) The empiricism is that he solving a problem by purposing a solution that must correspond with the data and be coherent with other theories which had been shown to correspond to empirical observations.

>Also, I don't think you know Aristotle's physics enough to determine what's observable and what isn't.
ah fuck off you pretentious pleb

>No he didn't, 1) the sunspots came in *after* he endorsed it. 2) The "argument of the tides" was one of the factors that in his youth made him excited about the Copernican model, BUT his theory called for a twenty-four hour cycle, and after talking with sailors who informed him of the twelve-hour cycle that they experienced, he decided to go with his dumb instinct instead of maybe check the matter again. Mind, he was also busy ignoring Kepler's work on the tides, his idea that the Moon changed the tides through some kind of attraction, but to Galileo that was just more crazy talk from crazy old Kepler (again, whose model was actually right, since Copernicus's model was *falsified*, if you'll remember). 3) Aren't you still just ignoring the point that there was no empirical evidence at the time demonstrating that the earth rotated and revolved around the sun?
Just because Galileo was wrong about the tides does not make his reasoning mystical or aesthetically orientated. It was still empirically orientated, just that he did not fully make the correct accounting.

>>7121173
If you can go anywhere go to Oxbridge. They are literally the most patrician schools of all time.

>>7121736
>He did not purpose a model that contradicted the data MORE THAN Ptolemy's model.
of course he did, he contradicted the evidence supporting geocentrism, and couldnt find evidence supporting heliocentrism. The only strenght of Copernicus' model was that it was a simple, pretty model.

>>7121534
Yes. I went in at about that age, and I know a number of others who did too. Its never really presented much of a problem socially.

>>7121736
>The mathematics was constrained to model what was seen regardless of whether they thought they were just lights or not. That is what it means to be empirically constrained, Copernicus's model was empirically constrained by the DATA. He did not purpose a model that contradicted the data MORE THAN Ptolemy's model. His model is not mathematically equivalent, see the data on latitude predictions. His model is mathematically equivalent to Tycho not to Ptolemy.
Mathematically equivalent means that the mathematical model deals with the same phenomena; Ptolemy himself offers several hypotheses that are mathematically equivalent, that is, that model differently but have equal power for explaining the phenomena. Copernicus's model is mathematically equivalent to Ptolemy's; it doesn't explain it better, and again, whether the calculations are simpler to do in Copernicus's model has no bearing upon whether his model was founded upon better empirical evidence than Ptolemy's. It wasn't, and evidence of Coriolis effect and parallax didn't occur until much later. The matter is about whether the model was founded upon empirical evidence of *heliocentrism*, and it *wasn't*.

>you are truly ignorant
That's a fact. Galileo was a mathematical Platonist who partly adored Copernicus's model because of its use of perfect circles, and he did in fact accept the model before ever looking through a telescope. Maybe bother to actually research this shit a bit.

>Einstein etc. etc.
There's no question about whether his paper starts out from a consideration of empirical problems and has bearing upon them; the matter is whether *his work in the paper* is *itself* empirical, i.e. moves towards special relativity by empirical or experimental means, and it doesn't, but by math. That's the decisive difference. There's no reason to say that Einstein is a lesser scientist for it, but there's no good reason to pretend that the paper is made up of empirical observations instead of brilliant mastery of math and thought experiments.

>ah fuck off you pretentious pleb
You don't know Aristotle's physics to make any claim about it. C'mon, you can't wave your physics degree around and pretend you know what's different about Aristotle's physics without knowing what that shit even is.

>Just because Galileo was wrong about the tides does not make his reasoning mystical or aesthetically orientated. It was still empirically orientated, just that he did not fully make the correct accounting.
His reasoning was post-hoc, and he came up with his mature understanding of the argument from the tides in order to decisively prove heliocentrism. Again, he was already persuaded of it before *any* empirical evidence of heliocentrism was available. He both got the accounting wrong, and the accounting was beside the fact of his own belief in mathematical mysticism.

>>7117175
How the fuck do you not subvocalize?

>>7125368
it's either really obvious bait or he's one of these retards who thinks reading two million words per minutes makes you better than other people.

if he's the latter, he might as well go full on here in my garage mode and just read the table of contents.

>>7121534
Yeah. Give it a shot. Older students tend to offer a valuable alternative perspective to the more fresh faced underclassmen.

>>7116973
what are classes like at that kinda school?

>>7126147
They are all 20 person seminars.

>>7126159
is that what all the classes are like? how involved are professors?

>>7126185
Yeah that's for all the classes. The 2 hour seminars have two professors instead of one and around 18-22 people, but the rest of the tutorials have one professor and between 15-20 people.

Professors are usually hands off. They often guide the conversation but don't have complete control over it. Usually they're there to have fun alongside the students. Math, lab, and music tutorials have them be a little more pedagogical for the sake of hammering in technical stuff, but students always have just as much a right as the professors to test the material.

There's very little written homework and no tests, so the professor's main job is to show up with thought provoking questions and a readiness to redirect conversation if it gets too off the rails.

>>7116973
Guys what's the best Oxford college for philosophy/theology?

I'm applying this year with D1, D1, A and I need to decide.

What's Oxford even like?

Wow, is /lit/ more influential than we think?

They start with the Greeks...

>tfw i've literally sucked more dicks than i've read books

>>7126505

>>7126202
so does homework just consist of reading? how often are essays assigned?

is it ever an issue that the professors are hands off?

>>7128655
Homework is mostly reading (you will spend around 5 hours a day reading, often just for the next day's class), preparing demonstrations and solving equations for math. Work is almost never turned in on paper, besides essays. There's usually two essays per tutorial a semester, and one seminar paper a semester, but sometimes there are one or three tutorial papers. It varies professor to professor. Tutorial papers are five pages minimum and seminar papers are usually asked to be 10-12 pages.

The papers emphasize freedom of questioning and usually don't have prompts apart from very general ones. Seminar papers can be written on anything you've read in seminar and have no prompts.

It's not really ever an issue that professors are hands off. Some are disengaging and boring, some very talkative, but the majority are involved in the conversation while also being very informal about it. It's all a character thing anyway.

>>7128694
thanks so much for answering my questions! I have one more, if you don't mind.

so if there's no written homework, and only a few papers assigned a semester, how does grading work? do they have grades?

>>7126398
Balliol.

You have to spend time there to really understand, there aren't many places where everyone you meet is interesting and intelligent.

>>7128858
Nobody really knows how it works. I'm sure there's some holistic scale in place but as far as students can tell it's just participation plus paper grades. There are grades and 4.0 GPA scale but administration tries to discourage students from checking on their transcripts, preferring that they learn what they need to improve on from the progress reports that the professors give their students every semester in the form of "the don rag."

It's actually really difficult to get that 4.0 if you're not good at the whole broadness of the subject matter, but mainly it's just participation and even if you suck your grade won't tank so long as you're asking the right questions.

>>7128858
Participation and quality of written work. Some professors have some leeway with respect to participation if a student is dealing with mental or emotional issues (provided they're made aware of the circumstance). Papers are judged on grammar, and on how well they stick to the texts they inspect (that is, if a paper interprets or argues with a text, is it sufficiently attentive to what the text itself says? If a disagreement is registered, is there evidence that the student understands what they're disagreeing with? etc. etc.).

Truth be told, there've been arguments over rigor between the professors for quite a while.

>tfw will never go to college and will spend my life of mediocrity reading /lit/ meme recommendations

Could be worse

>>7129066
Shit, you could still do these readings on your own.

>>7116973
To any of the students here, what's it like to have read the math and science authors? Are there any big "aha" moments you guys get reading them? Any surprises?

>>7129696
Ptolemy was a big surprise; there are passages throughout the Almagest that downplay the idea of taking his mathematical hypotheses as physical truths, which was something I didn't expect, and persuaded me that he was a more careful thinker than we give him credit for.

Newton's geometrical presentation in his Principia was a rather interesting discovery. The discovery of the "o gravity's sorta an occult force guize and now here's god" passages in the general scholium was pretty funny, especially since I think the revamped "Cosmos" was coming back on just as we got there, so our whole class could mock Tyson's whitewashing.

My school is basically the opposite. Very little reading. Project-oriented education. I've been doing research since freshman year along with labs for every science and applied math class and all the core curriculum lib arts classes I took had opportunities to be confederates in research or other stuff. We have a 3D printing vending machine (design CAD file, upload it, pick it up for free later), tons of free design software, labs that will take random undergrads from different college within the uni for research, and tons of libraries and stuff everywhere. Giant research universities where you'll never meet all the faculty and basically all facilities are at your fingertips are the best in my opinion. I can enjoy a liberal education by participating in a study with the department of Human Development and Family Studies after working in a lab and getting to do my own projects while seeing people do everything from graphene LEDs to social anxiety studies to tissue printing. I can read in my free time. For the cost of attendance, I like a research uni. I'd definitely go to a high school that focused on core texts and ideas along with math and science, however.

>>7129832
Agreed. Foundational knowledge is important, but to go 4 years without doing any original research or at least learning about things happening today is kind of shitty.

>>7129832
Yeah, that's kinda the thing. I love SJC, but in a better world, it wouldn't be a college, but would just be our standard high school curriculum. It can pretty much only do what it does now because the liberal arts have been suffering such a stupid crisis since the 60s.

>>7129909
Not necessarily, if the fundamental point is to be learning. It's admittedly not useful to the prospective modern scientist in particular, but then the program isn't designed to produce any one kind of individual or researcher.

>>7117901
realest post in this thread right now

>>7129914
I also think high school math needs to be more proofs-oriented rather than formula memorization and plug and chug. And I was a little pissed when I got to freshman Chem and realized I could titration a solution with the best of them but I didn't understand basic conceptual stuff like black body radiation. In general I think public high school needs more theory and less big number fuckery.

>>7129919
In a truly liberal arts "how to think" sense, wouldn't applying that thinking by attempting to make discoveries similar to the ones you've studied be nice?

>>7129925
Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, Adorno, and Marcuse all actually read this stuff and worked out their critiques based on their actual understanding. Why should it be different for students of the liberal arts? It's easy as shit to critique; it's much *much* harder to go about accounting for the whole of things.

>>7129928
Definitely. There might even be greater pedagogical success with such an approach. Calculus was hard for me in high school, but reading Leibniz's papers on it actually helped clarify a bunch of it for me. Memorization of formulas and rules is necessary to some extent, but it could still be misapplied if the student doesn't know what any of it stands for or means beyond the calculation.

>>7129941
>it's much *much* harder to go about accounting for the whole of things

And also a fool's errand?

>>7129932
I'm not sure the liberal arts is about "how to think" though! I mean, that's definitely how it's discussed now; in the modern case of liberal arts, they'd prefer to be able to offer new and creative thinking, but then I'd have to wonder why that isn't just masturbatory and a matter of shame for the modern liberal arts. It's seems different in character from scientific research.

Though at least as far as how I understand what a program like SJC is doing, it's functioning in the mold of the classical liberal arts, where the idea was to "liberate" the mind from the common and vulgar prejudices and concerns; something like an enlightenment that consists in seeing both your own limits as a person and your own possibilities, while simultaneously recognizing that the things you were formerly concerned with either aren't what you thought they were, or aren't worth what you thought they were.

Not that any of it's ever stopped us from freaking out about finances.

>>7129960
Would you say 4 years and 200k is a good price for growing out of your solipsism? And who isn't to say that attempting to contribute to your global community through novel thought isn't just as great a personal development as finding oneself?

>>7129947
Okay, sure, that might be ultimately true. That still wouldn't be a great argument for teaching how to "break [systems] down". Plus, on a more technical note, it'd just go against the grain of the spirit of our school, where the students aren't taught by anyone but (at least ostensibly) the authors of our texts. Agreement, disagreement, and skeptical bracketing are all applicable at the individual student's discretion.

>>7129995
>That still wouldn't be a great argument for teaching how to "break [systems] down"

I'd strongly disagree with this sentiment. Is there nothing to be said for the process and flux of systems? Of not being in control, even? Why only gesture towards ideal forms and whole geometries of thought that are taken in advance to be impossibilities?

>>7129967
I'm sure *some* students come away from the school with a view to offering novel thoughts, but I'm not persuaded of that; I take it that that's precisely one of those prejudices that doesn't need to have any deeper bearing for me.

Plus, whenever that happens anyway at other liberal arts schools or departments, doesn't it always seem a little silly of them to offer up these biting and harsh critiques concerning the way the global community wants to capitalize on thinking by making it work for it, and at the same time claim they're offering novel thinking to the global community?

>>7130015
>Is there nothing to be said for the process and flux of systems? Of not being in control, even?
Do you think you could clarify these passages? I'm having trouble seeing how they relate to the original claims about bringing about "mental systems" and breaking them down, and how any of this might relate to critique.

>Why only gesture towards ideal forms and whole geometries of thought that are taken in advance to be impossibilities?
I don't see how we do this, but I also don't see why I should take any of these to actually be impossibilities. I agreed that it *might* be a fool's errand, not that it is, and I could either dismiss it, or test it for myself.

The only people at the school I've encountered who take these to be impossibilities ahead of time are students already informed by critique (albeit the super shitty and lazy tumblr form).

>>7116973
Wtf is Proust doing in the STEM category?

>>7130055
Different Proust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Proust

>>7130055
proust was a neuroscientist plen

>>7130069
what

Are there any video lectures from St. Johns? A cursory youtube search has revealed little.

I wish to learn Euclid's elements, as well as anything else that the Greeks could be considered to have known.

>>7131095
Haven't found any, but there are some lectures available by some of our professors.

Peter Kalkavage on Plato and Schopenhauer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us9cCIq_Olo

Robert Goldberg on Plato's Laws:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmkfZUFbrgQ

Eva Brann, Eric Salem, Peter Kalkavage on Plato's Statesman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45en9CdR7lY

There's also a bunch of issues of the school journal, the St. John's Review, up as pdfs. Most of articles are transcribed lectures covering all sorts of topics related to our texts:
http://www.sjc.edu/blog/st-johns-review/

>>7132808

Ευχαριστώ

>>7133012
kανένα πρόβλημα!

holy shit these 50s promotional films are hilarious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHFRWChxyMc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNc0-LPs8gg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7kiGyCIgKI

>>7133982
gonna be honest, not a great sell

>>7117428
Kids these days

>>7134045
oh god lets not get that debate going again

>>7116973
>Philosophy & Theology
>& Theology
>Two materialists and a man whose religion consists of ancient esoteric stuff you have to be an initiate to understand.

Pleb/10, wouldn't study there. They should move Pascal to the theology section or something.

>>7134091
>not even presenting empirical evidence
>vague implorations in the year of our data-lord Dawkins

>>7134113
pls die

>>7134119
pls develop

>>7134113
Pascal did some pretty good science on the weight of air before he made his religious turn.

>>7134115
wait what

>>7134124
Oh I didn't mean to refute Pascal's tremendous scientifical importance. Of course, he was probably the most important scientific of his time with his buddy Leibniz and the later Newton.

>>7134127
Fucker was like 16 when he did that work too. As a graduate of the college, I still remember how furious me and other students were at ourselves and our comparative lack of accomplishment with Pascal when we saw a note about his age in our readings, and an even more infuriating note about not having done one of the "experiments" he describes, and how it didn't matter because he was just smart enough to infer the correct result anyway.

The pic included isn't quite big enough, but I'm thinking that image of the guy in the lower right.

>>7134123
In the way that you're 'developed'? Son u very confuse, the curriculum is laid out proper taking historical context. Just because your autistic psyche can't handle 'erroneous' information don't mean u can give voice to ur retarded mental structure on any old img board.

>>7134125
I don't see any facts or remotest traces of the scientific method in your statements.

>>7134137
Wat ? What historical context ? The Mathematics & Natural Science course goes from Euclid to Spemann. I don't even know what you're trying to say.

>>7134142
who do you think I am? i'm not the poster who wrote >>7117428

>>7134156
Those lists at the top don't present the material in the order we encounter them, if that's what you're referring to. Math is its own separate class that focuses on Euclid and Ptolemy for freshmen year. For lab we start with Theophrastus first semester and make our way to figures like Spemann.

>>7134258
No, I'm just answering to this guy who said " the curriculum is laid out proper taking historical context " (whatever that means), by saying that there is no historical context since you study things from the greeks to the 20th century.

>>7134253
>who do you think i am?
humanities mumbo jumbo
>I'm not the poster who wrote
no scientific evidence presented

stay pleb

>>7134268
each individual subject/author would be discussed in their own historical context you simpleton, that's why putting pascal into theology is retarded I dunno who gave you the privilege to post in this highly esteemed thread

>>7134278

>each individual subject/author would be discussed in their own historical context you simpleton, that's why putting pascal into theology is retarded

What on earth are you talking about ? What is the relation between the fact that each author is discussed in his own historical context and the idea that it would be wrong to put Pascal into theology ? Wouldn't Pascal be studied in his own historical context then ? What is the problem ?

So, what, are the last 15 posts just everyone confusing the shit out of each other?

Another St. John's job well done.

>>7117281
Anything like that in the UK?

Why do St John's shills even come on here? Just because they wasted 200k$ doesn't mean they have to drag down the rest of us. Oxbridge are the only acceptable shill schools on /lit/, anything else is r/books worthy and you guys know it.

>tfw going to cheap state school
>earning a degree that will get me a job
>can start with the Greeks without wasting four years and thousands of dollars

>>7135092
>reading alone

>mfw my small engineering school's pathetic attempt at a humanities program
>mfw people actually major in the humanities here

>>7135092
>tfw won't start with the Greeks anyway
>tfw won't read the medievals, early moderns, or moderns
>tfw won't read the foundational works of math and science

>>7121736
Mate you're literally arguing in the wrong place here. It's /lit/ after all where they have the potential to doubt EVERYTHING. Which is pretty much the basis of philosophy.

You belong in /sci/ where empirical truths is pretty much equal to absolute truths for all they care.

I can't help but think that both of you are right. Perhaps the past scientists' motivations towards mathematical evidence (which are totally abstract) was essentially partly if not all, based on empirical observations. So the two are not mutually exclusive but play complementary roles in arriving at an answer.

>>7135279
>Perhaps the past scientists' motivations towards mathematical evidence (which are totally abstract) was essentially partly if not all, based on empirical observations. So the two are not mutually exclusive but play complementary roles in arriving at an answer.
But that would also go against his arbitrary divisions of scientific periods..

And to say scientism belongs in /sci/ is such a disservice to that board. It will never catch up with /lit/ if that is the criteria for belonging there.

>>7135374
>catch up with /lit/
pfffffffft

>>7134268
m-m-m-uh eurocentricism
get fucked cuck

>>7135092
>iktf
it's not a good one
I wish I had learned I was more passionate about music than I thought I was before I applied for this uni.

>>7135488
Sociologist Stephen Hilgartner, the Cornell University science and technology studies department chairman, wrote "The Sokal Affair in Context" (1997),[12] comparing Sokal's hoax to "Confirmational Response: Bias Among Social Work Journals" (1990), an article by William M. Epstein published in Science, Technology & Human Values.[13] Epstein used a similar approach to Sokal's, submitting fictitious articles to real academic journals to measure their response. Though far more systematic than Sokal's work, it received scant media attention. Hilgartner argued that the intellectual impact of the successful Sokal hoax cannot be attributed to its quality as a "demonstration" but rather to journalistic hyperbole and the anti-intellectual biases of some American journalists.

>>7135279
At least with respect to Galileo's view of the matter, he says the following in his book "The Assayer":

"Philosophy [i.e. natural philosophy, or physics] is written in this grand book — I mean the universe — which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering around in a dark labyrinth."

Later on in the same book he writes:

"I suspect that people in general have a concept of this [he's talking about heat] which is very remote from the truth. For they believe that heat is a real phenomenon, or property, or quality which actually resides in the material by which we feel ourselves warmed...Without the senses as our guides, our reason or imagination unaided would probably never arrive at qualities like these. Hence I think that tastes, odors, colors, and so on are no more than mere names so far as the object in which we place them is concerned, and that they reside only in the consciousness. Hence if the living creature were removed, all these qualities would be wiped away and annihilated."

This is his mathematical Platonism, and his view of the ultimate reality of things doesn't differ much from that expressed in Plato's Timaeus. The most real things are geometrical, and that's properly it.

What's strange is how much weight he put in Copernicus's model when he did; he was himself a key figure in falsifying Ptolemy's model by observing the phases of Venus, but Copernicus's model by the time he was writing his dialogues had already been tossed out in favor of two different models, Tycho's model, and Kepler's, and while Kepler's was the one that ended up being correct, Galileo ignored it for its use of ellipses instead of his beloved perfect circles.