Studying Science as a Liberal Art Through the St. John’s College Summer Classics Science Institute
April 15, 2025 | By Gabriela Forte (A27)
It’s easy to become complacent with what one does—and doesn’t—know, especially as a postgraduate adult who spends more time in an office than a classroom. Losing one’s childlike wonder for nature, inquiry, and the world of science often comes with the territory. That’s where Santa Fe tutor emeritus Peter Pesic comes in.
Pesic is the founder and director of the Science Institute, a program available through Summer Classics at St. John’s College. For the uninitiated, Summer Classics is like sleep-away camp for the endlessly curious: Lifelong learners from all over the world come to St. John’s Santa Fe and take a variety of weeklong courses on everything from literature to film and mathematics. They can also opt to enroll in courses online from the comfort of home.
The Science Institute, a special program led by Pesic within Summer Classics, is designed to explore the mysteries of nature and the universe. It directly challenges intellectual comfort by granting opportunities through in-person and virtual lessons to truly play in the world of science and mathematics.
Science Institute classes consist of seminar discussions, demonstrations, and practica (experiments), all grounded in primary sources yet imbued with a fresh sense of possibility. “What-ifs” and other hypothetical questions are encouraged in place of the absolutist “need to know” mentality often pushed by standardized education. “The experience of trying to understand something difficult is both, in a certain sense, painful and trying but also tremendously liberating and tremendously exciting,” Pesic says.
This approach to the sciences treats them more as a liberal art than something purely practical. But what, exactly, is science as a liberal art? At St. John’s College, it is approaching scientific and mathematical inquiry beyond the question of “how” while focusing on the “why”: the core questions of the scientific discipline. Answering these questions is not as cut-and-dry as your standard chemistry demonstration or math problem. It requires an open-mindedness and freedom of expression that allows the world of science to become more than just figures and numbers—indeed, something alive.
Reflecting on past Science Institute courses, Pesic praises those students with little scientific background for their ability to engage without presupposition. “In fact,” he says, “some of our best participants have been very uneasy with mathematics. And so, they’ll ask questions about mathematics that those who are comfortable can’t ask.” A willingness to be curious and not feel obliged to immediately understand leads to more interesting conclusions and introduces a whole new kind of education in which to participate.
“Vector Space: The Crux of Modern Science” is a recurring Science Institute course that Pesic and Santa Fe tutor Kenneth Wolfe will lead this summer from July 21-25, 2025. Those enrolled will investigate vector space, the mathematical concept that informs not only quantum theory but the basis of artificial intelligence. Last summer, Pesic brought a laptop into his final day of class to give students a chance to understand vector space from the perspective of something built from it: ChatGPT. “It struck me that it would be really interesting in the last session to have you talk to it,” he says. “It could be a participant in the discussion, and [we] could have it respond to us on a topic that it is, I think, uniquely qualified to address: itself.”
Treating science as a participatory liberal art opens the door not just for experiencing a chatbot as a “classmate” but for discussions on lesser-known scientific thinkers. While not renowned for their own discoveries, these scholars provide a deeper understanding of the history of science and mathematics. Santa Fe teaching fellow Mahmoud Jalloh explains that in taking an “anti-historical” approach to these writers, “they become living texts for us,” he says.
Early female scientist Émilie Du Châtelet, for example, was the only French translator of Newton’s Principia. Published in 1750, her own text Foundations of Physics supplies the Newtonian worldview’s philosophical backbone and is the focus of an in-person class led by Jalloh and Santa Fe tutor Paola Villa from July 14-18. Although many might consider Du Châtelet a “parenthesis in the development of physical thought, philosophical thought,” says Villa, “this is not, definitely not, a niche project.” Rather, “she is a fundamental linchpin in order to understand the interaction between the philosophies of Newton and Leibniz. Without her, [it] is difficult to see them as more than two contenders for the same achievement: on one side, calculus, on the other side, the whole discourse on energy and forces.” Villa and Jalloh's “Du Châtelet’s Foundations of Physics” also looks at how its subject engaged with the world of physics as a philosopher and physicist in her own right, gaining a better understanding of the historically notable texts that inform our own outlook.
Other low-residence and in-person Science Institute seminars, such as “Beyond Numbers: Set Theory” (available online between June 30-July 4, 2025) and “A Week with Thinking Machines” (in person from July 7-11), provide us with even more mind-expanding questions. Pesic and Jalloh, in their set theory course, push participants to look past mathematical convention and open their eyes to a new way of mathematical thinking. Most notably, they ask, “What are the powers and insights that sets allow? What is their value and conceptual price?” The idea that different forms of mathematical thinking have a “price” involved introduces a perspective-shifting question: What does it mean to sacrifice something in math?
And Annapolis tutors Brendan Lasell and Halley Barnett, in their class on “thinking machines,” will push perspectives on the boundaries of humanity. Descartes’ account for human existence—“I think, therefore I am”—has a different color to it now that there exist machines that can think for us. Is Descartes wrong? Do we need to alter our understanding of human thought? What is the difference between the thinking of a machine and that of a human?
These, among others, are the questions and texts our faculty will spend their time dissecting this summer through the Science Institute at Summer Classics. It’s a labor of love for them—but, as Villa adds, it’s also a “a vacation of the mind” for everyone involved.
Does your mind seek a vacation? Would you like to recapture a sense of wonder? All curious learners are welcome at Summer Classics.
Summer Classics Online
June 30–July 4 | July 7–11*
Summer Classics in Santa Fe, New Mexico
July 7–11 | July 14–18* | July 21–25*
*New class sections just added for previously sold-out seminars!
Explore our online and in-person seminars or visit the Summer Classics webpage for more information.
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