I had a liberal arts education at Amherst College where I had two

Hear, O seekers of wisdom, the recollection of Stephen Cole Kleene, the mathematician-philosopher whose work shaped the foundations of logic and computation. He declared: “I had a liberal arts education at Amherst College where I had two majors, mathematics and philosophy.” In these words, though plain, lies a truth of great depth: that the joining of the sciences of number with the discipline of thought is not a mere accident, but a union that has given birth to some of the most profound advances in human knowledge.

For the liberal arts were never meant to be narrow, nor were they designed to prepare a soul for one trade alone. They were conceived in ancient times as the education befitting the free person, training the mind to see widely, to reason deeply, and to speak with clarity. Kleene’s education united mathematics, the language of precision, with philosophy, the language of meaning. This dual pursuit prepared him not only to calculate but to question, not only to prove but to understand.

The wisdom of such a union can be seen in the history of thought. Recall Plato, who inscribed above the door of his Academy: “Let none ignorant of geometry enter here.” He knew that mathematics disciplines the mind to order and clarity. Yet he also taught philosophy, that the soul might pursue the highest questions of justice, truth, and beauty. So too did Kleene walk this path: from number to meaning, from formula to principle, from calculation to wisdom.

And consider René Descartes, who, like Kleene, dwelt in the union of reason and reflection. By training, he was a mathematician; by vocation, a philosopher. He gave us the coordinate plane and the foundations of analytic geometry, but he also gave us the declaration, Cogito ergo sum—“I think, therefore I am.” His greatness was not in choosing one path over the other, but in seeing that both mathematics and philosophy belong to the same grand pursuit of truth.

Kleene’s remembrance is also a lesson for our own age, when knowledge is too often divided into compartments, and the student is told to choose between science and the humanities. Yet his life stands as testimony that true power is found in their union. His contributions to logic, recursion theory, and computer science were possible because he had trained both the rigor of his mathematical mind and the breadth of his philosophical soul. Without both, his work would not have borne the same fruit.

The meaning, then, is clear: education must not be the narrowing of the mind, but the widening of it. To study mathematics without philosophy risks cleverness without wisdom. To study philosophy without mathematics risks depth without clarity. But when the two are joined, the mind becomes both sharp and profound, capable of discovery and understanding, invention and reflection.

The lesson for us, O listener, is this: seek not only skill, but wisdom; not only precision, but meaning. Do not allow your learning to be confined to one narrow road, but let it be a crossroads where many paths meet. Study the sciences, but also the arts. Learn to calculate, but also to question. For in this union lies the fullness of human potential.

Practical action lies before you: broaden your study, seek disciplines beyond your own, read widely, question deeply. If you are drawn to mathematics, let philosophy temper it with reflection. If you love philosophy, let mathematics strengthen it with clarity. In this way, you will walk in the spirit of Kleene and the ancients before him, pursuing not fragments of knowledge, but the wholeness of truth itself.