Humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including certain fundamental questions asked by humans. During the Renaissance, the term 'humanities' referred to the study of classical literature and language, as opposed to the study of religion or 'divinity.' The study of the humanities was a key part of the secular curriculum in universities at the time. Today, the humanities are more frequently defined as any fields of study outside of natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences (like mathematics), and applied sciences (or professional training).[1] They use methods that are primarily critical, speculative, or interpretative and have a significant historical element[2]—as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of science.[2]
This article is about the academic discipline. For the magazine, see Humanities (magazine). Not to be confused with Humanity.
The humanities include the studies of philosophy, religion, foreign languages, history, language arts (literature, writing, oratory, rhetoric, poetry, etc.), performing arts (theater, music, dance, etc.), and visual arts (painting, sculpture, photography, filmmaking, etc.).[3]
Some definitions of the humanities encompass law and religion due to their shared characteristics, such as the study of language and culture.[4] However, these definitions are not universally accepted, as law and religion are often considered professional subjects rather than humanities subjects. Professional subjects, like some social sciences, are sometimes classified as being part of both the liberal arts and professional development education, whereas humanities subjects are generally confined to the traditional liberal arts education. Although sociology, anthropology, archaeology, linguistics and psychology share some similarities with the humanities, these are often considered social sciences. Similarly, disciplines such as finance, business administration, political science, economics, and global studies have closer ties to the social sciences rather than the humanities.
Scholars in the humanities are called humanities scholars or sometimes humanists.[5] The term humanist also describes the philosophical position of humanism, which antihumanist scholars in the humanities reject. Renaissance scholars and artists are also known as humanists. Some secondary schools offer humanities classes usually consisting of literature, history, foreign language, and art.
Human disciplines like history and language mainly use the comparative method[6] and comparative research. Other methods used in the humanities include hermeneutics, source criticism, esthetic interpretation, and speculative reason.
Etymology[edit]
The word humanities comes from the Renaissance Latin phrase studia humanitatis, which translates to study of humanity. This phrase was used to refer to the study of classical literature and language, which was seen as an important aspect of a refined education in the Renaissance. In its usage in the early 15th century, the studia humanitatis was a course of studies that consisted of grammar, poetry, rhetoric, history, and moral philosophy, primarily derived from the study of Latin and Greek classics. The word humanitas also gave rise to the Renaissance Italian neologism umanisti, whence "humanist", "Renaissance humanism".[7]
Today[edit]
Education and employment[edit]
For many decades, there has been a growing public perception that a humanities education inadequately prepares graduates for employment.[42] The common belief is that graduates from such programs face underemployment and incomes too low for a humanities education to be worth the investment.[43]
Humanities graduates find employment in a wide variety of management and professional occupations. In Britain, for example, over 11,000 humanities majors found employment in the following occupations:
Philosophical history[edit]
Citizenship and self-reflection[edit]
Since the late 19th century, a central justification for the humanities has been that it aids and encourages self-reflection—a self-reflection that, in turn, helps develop personal consciousness or an active sense of civic duty.
Wilhelm Dilthey and Hans-Georg Gadamer centered the humanities' attempt to distinguish itself from the natural sciences in humankind's urge to understand its own experiences. This understanding, they claimed, ties like-minded people from similar cultural backgrounds together and provides a sense of cultural continuity with the philosophical past.[73]
Scholars in the late 20th and early 21st centuries extended that "narrative imagination"[74] to the ability to understand the records of lived experiences outside of one's own individual social and cultural context. Through that narrative imagination, it is claimed, humanities scholars and students develop a conscience more suited to the multicultural world we live in.[75] That conscience might take the form of a passive one that allows more effective self-reflection[76] or extend into active empathy that facilitates the dispensation of civic duties a responsible world citizen must engage in.[75] There is disagreement, however, on the level of influence humanities study can have on an individual and whether or not the understanding produced in humanistic enterprise can guarantee an "identifiable positive effect on people".[77]
Humanities and the transhumanities[edit]
There are three major branches in the human sciences (humanities). These are the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the cultural sciences. Technology is the practical extension of the natural sciences, as politics is the extension of the social sciences. Similarly, the cultural sciences have their own practical extension, sometimes called "culturonics" (Mikhail Epstein's term). The three extensions can be combined to form the transhumanities.