Talk:Humanities

Old talk

"The humanities are the classics (as derived from classical antiquity) and liberal arts; those subjects supposedly taught for their social and intellectual merit, rather than for pragmatic use."

I think the statement above is ignorant bigotry. Obviously, although many areas of mathematics have great pragmatic utility, others are studied primarily for their intellectual merit and esthetic beauty, and yet they are not humanities. Humanities are fields that study humans, human life, and human societies. To imply that it is only in fields studying humans, human life, and human societies that one finds "intellectual merit" is bigotry. Michael Hardy 21:48, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Better to change the definition than flag it as disputed. Be bold in editing. DJ Clayworth 22:06, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

By all means go ahead and add something useful to this stub. However, the only you refer to in your statement cannot be deduced from the text of the article. --KF 22:07, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The statement doesn't appear to make sense unless "only" was intended. Another problem is that the statement would seem to imply the implausible proposition that the study of humans lacks pragmatic utility. I'd have gone ahead and boldly edited if I hadn't been pressed for time when I wrote these comments. Michael Hardy 00:00, 28 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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If humanities are a "study of the human condition", does psychology qualify? If not, is the definition perhaps flawed in that it is too broad? --OldakQuill 22:16, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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"I stand upon a notch between Two Eternities." -thoreau-

The Humanities are based in (not on) the Human Condition. In that context, psychology certainly applies, but only if it is practiced Hippocratically and explained in Common Language. The same goes for Mathematics. The dividing lines are between Good and Evil and The Ancestry of Humanity and its Posterity.

Humanitarianism is Practical Humanity guided by enlightenment from the study of the Human Condition in the broadest possible context and an earnest desire to improve it (see altruism). The Humanities have given the Human Race a Continuum through which to pupetuate this process.  : Quinobi

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mathematics

I was always taught that mathematics was one of the humanities. Indeed, this is the conclusion reached by most contemporary philosophers of mathematics. It is certainly not a science or a natural science, because it is not dependent on empirical observation. Its motivations and drives, like the other humanities, cannot be reduced to a desire to understand natural phenomenon, which is the defining characteristic of the sciences. Revolver 00:43, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Languages?

Just wondering if perhaps the study of foreign languages and their associated literary tradition (letters) and also the study of language itself (linguistics) should be included here.

Arcan 10:34, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Linguistics is universally regarded as a social science. I'm going to remove the linguistics reference. cdworetzky 08:40, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Makes sense to me, but my school (Haverford College, in the U.S.) classifies linguistics classes (sociolinguistics being the only exception) as humanities. --Galaxiaad 15:01, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

That seems unusual to me. Do you know anyone else who does so? Maurreen 15:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The study of languages at university level is within the scope of "philology". Philology comes under literature as a humanities subject.

Planning -- what will this article cover and how will this be divided?

Suggestioned:

• Lead - a definition of the humanities, some disciplines, when word is used

• History

Here's an an excerpt from the Britannica article for inspiration:

"The modern conception of the humanities has its origin in the classical Greek paideia, a course of general education dating from the sophists in the mid-5th century BC, which prepared young men for active citizenship in the polis, or city-state; and in Cicero's humanitas (literally, “human nature”), a program of training proper for orators, first set forth in De Oratore (Of the Orator) in 55 BC. In the early Middle Ages the Church Fathers, including St. Augustine, himself a rhetorician, adapted paideia and humanitas—or the bonae (“good”), or liberales (“liberal”), arts, as they were also called—to a program of basic Christian education; mathematics, linguistic and philological studies, and some history, philosophy, and science were included.

The word humanitas, although not the substance of its component disciplines, dropped out of common use in the later Middle Ages but underwent a flowering and a transformation in the Renaissance. The term studia humanitatis (“studies of humanity”) was used by 15th-century Italian humanists to denote secular literary and scholarly activities (in grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, moral philosophy, and ancient Greek and Latin studies) that the humanists thought to be essentially humane and classical studies rather than divine ones. In the 18th century, Denis Diderot and the French Encyclopédistes censured studia humanitatis for what they claimed had by then become its dry, exclusive concentration on Latin and Greek texts and language. By the 19th century, when the purview of the humanities expanded, the humanities had begun to take their identity not so much from their separation from the realm of the divine as from their exclusion of the material and methods of the maturing physical sciences, which tended to examine the world "

• Bombastic modern essayists's thoughts on the matter

What else?

Lotsofissues 21:42, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

The French page seems to have a lot of material on it, could that be a source of ideas? (My French is pretty pauvre, je regrette) Walkerma 01:13, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I organised the page loosely as suggested above, with some added sections I thought appropriate. I have written some sections as best I could (I'm a chemist by training!), but the books I have are very much focused on the US. I would encourage those who work in this field to edit my attempts, which (being based on reading books) may miss the point at times. I will try to add a graph later to show changes in the humanities, and I may add a section on the concern about the effect of computers. Walkerma 07:58, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

At my school

History, Geography and Business & Economics are classed as Humanities. — Wackymacs 18:03, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• Oh. I should also note that this is in the United Kingdom, so maybe this information should be added somewhere to the article. — Wackymacs 18:06, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• I think this was the case in my school also. It was in the UK. --Oldak Quill 23:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

• History is classified here as humanities. The others are social sciences. in the Netherlands. Globe-trotter 01:10, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Worldwide view

I'm a chemist so it's a struggle for me to work on this, but I am working through four books on the subject. However all of the views in these books cover the humanities in Europe or the US. I see someone has just tagged this article as "not representing a worldwide view" so I am not the only one concerned about this. Is there someone who could provide a perspective of the humanities from (say) China or the Arab world (both of which have articles on the Humanities)? Also, in the French article the last sentence is "Les situations « officielles » des disciplines sont différentes selon les pays de la francophonie en particulier." This means (I think) "The official organisation of disciplines is different in French-speaking countries in particular." So we should get the Francophone view also. Walkerma 18:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Being confined to the US *and* Europe would sadly be still better than our current article (let alone some ideal "worldwide view"). The present article is entirely confined to the US. --Oldak Quill 21:32, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

It should be noted that, in Francophone communities, the idea of "humanities" or "les science humains" is more closely related to the Germanic-speaking communities discipline of "social sciences" (e.g. sociology, psychology, economics) User:Guest 21:48, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

The ¨Humanities today¨ section is specially problematic because it only shows the US POV--Andres rojas22 20:55, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

These points above are well-taken, especially the US-centric part -- we need more European (and for that matter, Middle Eastern) representation, especially speaking to the eras when those cultures carried the Humanities along for several centuries (say 11th-18th centuries). Still, I'm not sure how appropriate it is to talk about a "worldwide view" on something that is a distinctively *Western* dichotomy -- historically it's not an Eastern idea (i.e., looking previous to the 20th century, before the East was strongly influenced by Western thinking) to divide empirical sciences from critical/speculative ones, as though they belong in completely separate buckets.

In other words, the decision to group several disciplines together, and to consider them a major division of Academia, and to give them the name "Humanties," was all a Western invention. To push this categorization and labeling onto all the other cultures, rather than being an exercise in open-mindedness, might be more of an intellectual imperialism. --Tim Musgrove

Philosophy

Although some aspects of philosophy concern the "human condition" (eg. epistemology), *many* do not. I had always considered it a social science. If philosophy were to be included then surely sociology/psychology should also - they are as concerned with the "human condition" as epistemology. Any thoughts on this? --Oldak Quill 21:29, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

The reason why philosophy is not considered a social science (at least in most places) is because of its methods of discovery. The natural and social sciences depend on experiments and empirical data, although the social sciences sometimes face difficulties in performing experiments (it'd be unethical and impractical to start a war in order to study how societies rebuild themselves). Philosophy and the other humanities usually arrive at their conclusions through other means, such as a close reading of a text or through "thought experiments." Without necessarily criticizing the validity of these methods, they are not empirical and are usually open to much more interpretation than say a physicist's work. --Impaciente 17:01, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Surely the scoial sciences study the human condition too, but such fact is not ruled out at all by the intro statement here about "human condition." As for philosophy, every major branch of it, except perhaps basic logic, touches on the human condition (and higher logics such as metalogic, modal logic, and intentional logic arguably *do* address the human condition). --Tmusgrove 04:12, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Er, metaphysics isn't much about the human condition (and I don't reckon most areas of logic are either). Logic & metaphysics form two pretty big branches of philosophy. Ben Finn 20:37, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Clearly we don't think of metaphyics and logic as being *primarily* about the human condition, but to assert that metaphysics doesn't touch on the human condition is to take up a particular position in metaphysics that would need to argued for, against other metaphysics. Think about Heidegger and his ancient Greek predecessors. Or Kant's "Metaphysics of Morals". Anyway, this is all a side-track -- the original point (reading above) is that philosophy is largely about the human condition. Even in the branches of philosophy that are not largely about the human condition (metaphysics and logic) one can *still* find aspects that at least *touch* upon the human condition. --Tmusgrove

Intro sentence is terrible

The current intro sentence for this article is horrible:

"The humanities are a group of academic subjects united by a commitment to studying aspects of the human condition and a qualitative approach that generally prevents a single paradigm from coming to define any discipline."

What the heck does that mean? Try comparing it with Encyclopedia Britannica's intro:

"The humanities are those branches of knowledge that concern themselves with human beings and their culture or with analytic and critical methods of inquiry derived from an appreciation of human values and of the unique ability of the human spirit to express itself."

Can we come up with something better? Kaldari 02:43, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

This sentence was rewritten but contains one serious flaw: the humanities do not 'study' the human condition (that would be 'humanology'), rather the humanities 'cultivate' human character. The word 'humanities' derives from the Latin 'humanitas' which the Lewis and Scott Latin Lexicon defines as "humane or gentle conduct" and "mental cultivation befitting a man, liberal education, ...". It is this sense which Martha Nussbaum employs in her book 'Cultivating Humanity' (which is cited as a source in this Wikipedia article). A more broad sense of 'humanitas' is employed idiosyncratically by Cicero in several ways. I therefore suggest a change in the the opening sentence to read something like "The humanities are those intellectual and practical disciplines that seek to cultivate in each individual the essential characteristics that define human nature". 86.162.163.82 (talk) 17:19, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this is a problem, especially given that "human condition" has rather specific philosophical connotations. This is worth working on. Do other editors have ideas? Fixer1234 (talk) 20:09, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Branches

Is there any opposition to having one or more sections for various branches, such as art, history, etc? Maurreen 04:18, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't see how it could hurt to try. Don't go overboard with detailing the specific branches (there should probably only be 2–3 paragraphs at most for each, and we should avoid giving unbalanced coverage to one or two humanities fields over the others), but some more detail on the actual fields concerned, and perhaps how they are studied in relation to one another in a "humanities" program, could certainly be valuable and appropriate. And it'd probably be a hell of a lot better than a simple list! -Silence 04:51, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Relevevancy

"The humanities will have to adapt rapidly to these changes if they are to remain relevant."

That statement, from "Humanities in the digital age" is just wrong. The Humanities cannot become irrelevent anymore than math or the social sciences. The term "Humanities" refers to the very field of study that is the human of humanity, it can never become irrelevent. As long as there are humans the field will be relevent, regardless of whether or not it remains a wide spread field of human interest.--Shadowlance 22:32, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this concern, and would like to voice a broader concern about the "Humanities today" section. The section is relatively well-sourced, which is nice -- but a lot of its summary assertions are garbled, superficial, or just plain wrong. I think it needs a lot of clean-up work, and may take a crack at it myself, but comments would be welcome. -- Rbellin|Talk 23:10, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Astrology

I've cut the following paragraph until a source can be provided:

These sections originally corresponded to Astrological concepts, namely being the seven traditional Astrological planets. A typical course of study began with grammar, ruled by the fastest planet, the Moon, and culminated with Saturn, governing Astronomia, which included both astronomy and astrology. ‹The template Talkfact is being considered for merging.› 

The link to the astrology article appeared to contain a reference, but in fact its "external" link pointed to the same assertion on an out-of-date Wikipedia mirror, hardly an appropriate reference. If the correspondence between the Zodiac and the liberal arts indeed historically existed (I'm not even sure what "originally" is supposed to mean here), a source shouldn't be too hard to find. -- Rbellin|Talk 23:10, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorokin ?

Sorokin seems like an interesting person, but his unlinked picture unexplained in the text (apparently illustrating post-modern thinkers) seems very disproportionate when only Plato and Shakespeare are shown above.--jb 15:48, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

{{{{Portal}}}}

I think humanities should have a Portal. PianoKeys 19:55, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

feedback needed

For those of you who do not know, over the past several weeks people have been rewriting the WP:NOR policy. Several people who are most active have background in the natural sciences. Nothing wrong with this, but people in the physical and life sciences talk about and use sources differently from people in the humanities. Obviously the policy needs to be informed by and applicable to both groups. I hope anyone who has this page on their watchilist will review the discussion at Wikipedia talk:No original research and comment on various proposals. Slrubenstein | Talk 09:48, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Arts and Science

Hi! Just a question. Do english people consider arts (such arts as music, theatre, cinema etc.) as sciences? My interest arose because in Slavic countries (Ukraine, Russia and other...) the arts are not sciences as any art is considered to work with artistic characters that any science never do. This way for example we consider the musicology as a scince but never consider music as a science. Do english people think in a different way? --A4 09:06, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

• No, although sometimes yes, but not in the strict sense known as hard science which I believe I think you mean with your question. As science can be defined as: (1) the observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena, (2) an activity that appears to require study and method. The following is from the American Heritage Science Dictionary: "Science: The investigation of natural phenomena through observation, theoretical explanation, and experimentation, or the knowledge produced by such investigation. Science makes use of the scientific method, which includes the careful observation of natural phenomena, the formulation of a hypothesis, the conducting of one or more experiments to test the hypothesis, and the drawing of a conclusion that confirms or modifies the hypothesis". (I realise this is an old question, and hopefully you got a better answer by now, but just in case. :) KB (talk) 23:22, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:PF 916002~Puccini-Turandot-Posters.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 14:46, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Alternative to "Humanist"

What is the alternative term/name used for scholars working in the Humanities besides the only partially accepted "Humanist?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Carlon (talk • contribs) 02:48, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Methods of the humanities?

The opening paragraph:

The humanities are academic disciplines which study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytic, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences.

The links to "analytic", "critical", and "speculative" are all disambiguation pages. This helps explain things not at all. I'm not sure what is meant here. That the methods are primarily a priori? Can someone clarify? 75.15.113.37 (talk) 19:44, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

humanities

in about 10years ago, many people in the world have discover many things that contribute to the development of their mother country. It is essential to all people because of this things can be a great invention that never seen before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.28.166.71 (talk) 02:45, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Studia humanitates

The Humane studies, According to Cicero:

Rationale for humane studies (letters)

"Si ex his studiis delectatio sola peteretur, tamen, ut opinor, hanc animi remissionem humanissimam ac liberalissimam iudicaretis. Nam ceterae neque temporum sunt neque aetatum omnium neque locorum; at haec studia adulescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, res secundas ornant, adversis perfugium ac solacium praebent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur."

"Even if mere entertainment were our only objective in the study of literature, you would still, in my opinion, regard this pursuit as the most humanizing and liberating of intellectual activities. For no other pursuit is appropriate to all times, all ages, all situations; but this study nurtures our youth, delights our old age, brightens the good times, and provides a refuge and comfort in bad times; literature brings us pleasure at home, does not hamper us at work, and is the companion of our nights, our travels, our country retreats.": --Cicero, Pro Archia Archia Poeta 7.16):

Cicero speaks elsewhere, in his treatises De Officiis and De Republica, on the ethics of war, acknowledging that war is sometimes inevitable but that the first recourse in international conflict resolution should always be to negotiation rather than to violence, cum illud proprium sit hominis, hoc belvarum ("since the one course of action is appropriate to humankind, the other to beasts," De Off. 1.11.34). [1]

In the Middle Ages, law students studied rhetoric, or the art of persuasion, as an essential technique of their profession. In the Renaissance, however, beginning with Petrarch (c. 1310-1380) there was a movement to focus on the philosophical purpose of persuasion, which was to lead men to wisdom (virtue). The humanists looked to Cicero and other Latin authors as their guides, both stylistic and philosophical. Teachers of rhetoric, called dictatores, began also to write treatises on government. They also called into question more traditional Medieval educational programs, which had become a very theoretical and technical study devoted to the fine points of Aristotelean logic and syllogisms, and which featured incorrect and sloppy Latin.

The subjects of the studia humanitatis of classical tradition are: Poetry (see above); Rhetoric (developing a polished style), History (which teaches prudence, one of the most important political virtues), and ancient Moral and Political Philosophy. See Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics, Vol. III: Renaissance Virtues (Cambridge University Press, [2002] 2007), p. 2. The virtues essential for the citizens and leaders of a well ordered commonwealth comprise: Prudence, Fortitude (courage), Temperance, and Justice (to which Magnanimity, a Stoic, or Senecan virtue, was sometimes added). See Skinner, p. 96. The Heavenly virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity were above, but did not supersede these. Rather they completed them. In the Renaissance it was thought that virtue rather than birth constituted true nobility.

Humanistic study of ancient texts used comparative analysis, and achieved great things. Comparing the style of one textual copy to another of the same work, for example, they could detect inconsistencies and error. Comparing texts of different authors, they learned to identify different styles and periods. The continued use of this form of analysis eventually (very slowly) led to a new way of viewing history as embodying to continuous change and development, of languages, works of art and literature, as well as of institution. This kind of thinking gradually undermined the former view of humanity and its works as uniform and unchanging. It is not the same as experimental science, but it is a kind of thinking essential to any kind of rational knowledge.173.56.164.199 (talk) 06:08, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia! I am glad to see you are interested in discussing a topic. However, as a general rule, talk pages such as Talk:Humanities are for discussion related to improving the article, not general discussion about the topic. If you have specific questions about certain topics, consider visiting our reference desk and asking them there instead of on article talk pages. Thank you. --

If the above was addressed to me, I was under the impression that I had added to the discussion page material that ought to appear in the article. But perhaps someone else would like to do it.

The term "humanities" has a precise pedagogical meaning. The humanities were taught for a reason, not because of some vague respect for the classics, but in order to train lawyers and leaders of the community to use the art of persuasion for a good (ethical) purpose. The ultimate purpose was the common good, making it possible for people to achieve the good life, one suitable to human beings. This can be achieved through a just government where all are equal before the law.

This very traditional rationale for teaching the humanities, passed down for two thousand years, is not just "talk" but is information found in many many books over the centuries. By no means is it simply my opinion. I don't see any of this in the article and therefore consider the article defective. The humanities are: Rhetoric, History, and Moral philosophy. Rhetoric (which used to include ancient and modern languages but no longer does) has become communication studies, history has become social science, and moral philosophy has become ethics. Whether this is an improvement people can decide for themselves

The other point I was trying to make is that there is no conflict between empirical science and the rational analysis used in the humanities, other than that a humanistic approach would be to communicate experimental results in a style that is polished and easy to understand. 173.56.164.199 (talk) 04:39, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

bioengineers and human-animal hybrids

The mention that bioengineers would want to make human-animal hybrids appears more like science fiction than reality to me (last paragraph in last section, 3.3.4). Maybe a reference would be appropriate for this or else change the way it is written. It is true that genetic engineering is used to introduce human genes in animals (generally for research purpose). However, "human-animal hybrids" sounds more like a human with lizard scales or eagle eyes... or other strange "Frankenstein-like" creations. I understand this article is not about bioengineering, but this sentence looks misleading to me.Jonatp (talk) 04:43, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

"Humanities" ?

I've put an Internationalisation flag on this article, because the definition given of Humanities seems to be the North American one. In N.A. and European English, the term is used (as defined) to mean subjects relating to the human condition. However, in British English, it refers to humanising subjects : those that make use into humans. Perhaps this is a subtle distinction in many cases, but linguistics and theology, for example, wouldn't be included under this heading in a UK context. The corresponding term in British English would be "Humanistics". Neuralwarp (talk) 17:00, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense. "Humanities" a North American term? Last time I checked, both Oxford and Cambridge had schools of humanities: see http://www.cshss.cam.ac.uk/ and http://www.humanities.ox.ac.uk.Fixer1234 (talk) 00:36, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Introduction

The last sentence of the introduction, "However, that term also describes the philosophical position of humanism, which some "antihumanist" scholars in the humanities reject," might better be modified to "scholars in the humanities [may] reject," but that could be {or}. In the current case, however, it is a {cn} for sure. Twipley (talk) 17:09, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree, that last sentence is a little awkward. Perhaps a simple clarification as to the two definitions of "humanism". Bpenguin17 (talk) 21:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)