Humanities

We explain what the humanities are and what their object of study is. In addition, we tell you how they differ from the social sciences.

What are the humanities?

The humanities are one of the great fields of knowledge, along with the natural sciences, the formal sciences and the social sciences. It is a set of academic disciplines related in one way or another to the human being, culture and the thought and whose approach in general does not aspire to formulate universal laws but rather to produce critical or creative interpretations and considerations regarding the way of being and acting of humanity.

There is no absolute consensus regarding which disciplines make up the field of the humanities and which, on the other hand, belong to the social sciences. However, it is generally accepted that the humanities comprise the studies of literature, languages, visual and performing arts, history, religion, philosophy and law, among others.

The term “humanities” (from the Latin humanitas) arose in a modern sense during the Renaissance to give a name to the knowledge that was available to human beings and that differed from theological and religious knowledge. In this sense, it was called studia humanitatis (“study of humanity”) to studies on classical Greco-Roman authors, grammar, rhetoric, poetry, moral philosophy and history. With the arrival of rationalist thought in the 17th and 18th centuries, this distinction lost its centrality, but the name continued to be used, this time to distinguish the humanistic disciplines from the natural sciences.

In general, the humanities were born associated with the so-called classical knowledge, based on the Greco-Roman tradition. This tradition began with a form of general education in Ancient Greece known as paideia (“education” or “learning”) and with a model of intellectual and moral training called humanitasdefended by the Roman thinker Cicero (106-43 BC). Both experiences were adapted to religious values ​​by some Christian intellectuals of the Middle Ages, until they were recovered by Renaissance scholars.

In some academic contexts, the German term “human sciences” is preferred (Geisteswissenschaftenliterally “sciences of the spirit”), used in the 19th century by the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey to describe those areas of knowledge that are distinguished from the natural sciences by their topics of study. However, among those who prefer the term “humanities”, some follow the considerations of the philosopher Heinrich Rickert, who at the beginning of the 20th century stated that What distinguishes these disciplines from the natural sciences is the research method: while the natural sciences start from particular cases to formulate general laws, the humanities study the particular with interest in their own values ​​and cultural contexts.

Today, the humanities are part of the training and research courses of many universities around the world. Although many humanities departments are experiencing difficulties (such as lack of funding or the closure of subjects and majors), these disciplines are still considered a source of knowledge of great importance for the critical thinking intellectual and moral training, and artistic sensitivity as well as to make sense of the transformations that the world is going through in a time of great technological innovations and social and environmental challenges.

Humanities and social sciences The humanities and social sciences share an intellectual concern for human beings, societies and culture. However, they differ in that the humanities typically use qualitative procedures to understand and interpret human experience, while the social sciences typically use quantitative methods to measure and study social phenomena.

Object of study of the humanities

The object of study of The humanities is, in a broad sense, humanity from a cultural point of view. That is, it focuses on human activities, customs, beliefs, values ​​and creative expressions (aesthetic and intellectual).

In general, intellect and creative capacity are considered their main points of interest expressed in very different ways, such as language and writing, visual representation, symbolic production, ethical and legal norms or reflection on the essence of the world and things.

The various disciplines that make up the humanities allow analyze the different aspects of the human experience in different places and times in history. This implies taking into account both the human dimension in general and the specific cultural characteristics of each historical situation.

Difference between humanities and social sciences

The humanities and social sciences have a common denominator that distinguishes them from the natural sciences: Both are fundamentally interested in human being the society and culture. However, they do it in different ways.

On the one hand, The humanities focus on the understanding and interpretation of human experience culture and representations, which involves mostly qualitative procedures (critical analysis of texts and images, philosophical argumentation, comparative method, among others).

On the other hand, The social sciences aspire to the scientific study of society and to do so they use conceptual and methodological tools that often come from the study of nature, such as the concepts of “structure” or “social evolution” and the quantitative method or other uses of mathematical language.

For example, a humanistic approach can study the political discourses of a society based on its texts and images, to understand and interpret the ideas that reside in them, compare them with other historical discourses and explain their functioning at the level of language or construction. of power. On the other hand, a social science approach can study these same discourses through surveys and opinion polls to try to measure and statistically capture the effect they produce on the minds and attitudes of citizens, and perhaps offer predictive values ​​(which They may turn out to be right or wrong.

Traditionally, some of the disciplines that are today considered social sciences belonged to the field of humanities, while others have a more recent history that placed them in this field of knowledge from the beginning. Since the concept of social sciences is quite young compared to that of humanities, There is still much debate regarding which disciplines make up the humanistic field and which are social sciences.

Humanistic disciplines

Although there are different criteria when determining which disciplines are part of the field of humanities, the following are generally accepted as humanistic disciplines:

• Philosophy. It includes the study of reality, existence and thought from a rational approach, that is, it addresses fundamental categories such as truth, being, knowledge, morality, among others.
• Literature. Also called “letters”, it includes the literary arts and the set of knowledge that has been produced and is being produced around them, such as literary criticism, literary theory and the history of literature.
• Visual and performing arts. It includes the study of the various forms of artistic representation developed throughout history, particularly the visual arts (such as painting, sculpture, architecture or photography) and the performing arts (such as music, dance or theatre), as well as the different theoretical and criticism of the artistic fact.
• History. It includes the study of the human past based on the written texts and other evidence (archaeological, visual or oral) that it has left behind, and the critical rereading of what other researchers and historians have written.
• Languages. It includes the linguistic study of current and past languages, understood as an important reflection of diverse cultures, and includes aspects such as grammar, rhetoric and discourse analysis.
• Geography human. It includes the study of human representations of the Earth's crust throughout history, such as cartography, and the forms of population distribution in the world, although the more physical and technical aspects of geography are usually associated with the sciences. social.
• Librarianship. It includes the study of information and the mechanisms for its storage and preservation, especially in books and libraries. It may have a more humanistic or more technical approach. In some cases the term “information science” is preferred.
• communication sciences. It includes the study of human communication in its different facets, including journalism and social communication, although it is often included in the area of ​​social sciences or is considered to constitute both fields.
• Right. It includes the study of laws and systems of administration of justice, whether today or in past societies. In some cases it is considered an entirely separate area, known as legal sciences, or as part of the social sciences.
• Religion. It includes the study of religions, both in particular and in comparative perspective, and their sacred texts. It includes the analysis of the history, theology, doctrines and rituals of different religions.

References

• Hoyrup, J. (2000). Human Sciences: Reappraising the Humanities Through History and Philosophy. State University of New York Press.
• Madsbjerg, C. (2017). Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm. Hachette.
• Saladino García, A. (1994). Humanities: concept and identity. The Hive. Magazine of the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico(3), 40-44. https://dialnet.unirioja.es/
• The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica (2024). Humanities. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/