HumanitiesThe
Humanities are academic
disciplines which
study the
human condition, using methods that are largerly
analytic,
critical or
speculative, as distinguished from the mainly
empirical approaches of the
natural and
social sciences.
Examples of the disciplines related to humanities are
ancient and
modern languages,
literature,
history,
phililosophy,
religion,
visual, and
performing arts (including
music). Additional
subjects sometimes included in the humanities are
anthropology,
area studies,
communications and
cultural studies, although these are often regarded as social sciences. Scholars working in the humanities are sometimes described as "humanists". However, that term also describes the philosophical position of
humanism, which some "
antihumanist" acholars in the humanities reject.
history of the Humanities
In the West, the study of the humanities can be traced to ancient Greece, as the basis of a broad education for citizens. During Roman times, the concept of the seven
liberal arts evolved, involving
grammar,
rhetoric and
logic (the
trivium), along with
arithmetic,
geometry,
astronomia and
music (the
quadrivium). These subjects formed the bulk of
medieval education, with the emphasis being on the humantiesas skills or "ways of doing".
A major shift occurred during the renaissance, when the humanities began to be regarded as subjects to be studied rather than practised, with a corresponding shift away from the traditional fields into areas such as literature and history. In the 20th century, this view was in turn challenged by the
postmodernist movement, which sought to redefine the humanities in more
egalitarian terms suitable for a
democratic society.
How are the Humanities Useful?
This thinking sometimes leads to results as in
important political and religious systems or societal and historical change, and especially in the arts. Sometimes such thinking goes nowhere, creating only its own endless circles that critics and thinkers may argue forever.
Most of the people in any one humanities discipline feel comfortable talking about the other humanities disciplines. After all, they all go together.
History,
philosophy, the study of
society and
culture,
religion, the
arts all depend on each other and interweave thier understandings of themselves with thier understandings of each other.
Be careful, though, if you discover a
critic,
teacher, or
artist in any of the disciplines who tries to tell you the other branches of the
humanities disciplines are less important than his or her own. Those of us who write books like this one, who teach the humanities, or who actually practice them sometimes become
too critical,
too intellectual,
too impractical about the humanities. The humanities are
not dead theories. Rather, they are alive.
They are parts of the soul of our human race. Just as all parts of one''s own soul are important, so are the all the parts of the soul of our human race. The humanities reflect the diversity of humanity. No one discipline or field of the humanities is of greater or more powerful importance.
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