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The Humanities
University, Humanities
Disciplines that study the human condition and culture from an interdisciplinary perspective. Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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What you need to know
Read the full theory →Definition, evolution, and methodology of the humanities
- Definition: Study of essential aspects of human existence (culture, art, history, etc.)
- Ideographic character: Study of particularities without creating general laws
- Differentiation: The humanities have an Anglo-Saxon orientation, unlike the human sciences
- Western canon: Based on Greco-Roman Antiquity (criticized for biases such as Eurocentrism)
- Scientifity: Academic debate on whether they seek a scientific condition or the cultivation of the past (philology and hermeneutics)
- Disciplines included: Philosophy, law, sociology, anthropology, political science, philology, history, geography, art studies, communication sciences, theology, and religion
- Etymology: Studia humanitatis (15th century) = grammar, poetry, rhetoric, history, and moral philosophy
- Roman liberal arts: Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and Quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music)
- Evolution: From practical skills (Middle Ages) to theoretical subjects of study (Renaissance)
- Methods: Comparative, hermeneutic, source criticism, aesthetic interpretation, and speculative reason
Foundations of the Human Sciences, Thought, Language, and Fields of Study
- Human sciences: study of human origin, structure, functioning, and behavior.
- Physical anthropology: contributions regarding the final evolutionary episode.
- Anatomy: origin in Alexandria around the year 300 B.C.
- Physiology: began in 1598 with William Harvey.
- Moral sciences: term for products of mental activity (18th century: psychologists).
- Human sciences: born in the 19th century under scientific rationality (Foucault).
- Geisteswissenschaften (Human sciences): Wilhelm Dilthey's term for the study of the historical-cultural environment.
- Constructivism: a theory seeking to integrate matter, spirit, and conscious reflection.
- Humanism: human dignity based on the creative power of the intellect.
- Cognitive science: origin in the study of thought and language as cognition.
- Shared intelligences (Gardner): language and mathematics.
- Loops of the human condition (Morin): brain-mind-culture, reason-affect-impulse, individual-society-species.
- Classical culture: study of ancient Greek, Latin, and Greco-Roman.
- History: study and interpretation of the human record through time.
- Linguistics: scientific study of language (can be a social, natural, or cognitive science).
- Literature: core of the modern humanities (prose, poetry, and theater).
Fundamental concepts of Law, Literature, and Philosophy
- Law: system of norms, interpretative concept, authority, or sovereign mandate
- Law as a social science: due to its objective and measurable nature
- Law as a humanities discipline: due to its focus on values and interpretation
- Legal policy: integration of philosophy, history, political science, economics, anthropology, and sociology
- Law and economics: impact on productivity and wealth distribution (contracts, property, labor)
- Literature: works written with literary merit or language distinct from the ordinary
- Etymology of literature: 'writing formed with letters' (includes spoken/sung texts)
- Literary classification: fiction/non-fiction, poetry/prose, novel, short story, drama
- Philosophy: critical and systematic study of existence, knowledge, truth, justice, good, evil, beauty, mind, and language
- Current fields of philosophy: logic, ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology
- Analytic philosophy: emphasis on mathematical logic, conceptual analysis, and formal methods
- Key influences in analytic philosophy: Frege, Russell, Moore, and Wittgenstein
Fundamental concepts and classification of religions
- Religious studies are a social science
- The definition of religion is not universal
- Religion is a communal phenomenon that uses rituals for cohesion
- Ethics is not a mandatory requirement of religion (e.g., Shintoism and Taoism)
- The supernatural is that which cannot be explained by science or reason
- Magical thinking creates explanations that are not empirically verifiable
- Myths are didactic narratives about the human condition
- Key concepts: pollution/purification, sacred/profane, sacred texts, institutions, sacrifice, and prayer
- Problems addressed: chaos, suffering, evil, and death
- Non-founding religions: Hinduism, Shintoism, and native/folk religions
- Founding religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Confucianism, Taoism, Mormonism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and the Bahá'í Faith
- Religions must adapt to remain relevant
Flashcard preview (6 of 20)
- 01
Etymology of 'humanities' (Renaissance Latin):
studia humanitatis
- 02
In the Renaissance, what defined the 'human letters' in opposition to the 'divine letters'?
The humanities
- 03
What character is attributed to humanistic disciplines in contrast to the creation of general laws?
Ideographic character
- 04
In the 15th century, what subjects composed the 'studia humanitatis' course?
Grammar, poetry, rhetoric, history, and moral philosophy
- 05
In addition to the comparative method, what other methods do the humanities use?
Hermeneutics, source criticism, aesthetic interpretation, and speculative reason
- 06
According to Michel Foucault, in which century were the human sciences born under a model of scientific rationality?
19th Century
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