What are the Humanities?

The name humanities is defined by science itself. It is a simple general term for those disciplines excluded from the natural and social sciences in the 20th century. Modern philosophy is defined by what was cleared up when science was formed, and other modern humanities first appeared in the form of classical language and literature, and later evolved into history, modern language, and even art history.

Humanities

The general characteristics of the humanities are mainly compared with the natural and social sciences (especially the latter):

Root cause: The humanities can be said to be the mother of many other disciplines today, especially the social science disciplines. Most of them have been differentiated from modern times.

Historic: Compared with the social sciences, it is mainly vertical, with a historical depth, deep roots, and long-term perspective. This is not only indispensable for a deep understanding of modern society and its future development, but also of human history. It is also a purpose in itself.

Differences: Or it is related to the particularities of different nationalities, civilizations and traditions. Natural science and social science pay more attention to discussing general rules, while humanities are closely related to the characteristics of various nationalities. It not only helps individuals to establish appropriate Identity also reminds people to pay attention to the differences and diversity of civilizations and cultures, as well as communication and complementarity. In addition, the humanities also has a particularity linked to the individual, which emphasizes individuality.

Comprehensive and comprehensive: Humanities are relatively broad-spectrum and widely applicable. They don't pay too much attention to the boundaries of specific professions (or broad fields of their own). They focus on the training of generalists or the talents of any profession. They all have a broad vision and foresight, have non-professional knowledge and a high degree of discrimination in literature, art, and morality.

It is especially related to language and literature. It attaches importance to generalism, general knowledge, and "gentleman is not a tool";

Humanities and Natural Sciences

It is the knowledge of the human inner world, and it is also different from the social sciences.

People have a deeper understanding of the power of natural sciences, and some people are dismissive of the humanities. In fact, the humanities and natural sciences have something in common. Their direction is to eliminate ignorance and backwardness, to achieve progressive civilization, and to liberate humanity itself. The difference is that what the humanities want to break down is the superstition of ideology and what to discover is

Humanities education

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Dilemma of reality

In today's new era of rising unemployment and declining contributions from college funds, it is urgent to re-examine the significance of the humanities in a high-tech society. Historical experience shows that economic decline often leads to issues such as linguistics, literature, art, history,

Humanities have different interests

There are three main differences between humanities and sciences (including natural and social sciences):

The purpose of all sciences, including natural sciences and social sciences, is to reveal the nature and laws of objects, and to obtain as much general knowledge about objects as possible. The main questions to be answered are "what", "how" and " Why "etc. In contrast, the fundamental purpose of the humanities is not to acquire knowledge about objects, but to search for human existence and its meaning, human values and their realization, and to express certain values and values ideals, so as to be human The behavior of the company establishes a certain value orientation, and its main answer is the question of what the target should be. It can be said that science is a pure knowledge system, and all science is a kind of "physical science"; while the humanities are a value system based on a certain knowledge, and all humanities are a "human science". For example, science (including natural sciences and social sciences) also studies people, but they only treat people as an established factual existence, that is, as a "thing" to study, and are committed to discovering the kinds of factual existence that dominate people. Laws, so their study of people is not fundamentally different from the study of other beings. In contrast, the humanities do not treat people as an established factual existence, but study people as people, that is, as a kind of unfinished existence. It can be said that scientific research and research in the humanities both seek to find something. Among them, the scientific research institute is looking for facts, such as electronics, human physical characteristics, or laws of psychological activity. The things it seeks are certain. It can be found, and once it is found, a specific empirical scientific research is completed; the situation of the humanities is very different. The thing it seeks is destined to be found from the beginning, or that Previous searchers always thought they had found them, but later searchers thought they hadn't found them completely. However, this does not detract from the importance of the humanities. The importance of the humanities is not in the result of the search but in the process of the search. This is because what the humanities are looking for is the meaning of human existence or the value of people, and the meaning of human existence and the value of people are not ready to be found somewhere for us to discover, but the process of searching in the humanities China is constantly being dug out and constantly being generated. It is through the endless digging and questioning of the meaning of human existence and the value of human beings that the humanities disciplines constantly show the unfinished state of human beings, unlike any other being, from new aspects and new heights.

The humanities also need to study things and the nature and laws of various factual existence, but it is never satisfied with, and not only discovers the nature and laws of objects, but always asks about such objects, objects, and so on. What does the general nature and law mean to human survival and development, to human value and its realization.

Humanities think differently

Regarding the difference in the direction of thinking between science and humanities, Li Kelte, one of the representatives of the neo-Kantian Freiburg school, has explained it. Rickert has analyzed the differences between cultural science (roughly equivalent to the humanities) and natural sciences. He believes that because of the need to discover general laws, the natural science always strives to "abstract" or "generalize" when researching objects, that is, it always strives to attribute individual facts to the role of certain laws and Performance, and promote special laws to general laws, thereby abstracting more and more common laws. Therefore, looking at people from a scientific perspective, people must be abstracted into "classes" that are indifferent. In contrast, cultural subjects always focus on "materialization" or "individualization" when researching objects. It emphasizes and cherishes the value of various individual things, things with unique characteristics, and unique things. To explore the rich meaning of human existence. This is true of literature, history, and philosophy, all of which are valued only when they express a unique value.

Lickelt's view makes sense. In fact, not only the direction of thinking in the natural sciences is "abstract" or "universalization", but also the direction of thinking in the social sciences. Social science disciplines such as politics, economics, law, sociology, etc. all aim to find the most general laws that govern a certain field of social life, and try to use this general law to explain individual social events. In the late 19th century, when these disciplines became independent, in order to obtain entry tickets to become "science," these disciplines even had to obey the "science" standards of the natural sciences, and borrowed a large number of natural science methods. After the 20th century, especially since the contemporary era, various social sciences have gradually formed research methods suitable for their own unique research objects. However, they are committed to exploring and discovering the general laws that govern the research objects of this discipline, and acquiring research objects about this discipline. There is no change in the general knowledge of the nature and laws of this. If there is any change that must be said, it is that they have done a better job than ever because they have a useful and more effective method. In short, "abstract" or "universalization" and "concreteization" or "individualization" are important differences in the direction of thinking between all sciences (including natural sciences and social sciences) and humanities.

In his famous book "Two Cultures", Snow, a famous British scientist and writer, Snow analyzed the opposition and difference between scientific culture and human culture, and raised the question: no one can doubt the progress of scientific culture, But this is not the case in the humanities and culture. For example, it is difficult to say that we understand Shakespeare better today than in the Shakespeare era. The essence of this question is: Is the humanities subject continuously progressing in its historical development? Obviously, this problem is caused by the unique direction of humanities. In my opinion, as far as each important theory or thought in the field of humanities in history expresses a unique value concept and value ideal, they occupy an irreplaceable position in the history of human thought and will never be out of date; However, as far as various humanities studies are constantly digging out the meaning of human existence and exploring human values from new aspects and new heights, all humanities are continuously realizing historical progress.

Humanities think differently

Each science has its own mission to explore the nature and laws of objects and acquire knowledge about objects. Such a purpose determines that all scientific thinking modes must be empirical. For example, if you want to explore the electrical conductivity of metals, to reveal the boiling or freezing point of water, to understand the laws of commodity circulation and exchange, etc., you must conduct empirical research and use experiments or empirical materials to convince people to believe in you. Analysis conclusion. In contrast, the purpose of the humanities is to express certain values or ideals. Therefore, its thinking mode cannot be empirical, in particular, the philosophy thinking mode is non-empirical. The propositions in the humanities that reflect a certain humanistic spirit often seem to be factual propositions (as a description of facts, the typical characteristics of factual propositions can be expressed in the sentence pattern "A is P"), but in fact But it is some value propositions (as an expression of some value concept or value ideal, the typical characteristic of value propositions is that they can be expressed in the sentence pattern "A should be P"). For example, Protagora's propositions that "man is the measure of all things", Croce's "all history is contemporary history", Dana's "art is a thing that is both elegant and popular" and so on are all in this way. These value propositions can neither be deduced from factual propositions nor verified by experience, they are all non-empirical.

Of course, when we say that all scientific thinking methods are empirical, we do not mean that the positivity or verifiability of natural sciences and social sciences are the same. Propositions in the natural sciences are value-neutral factual propositions. They are all provable in principle. Unlike social propositions, which are also factual propositions, because the social things that these propositions mean are often between researchers There are interests of one kind or another, so in most cases these propositions are not completely value neutral, in fact, the evidence is actually much lower than the natural science propositions. However, social scientists often tend to defend the value neutrality of the social science propositions they propose, because after all, the existence of the value load will damage the scientific nature of the social science propositions, which are themselves manifestations of imperfect social science propositions. According to its general purpose and direction of thinking, social science propositions will inevitably continue to be value-neutral, and they will continue to improve their verifiability or verifiability.

Similarly, when we say that the thinking mode of the humanities is non-empirical, it does not mean that the thinking modes of the humanities are the same. Although the fundamental purpose of the various humanities is the same, they are to reveal the meaning of human existence, explore the value of people and their ways of realization, but they are also very different in thinking. Among them, literature and art are expressive or "display", linguistics and history are comprehensible, and philosophy is reflective.

In short, the humanities and social sciences are very different things, and it is inappropriate to call them collectively called humanities and social sciences, or even to fully integrate the humanities into the social sciences. ^[1]