Humanities

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.

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In academia, the humanities are generally considered to be, along with the social sciences and the natural sciences, one of three major components of the liberal arts and sciences.

Related Topics:
Academia - Social sciences - Natural sciences - Liberal arts and sciences

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While the precise definition of the humanities can be contentious, the following disciplines are generally recognized to form their core:

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• Literature, literary criticism, and comparative literature
• Philosophy
• The Classics:
• Ancient Greek
• Latin
• The study of religion
• Law and Jurisprudence
• Art, art history, art criticism, and theory
• Music and Musicology
• Cultural and Area studies
• Regional interdisciplinary fields such as East Asian studies, American studies, and African-American studies

History, while also considered at times a social science, is one of the most prominent humanities in the United States as measured by foundation contributions, National Endowment for the Humanities projects, and National Humanities Centers fellowships.

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Some expand the definition to include other studies of human life using qualitative description and analysis, including at large parts of the following fields:

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• Cultural anthropology
• Sociology
• Political science
• Archaeology
• Some branches of economics

The 1980 United States Rockefeller Commission on the Humanities described the humanities in its report, The Humanities in American Life:

Related Topics:
1980 - United States

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: Through the humanities we reflect on the fundamental question: What does it mean to be human? The humanities offer clues but never a complete answer. They reveal how people have tried to make moral, spiritual, and intellectual sense of a world in which irrationality, despair, loneliness, and death are as conspicuous as birth, friendship, hope, and reason.

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Scholars working in the humanities are sometimes described as humanists, but this can be confusing, as it also describes a philosophical position (humanism) which some antihumanist scholars in the humanities reject.

Related Topics:
Humanism - Antihumanist

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Humanities: See also ►