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Summary
Offers historical and philosophical arguments for treating the humanities as sciences.
Human Sciences assesses the importance and value of the humanities historically and philosophically, and makes the case for treating them as sciences. Through careful examination of the characteristics they share with the natural and social sciences, as well as what distinguishes them from other scientific fields, the book argues that the humanities may be seen to correspond with the German/Latin Wissenschaft/scientia--that is, as systematic, organized bodies of knowledge, rather than as branches of knowledge that should necessarily emulate the quantitative and experimental approach of the natural sciences. After analyzing the humanities from historical and philosophical perspectives, the book presents a general philosophy of science that results from an analysis of the features that are shared by the humanities and the natural and social sciences, and then applies some of these insights to philosophical problems of particular relevance for the humanities, such as moral philosophy and the relation between art and cognition.
"The originality of the work is unquestionable. It is the product of deep learning and reflection, and it provides a fresh look at the development of and the prospects for the humanities." -- Lewis Pyenson, coauthor of Servants of Nature: A History of Scientific Institutions, Enterprises, and Sensibilities
"This is an extremely timely subject, especially as the value and importance of the humanities have recently come into question so prominently in the national press. It is a continuing concern of higher education, especially as colleges and universities face increasing pressure to stress professional and scientific education. The question of how the humanities should serve to prepare students and the public at large for the many challenges life provides is one reason this book is of considerable interest." -- Joseph W. Dauben, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York
Jens Hoyrup is Professor in the Section for Philosophy and Science Studies at Roskilde University in Denmark and the author of In Measure, Number, and Weight: Studies in Mathematics and Culture, also published by SUNY Press.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Some Fundamental Concepts
Part I: Institutions, Professions, and Ideas
Approaching the Humanities through their History and Settings
1 A Bronze Age Scribal Culture: A Sociological Fable with an Implicit Moral
Brain work and state formation
The first intellectuals
Scribal "humanism"
2 Classical Antiquity
The rise of philosophy
From the Sophists to Aristotle
The epoch of Hellenization
The impact of Christianity
3 The Middle Ages
An era of renascences
The Central Middle Ages (750 to 1050)
The age of the Liberal Arts
The rise of universities
Aristotelianism
The compromise
The fourteenth century
The post-medieval university
4 The Renaissance
Renaissance and Humanism
The wider context
Humanist scholarship, pedantry, and the humanities
A "Scientific Renaissance"?
5 The Early Modern Epoch and Classicism
A shifting centre of gravity
Courtly culture and classicism
From scientific to philosophical revolution
Scholarly and theoretical activity
The problem of the Baroque
6 The Enlightenment
The appearance of the "public sphere"
The Enlightenment movement and its workers
General themes and accomplishment
Philosophy redefined
Enlightenment and Revolution
7 The Nineteenth Century
The institutionalization of unbounded scientific quest
The German university reform and the humanities
"Positive knowledge"
Popularized science and popular science
Academic and non-academic humanities
8 Toward the Present: Scientific Humanities
9 Bibliographic Essay
Part II: Human Science and Human "Nature"
10 Cognitive Interests
11 Anthropologies
12 Theories of Created Man
Determination by the body
Environmental determination
Sociologisms
Weberian sociology: an example
Structuralisms
Functionalism
13 Humanity as Freedom
The early Sartre: freedom as an absolute principle
The elusive connection: freedom versus explanation
14 Toward Synthesis: Human Nature as Dialectic and History
Dialectic
Summing up
Part III: The Art of Knowing An Essay on Epistemology in Practice
15 INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS
Philosophy and the problem of knowledge
16 A Piagetian Introduction to the General Problem of Knowledge
Schemes and dialectic
The periods
Supplementary observations
The status of schemes and categories
17 The Nature and Demarcation of Scientific Knowledge
A pseudo-historical introduction to some key concepts
Empiricism and falsificationism
Instrumentalism and truth
Instruments or models?
18 A New Approach: Theories about the Scientific Process
Popper and Lakatos: theories or research programmes?
Theories falsified by theories
The limits of formalization
Kuhn: Paradigms and finger exercises
The structure of scientific development
Collective and individual knowledge
Two kinds of"logic"
Objections and further meditations
19 Truth, Causality, and Objectivity
Truth
Causality
Objectivity, subjectivity, and particularism
20 The Role of Norm
Logic and norms
Explanations of morality
Morality, language and social practice
Knowledge, norms and ideology
Value relativism and value nihilism
Institutional imperatives
Theoretical versus applied science
Further norms, contradictions, contradictory interpretations
21 The Theory of Interdisciplinary and Applied Science
