The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences.
The humanities include ancient and modern languages, literature, history, philosophy, religion, and visual and performing arts such as music and theatre. The humanities that are also regarded as social sciences include history, anthropology, area studies, communication studies, cultural studies, law and linguistics. Scholars working in the humanities are sometimes described as "humanists". However, that term also describes the philosophical position of humanism, which some "antihumanist" scholars in the humanities reject. Some secondary schools offer humanities classes, usually consisting of English literature, global studies, and art.
Human disciplines like history, cultural anthropology and psychoanalysis study subject matters to which the experimental method does not apply, and they have access instead to the comparative method and comparative research.
Read more about Humanities: Origin of The Term, History of The Humanities
Famous quotes containing the word humanities:
“There is no true expertise in the humanities without knowing all of the humanities. Art is a vast, ancient interconnected web-work, a fabricated tradition. Overconcentration on any one point is a distortion.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)