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The humanities are academic disciplines that study human society and culture. They explore what it means to be human by looking at our creative works, ideas, languages, histories, and beliefs. The humanities include fields such as philosophy, history, literature, language, religion, and the arts (including music, theater, dance, painting, and film). These subjects use methods that are mainly critical, interpretive, or reflective, which sets them apart from the natural sciences (like physics or biology), which rely on experiments and measurements.
The word "humanities" comes from the Latin phrase studia humanitatis, meaning "the study of humanity." During the Renaissance, this phrase described a course of education based on ancient Greek and Roman classics. Students studied grammar, rhetoric (the art of persuasion), poetry, history, and moral philosophy. Scholars who devoted themselves to these subjects were called umanisti ("humanists"), and they played a key role in reviving classical learning across Europe.
Today, the humanities are often defined by contrast with other branches of knowledge. They are not natural sciences (which study the physical world), not formal sciences like mathematics (which deal with abstract systems), and not applied sciences (which focus on practical training). The humanities also differ from the social sciences (like sociology or economics), although the two groups overlap in several areas. History, for example, is sometimes counted as a humanities subject and sometimes as a social science, depending on the methods a historian uses. The key difference is in approach: humanities scholars tend to focus on the meaning and context of individual cases, while social scientists tend to look for general patterns and laws.
The humanities matter because they help people think critically, understand different cultures, and reflect on questions of right and wrong. Supporters argue that studying the humanities builds better citizens, encourages empathy, and preserves the cultural achievements of past generations. In an age increasingly focused on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), debates continue about how much funding and attention the humanities deserve, but their role in a well-rounded education remains widely recognized.
The English word "humanities" traces back to the Latin word humanitas, which the Roman orator Cicero used in the first century BC. For Cicero, humanitas meant something close to "human nature" or "human culture." He believed that training in language and rhetoric was what separated educated, civilized people from everyone else. In his work De oratore ("On the Orator"), written in 55 BC, Cicero laid out a program of education meant to produce skilled public speakers and thoughtful citizens.
The idea had even older roots. In ancient Greece, a system of education called paideia had developed by the mid-fifth century BC. The paideia was a broad course of study that prepared young men for active citizenship in the polis (city-state). It included subjects like grammar, music, gymnastics, and philosophy, and it aimed to develop the whole person, both mind and body. Greek thinkers like the Sophists promoted this kind of general education, and it later influenced Roman educators like Cicero.
The specific Latin phrase studia humanitatis ("studies of humanity") became widely used during the Italian Renaissance in the 1400s. The Italian humanist Coluccio Salutati first used the exact term in 1369. Renaissance humanists like Petrarch believed that medieval education had become too narrowly focused on theology and abstract logic. They wanted to replace it with a curriculum based on ancient Greek and Roman texts that would teach people to be moral, well-spoken citizens. The studia humanitatis covered five main subjects: grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and moral philosophy. Students were expected to learn both Latin and Greek to read classical authors in their original languages.
The word umanisti ("humanists") appeared in Italian during the later 1400s to describe scholars and teachers devoted to these classical studies. This term eventually gave rise to the English word "humanist." It is important to note that Renaissance humanism was primarily an educational and literary movement, not the same as the modern philosophical position also called humanism, which is a broader worldview focused on human reason and ethics without relying on religion.
The roots of the humanities go back to the earliest civilizations. In ancient Greece, thinkers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle asked fundamental questions about the nature of reality, knowledge, justice, and beauty. These questions formed the basis of philosophy, one of the oldest humanities disciplines. Greek writers like Homer, Sophocles, and Euripides created literary works that explored human emotions and moral dilemmas, while historians like Herodotus and Thucydides pioneered the study of the past based on evidence and reasoning.
The Roman Empire inherited and adapted Greek learning. Roman thinkers like Cicero, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius wrote on philosophy, rhetoric, and ethics. Virgil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses became foundational works of Western literature. Roman education emphasized the artes liberales (liberal arts), a set of subjects considered suitable for free citizens. These typically included grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, a grouping that would shape European education for over a thousand years.
In the early Middle Ages, Christian thinkers adapted the classical tradition for religious purposes. Saint Augustine, who had been trained as a rhetorician, argued that classical learning could serve the study of scripture and theology. The bonae artes ("good arts") or artes liberales became the foundation of education in monasteries and cathedral schools across Europe. These schools preserved many ancient texts that might otherwise have been lost, and they continued to teach grammar, rhetoric, logic, and some history and philosophy alongside religious instruction.
The great revival of interest in the humanities came during the Renaissance, which began in Italy in the 1300s and spread across Europe over the next two centuries. Renaissance humanists rediscovered and collected ancient Greek and Roman manuscripts, many of which had been forgotten or poorly copied during the Middle Ages. Scholars like Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, and Lorenzo Valla studied these texts closely, developing new methods of textual criticism (careful comparison of different manuscript copies to determine the most accurate version).
Renaissance humanists believed that studying the classics would produce better, more virtuous people. They saw education not just as a way to train priests or lawyers, but as a means of developing the full potential of the human mind. This idea had a profound effect on European culture. It influenced art (as seen in the works of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo), political philosophy (as in Machiavelli's The Prince), and science (as scholars applied critical methods to understanding the natural world). The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg around 1440 helped spread humanist ideas far more quickly than hand-copied manuscripts ever could.
Universities across Europe gradually adopted the studia humanitatis as a key part of their curricula. The humanities became the core of a liberal arts education, the kind of broad, general schooling that was considered essential for any educated person, regardless of their eventual career.
By the 1700s, during the Age of Enlightenment, some thinkers began to criticize the humanist tradition. The French philosopher Denis Diderot and the contributors to his great Encyclopédie argued that the studia humanitatis had become too dry, focusing too narrowly on ancient Latin and Greek texts and languages while ignoring the exciting discoveries being made in the natural sciences. The Enlightenment encouraged a broader view of knowledge that included scientific inquiry alongside literary and philosophical study.
During the 1800s, the modern concept of the humanities took shape. As the natural sciences grew more powerful and specialized, scholars began to define the humanities more clearly as the "other" kind of knowledge, the disciplines that studied human meaning, values, and culture rather than the physical world. The German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey drew an influential distinction between the Naturwissenschaften ("natural sciences") and the Geisteswissenschaften ("sciences of the spirit" or "human sciences"). Dilthey argued that the human sciences required different methods from the natural sciences because they dealt with meaning and interpretation, not just observation and measurement.
Another German thinker, Heinrich Rickert, made a related but slightly different argument. Rickert said the key difference was not subject matter but method. The natural sciences are "nomothetic," meaning they seek general laws (like the law of gravity). The humanities are "idiographic," meaning they focus on the unique and particular, on understanding a specific poem, a specific historical event, or a specific cultural practice in its own context. This distinction, first spelled out by philosopher Wilhelm Windelband, remains influential today.
In the late 1900s and early 2000s, the American philosopher Martha Nussbaum became one of the strongest defenders of the humanities. Nussbaum argued that education in literature, philosophy, and the arts is essential for maintaining a healthy democracy. She believed that the humanities teach people to see the world from other perspectives, to think critically about authority, and to become genuine "citizens of the world" rather than remaining trapped in narrow, local viewpoints.
The humanities include a wide range of academic fields. While the exact list varies from one university or country to another, the following are generally considered core humanities disciplines.
Philosophy (from the Greek philosophia, meaning "love of wisdom") is the study of fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, truth, morality, beauty, and the mind. Philosophers use careful reasoning and argument rather than experiments to explore these questions. Major branches include logic (the study of correct reasoning), ethics (the study of right and wrong), metaphysics (the study of the nature of reality), and epistemology (the study of knowledge and belief).
Philosophy was once an enormously broad field. In ancient times, it included what we now call physics, biology, and psychology. Over the centuries, these subjects split off to become independent sciences. Today, philosophy continues to overlap with other fields. Political philosophy connects to political science, philosophy of mind connects to cognitive science, and aesthetics (the philosophy of beauty and art) connects to art criticism and literary theory.
History is the study of the past, based on the analysis of written records, archaeological evidence, and other sources. Historians investigate how societies, institutions, ideas, and individuals have changed over time. The discipline ranges from ancient history and medieval history to modern history and specialized fields like economic history, military history, and social history.
History occupies an unusual position among academic disciplines. It is traditionally considered part of the humanities because historians interpret evidence, construct narratives, and make arguments about meaning and significance. However, some historians use quantitative methods (like statistics) more commonly associated with the social sciences. This dual nature means that history departments can be found in both humanities and social science divisions at different universities.
Literature is the study of written works, including novels, short stories, poetry, drama, and essays. Literary scholars analyze how authors use language, structure, and imagery to create meaning and emotional impact. The field also includes literary criticism and literary theory, which offer different frameworks for interpreting texts, from examining an author's historical context to exploring how readers construct meaning.
The study of literature is closely tied to the study of languages. University programs in a foreign language typically include the study of important literary works in that language. Comparative literature examines texts from multiple languages and cultural traditions, looking for shared themes and differences.
The study of languages is central to the humanities. Learning a language means learning about the culture, history, and worldview of the people who speak it. Historically, the study of Latin and ancient Greek was at the very heart of the humanities.
Linguistics, the scientific study of language itself (its structure, sounds, and rules), is usually classified as a social science or cognitive science. However, many aspects of language study, such as historical linguistics (how languages change over time), philology (the study of language in historical texts), and the philosophical analysis of language, fall squarely within the humanities tradition.
Religious studies examines the beliefs, practices, texts, and institutions of the world's religions from an academic perspective. It looks at how religions shape cultures and how cultures shape religions. Major topics include sacred texts (like the Bible, Quran, Bhagavad Gita, and Tripitaka), rituals, ethics, and the role of religion in politics and society.
Theology, by contrast, is the study of religious questions from within a particular faith tradition. While religious studies aims to be neutral and comparative, theology often involves a commitment to the truth claims of a specific religion. Both fields are considered part of the humanities.
The arts form a major part of the humanities and are sometimes divided into three categories.
Visual arts include painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, photography, architecture, and filmmaking. These fields create works that are primarily visual. Art history, the academic study of visual art in its historical context, is one of the most established humanities disciplines.
Performing arts include theater, dance, music, and opera. These fields use the artist's body, voice, and presence as the medium. Musicology (the scholarly study of music) and theatre studies are the academic branches of these performing traditions.
Literary arts overlap with the study of literature discussed above and include creative writing, poetry, and screenwriting.
Classics (also called classical studies) is the study of the languages, literature, history, philosophy, and art of ancient Greece and ancient Rome. For centuries, classics was considered the single most important humanities subject. Knowledge of Latin and Greek was seen as the mark of an educated person. Although the field's prominence has declined since the early 1900s, the influence of classical ideas on philosophy, literature, law, and politics remains enormous.
Law occupies a borderland between the humanities and the social sciences. On one hand, law involves interpreting texts, constructing arguments, and grappling with questions of justice and morality, all of which are characteristic of the humanities. On the other hand, law is also studied empirically and statistically, which connects it to the social sciences. Legal traditions have been shaped by philosophy, history, religion, and political theory, making law deeply intertwined with the rest of the humanities.
What most clearly sets the humanities apart from the sciences is their approach to knowledge. The natural sciences use the scientific method: forming hypotheses, running experiments, collecting data, and looking for general laws that explain how the physical world works. The social sciences often use similar empirical methods, including surveys, statistics, and controlled studies, to find patterns in human behavior.
The humanities, by contrast, rely on methods that are interpretive, critical, and often historical. A humanities scholar might carefully read and analyze a poem, interpret the meaning of a painting, trace how a philosophical idea developed over centuries, or reconstruct the events and motivations behind a historical episode. The goal is usually to understand the particular, to grasp what a specific work of art means, what a specific historical moment felt like, or what a specific thinker was trying to say, rather than to discover a universal law.
Some of the most important methods in the humanities include textual analysis (close reading of written works), hermeneutics (the theory and practice of interpretation), historiography (the study of how history is written and interpreted), critical theory (the analysis of culture, power, and meaning), and narrative inquiry (understanding human experience through stories). These methods emphasize careful attention to language, context, and perspective.
This does not mean the humanities are less rigorous than the sciences. Humanities scholars must support their claims with evidence, construct logical arguments, and subject their work to peer review, just as scientists do. The difference is in the kind of questions they ask and the kind of evidence they use.
The boundary between the humanities and the social sciences is not always clear. Both groups study human beings and human culture, but they tend to approach these subjects differently. The social sciences, including sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, and psychology, generally seek to discover patterns and regularities in human behavior, often using quantitative data and statistical analysis.
The humanities, by contrast, tend to focus on the unique, the meaningful, and the interpretive. A sociologist might study poverty by collecting data on income levels across a population. A humanities scholar might study poverty by analyzing how a novelist portrayed it in a particular time and place, or by examining how a philosopher argued about justice and economic inequality.
In practice, many scholars work across this boundary. Anthropologists, for instance, often use qualitative, interpretive methods very similar to those in the humanities. Historians may use both statistical analysis and narrative interpretation. Fields like cultural studies, gender studies, and area studies deliberately combine humanities and social science approaches. The distinction is useful as a general guide, but it should not be treated as a rigid wall.
Debates about the value of the humanities have a long history. In the modern era, these debates have intensified as governments and universities have shifted funding toward STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and away from the humanities.
Defenders of the humanities offer several arguments. First, the humanities develop critical thinking skills. Reading complex texts, evaluating arguments, and considering multiple perspectives are abilities that are useful in almost any career or area of life. Second, the humanities foster cultural literacy, helping people understand different societies, traditions, and worldviews. This kind of understanding is increasingly important in a connected, globalized world. Third, the humanities support democracy by encouraging citizens to think independently, question authority, and engage thoughtfully with public issues.
Critics of the humanities sometimes argue that these subjects are less practical than science or engineering, that they do not lead directly to well-paying jobs, and that in an age of rapid technological change, resources are better spent on technical training. Some also question whether the humanities have become too focused on abstract theory and too disconnected from everyday concerns.
In response, supporters point out that humanities graduates make up a large share of the workforce in many developed countries, and that the skills they develop, such as writing, analysis, communication, and ethical reasoning, are in high demand across many industries. In recent years, efforts to bridge the gap between STEM and the humanities have grown. In the United Kingdom, for example, the acronym SHAPE (Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy) was introduced in 2020 to promote the value of these fields alongside STEM. The debate is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon, but the humanities continue to play a central role in education systems around the world.
The digital humanities is a relatively new field that applies computing tools and methods to traditional humanities research. Digital humanities scholars use technologies like databases, text mining, data visualization, geographic information systems (GIS), and artificial intelligence to analyze large collections of texts, images, maps, and other cultural materials.
For example, a digital humanities project might use computers to analyze every novel published in English during the 1800s, looking for patterns in word usage, themes, or narrative structure that would be impossible for a single human reader to detect. Another project might create an interactive digital map of a historical city, allowing users to explore how the city changed over time.
The digital humanities have expanded the range of questions that humanities scholars can ask and the kinds of evidence they can use. At the same time, some scholars worry that an overemphasis on digital tools might push the humanities toward the quantitative methods of the sciences and away from the close reading and careful interpretation that have traditionally been the humanities' greatest strengths.
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