Unit 1: Humanities: Misconceptions,

Humanity & Humanism & Culture

A Lecture By: Dr. Vagisha Mishra
 Introduction to Humanities
● Humanities expand the knowledge of the human condition and human
cultures, especially in relation to behavior, ideas and values expressed in
works of human imagination and thought.
● Through study in disciplines such as literature, philosophy and the fine
arts, students will engage in critical analysis, form aesthetic judgments
and develop an appreciation of the arts and humanities as fundamental
to the health and survival of any society.
 Self-Reflection Questions for Learning
● What were some of the most interesting discoveries I made? About myself? About
others?
● What were some of my most challenging moments and what made them so?
● What were some of my most powerful learning moments and what made them so?
● What is the most important thing I learned personally?
● What most got in the way of my progress, if anything?
● What did I learn were my greatest strengths? My biggest areas for improvement?
● What moments was I most proud of my efforts?
● What could I do differently the next time?
● What's the one thing about myself above all others I would like to work to improve?
● How will I use what I've learned in the future?
 What do we understand by Humanities?
● Humanities, those branches of knowledge that concern themselves with
human beings and their culture or with analytic and critical methods of
inquiry derived from an appreciation of human values and of the unique
ability of the human spirit to express itself.
● As a group of educational disciplines, the humanities are distinguished in
content and method from the physical and biological sciences and,
somewhat less decisively, from the social sciences.
● The humanities include the study of all languages and literatures, the arts,
history, and philosophy.
 Origin of Studies in Humanities
● The modern conception of the humanities has its origin in the Classical Greek
paideia, a course of general education dating from the sophists in the mid-5th
century BCE, which prepared young men for active citizenship in the polis, or
city-state; and in Cicero’s humanitas (literally, “human nature”), a program of
training proper for orators, first set forth in De Oratore (Of the Orator) in 55
BCE.
● In the early Middle Ages the Church Fathers, including St. Augustine, himself a
rhetorician, adapted paideia and humanitas—or the bonae (“good”), or liberales
(“liberal”), arts, as they were also called—to a program of basic Christian
education; mathematics, linguistic and philological studies, and some history,
philosophy, and science were included.
 ‘Humanities’ and its Foundation
● The word ‘humanitas’, although not the substance of its component disciplines, dropped out of common
use in the later Middle Ages but underwent a flowering and a transformation in the Renaissance.
● The term ‘studia humanitatis’ (studies of humanity) was used by 15th-century Italian humanists to
denote secular literary and scholarly activities (in grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, moral philosophy,
and ancient Greek and Latin studies) that the humanists thought to be essentially humane and Classical
studies rather than divine ones.
● In the 18th century, Denis Diderot and the French Encyclopédistes censured studia humanitatis for what
they claimed had by then become its dry, exclusive concentration on Latin and Greek texts and language.
● By the 19th century, when the purview of the humanities expanded, the humanities had begun to take
their identity not so much from their separation from the realm of the divine as from their exclusion of
the material and methods of the maturing physical sciences, which tended to examine the world and its
phenomena objectively, without reference to human meaning and purpose.
 Contemporary Conceptions of Humanities
● Contemporary conceptions of the humanities resemble earlier conceptions in that they propose a
complete educational program based on the propagation of a self-sufficient system of human values. But
they differ in that they also propose to distinguish the humanities from the social sciences as well as from
the physical sciences, and in that they dispute among themselves as to whether an emphasis on the
subject matter or on the methods of the humanities is most effectual in accomplishing this distinction.
● In the late 19th century the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey called the humanities “the spiritual
sciences” and “the human sciences” and described them, simply, as those areas of knowledge that lay
outside of, and beyond, the subject matter of the physical sciences.
● On the other hand, Heinrich Rickert, a turn-of-the-century Neo-Kantian, argued that it is not subject
matter but method of investigation that best characterizes the humanities; Rickert contended that
whereas the physical sciences aim to move from particular instances to general laws, the human sciences
are “idiographic”—they are devoted to the unique value of the particular within its cultural and human
contexts and do not seek general laws.
 Misconceptions on Humanities
● The main misconception is that the value of the humanities in education is seen as
ambiguous and irrelevant.
● Van Den Berg (2015) states the misconception being that the humanities is for those
who do not know what they want to do in their life, that the degrees are easy to obtain
and are for those people who do not mind being poor.
● Whereas Ferrero (2011), questions whether the relevance of the humanities is being
lost.
● Both of these articles demonstrate the misconception that the humanities are
irrelevant and therefore have little or no value in education. Ferrero accounts this to
the view that there are three purposes in education; personal, economic and civic, and
that the personal and civic purposes are being overcome by the economic due to how
they can be used in the workplace. Understanding is another misconception.
 Cultural awareness: Humanities help us understand and appreciate diverse cultures,
Communication Ethics and morality: Humanities encourage us to reflect on ethical and moral issues and to develop a sense of
responsibility, empathy, and social awareness.

Skills Development Through Humanities

Historical perspective: Humanities provide us with a deeper understanding of the past and its impact on the present, which is important for making
informed decisions and shaping the future.
● When thinking of the vital skills which are developed by studying humanities, these are
far from irrelevant.
● The humanities help to develop creative and critical thinking, questioning and
reasoning, which are needed in all subjects not exclusively to studying humanities.
● Van Den Berg (2015) supports this view later in her article by stating that “the
humanities subjects have worth by equipping students with critical thinking skills
needed in society”.
● The Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2013) states that the skills and strategies used in
each humanities subject need to be taught explicitly as all subjects are different and
employ different skills.
● The key skills utilised by humanities subjects include questioning, researching,
analysing, evaluating and communicating. While these concepts will come naturally to
some students there will be others who need more clarification in order for them to
gain understanding.
 Humanities versus Humanity
● Humanity is mankind; human beings as a group while humanism is the
study of the humanities or the liberal arts; literary (especially classical)
scholarship.
 Humanism
● Humanism, system of education and mode of inquiry that originated in northern Italy
during the 13th and 14th centuries and later spread through continental Europe and
England.
● The term is alternatively applied to a variety of Western beliefs, methods, and
philosophies that place central emphasis on the human realm.
● Also known as Renaissance humanism, the historical program was so broadly and
profoundly influential that it is one of the chief reasons why the Renaissance is viewed
as a distinct historical period. and a period of evolution
● Indeed, though the word Renaissance is of more recent coinage, the fundamental idea
of that period as one of renewal and reawakening is humanistic in origin. But
humanism sought its own philosophical bases in far earlier times and, moreover,
continued to exert some of its power long after the end of the Renaissance.
 Significance of Humanities in Culture
● Humanitas meant the development of human virtue, in all its forms, to its fullest extent.
● The term thus implied not only such qualities as are associated with the modern word
humanity—understanding, benevolence, compassion, mercy—but also such more assertive
characteristics as fortitude, judgment, prudence, eloquence, and even love of honour.
● The purview of Renaissance humanism included not only the education of the young but also the
guidance of adults (including rulers) via philosophical poetry and strategic rhetoric. It included
not only realistic social criticism but also utopian hypotheses, not only painstaking
reassessments of history but also bold reshapings of the future.
● In short, humanism called for the comprehensive reform of culture, the transfiguration of what
humanists termed the passive and ignorant society of the “dark” ages into a new order that
would reflect and encourage the grandest human potentialities. Humanism had an evangelical
dimension: it sought to project humanitas from the individual into the state at large.
Classism refers to the systematic discrimination and prejudice against people based on their social class. In the context of humanities, classism is often
seen in the way that art and literature portray people of different classes.

Basic principles and attitudes in Humanities

1. Classicism: Classical thought offered insight into the heart of things. In
addition, the classics suggested methods by which, once known, human
reality could be transformed from an accident of history into an artifact of
will. Antiquity was rich in examples—actual or poetic—of epic action,
victorious eloquence, and applied understanding. Classical rhetoric could
implement enlightened policy, while Classical poetics could carry
enlightenment into the very souls of men.
2. Realism: ‘Realism’ aimed to highlight the ‘reality’ or the ‘true nature of
reality’ in works of literature. The aim of a text of literary realism is to
portray real life as it is perceived around us.
Realism, on the other hand, is an artistic and literary movement that sought to represent the world as it actually is, without idealizing or romanticizing it.
 Idealism and the Platonic Academy of Florence
● The idealism prominent in the Florentine academy is called Platonic
because of its debt to Plato’s theory of forms (or ideas) and to the
epistemological doctrine established in his Symposium and Republic.
● Platonic idealism usually refers to Plato’s theory of forms or doctrine of
ideas, some commentators hold Plato argued that truth is an abstraction.
● In other words, we are urged to believe that Plato’s theory of ideas is an
abstraction, divorced from the so-called external world, of modern
European philosophy, despite the fact Plato taught that ideas are
ultimately real, and different from non-ideal things–indeed, he argued for
a distinction between the ideal and non-ideal realm.
 Machiavelli’s realism
● Niccolò Machiavelli, whose work derived from sources as authentically
humanistic as those of Ficino, proceeded along a wholly opposite course.
● His methods, on the other hand, were coherent throughout and remain a
major contribution to social science and the history of ideas. Like earlier
humanists, Machiavelli saw history as a source of power, but, unlike them,
he saw neither history nor power itself within a moral context. Rather he
sought to examine history and power in an amoral and hence (to him)
wholly scientific manner.
 Renaissance Humanism
● Renaissance Humanism was an intellectual movement typified by a
revived interest in the classical world and studies which focussed not on
religion but on what it is to be human.
● Its origins went back to 14th-century Italy and such authors as Petrarch
(1304-1374) who searched out 'lost' ancient manuscripts. By the 15th
century, humanism had spread across Europe.
● Humanists believed in the importance of an education in classical
literature and the promotion of civic virtue, that is, realising a person's full
potential both for their own good and for the good of the society in which
they live.
 Body Language and Culture
● Body language is a part of nonverbal language. It includes things like stance, gestures,
facial expressions, and even small things that are barely perceptible like a brief shrug of
the shoulder or nod of the head.
● We frequently communicate both bodily and verbally and an estimated 70% of what we
communicate may be nonverbal. Nonverbal language is an even bigger category, which
includes things like tone of voice.
● There are many ways to learn to interpret body language but it must be understood
that these are frequently specific to a culture. For instance in the US we wave goodbye
with the palm facing the person we’re waving to, and the fingers may open and close. In
other cultures, waving goodbye may occur with the hand palm up to the sky, and the
fingers opening and closing. To people in the US, this might look like a gesture asking
someone to approach rather than a wave goodbye.
● Eye contact is another key element of non-verbal contact in much of the Western world.
Looking someone in the eyes enough but not too much may indicate that you’re direct
and forthright. Evading eye contact may say you’re shy or being deceptive, or
alternately, it can convey annoyance or disgust with someone.