Humanities

• Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture, including certain fundamental [Philosophical] questions asked by humans.
• The word humanities comes from the Renaissance Latin phrase studia humanitatis, which translates to study of humanity. This phrase was used to refer to the study of classical literature and language,
• • During Renaissance, ‘humanities’ referred to the study of classical literature and language, as opposed to the study of religion or 'divinity.'
• • Today, the humanities are more frequently defined as any fields of study outside of natural sciences, social sciences, formal sciences (like mathematics), and applied sciences
• • ‘Humanists’ use methods that are primarily critical, speculative, or interpretative and have a significant historical element. as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of science.
• • Some definitions of the humanities encompass law and religion due to their shared characteristics, such as the study of language and culture. However, these definitions are not universally accepted,
• • Human disciplines like history and language mainly use the comparative method and comparative research. Other methods used in the humanities include hermeneutics, source criticism, esthetic interpretation, and speculative reason.
• —Social science and humanities have a mutual contempt for one another, the former looking down on the latter as unscientific, the latter regarding the former as philistine. […] The difference comes down to the fact that social science really wants to be predictive, meaning that man is predictable, while the humanities say that he is not.—

  -Allan Bloom
• • A major shift occurred with the Renaissance humanism of the fifteenth century, when the humanities began to be regarded as subjects to study rather than practice, with a corresponding shift away from traditional fields into areas such as literature and history (studia humaniora).
• • In the 20th century, this view was in turn challenged by the postmodernist movement, which sought to redefine the humanities in more egalitarian terms suitable for a democratic society since the Greek and Roman societies in which the humanities originated were not at all democratic.
• • Society
  • a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent members.
• • Culture
  • A concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.[1] Culture is often originated from or attributed to a specific region or location.
• • Humans acquire culture through the learning processes of enculturation and socialization, which is shown by the diversity of cultures across societies.
• • A cultural norm codifies acceptable conduct in society; it serves as a guideline for behavior, dress, language, and demeanor in a situation, which serves as a template for expectations in a social group.
• Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity. What is or is not divine may be loosely defined, as it is used by different belief systems. Under monotheism and polytheism this is clearly delineated. However, in pantheism and animism this becomes synonymous with concepts of sacredness and transcendence.
• Religion is an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and worldviews that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values system. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions, and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe.
• Philosophy is the rational investigation of truths and reality by deduction, induction, or both, as opposed to empirical methods citing sensory perception,[1][2] often in the form of argumentation or dialectics.
• Hermeneutics) is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. As necessary, hermeneutics may include the art of understanding and communication.
• Source criticism (or information evaluation) is the process of evaluating an information source, i.e.: a document, a person, a speech, a fingerprint, a photo, an observation, or anything used in order to obtain knowledge. In relation to a given purpose, a given information source may be more or less valid, reliable or relevant. Broadly, "source criticism" is the interdisciplinary study of how information sources are evaluated for given tasks.
• • esthetic interpretationIn the philosophy of art, an interpretation is an explanation of the meaning of a work of art. An aesthetic interpretation expresses a particular emotional or experiential understanding most often used in reference to a poem or piece of literature, and may also apply to a work of visual art or performance
• • speculative reason (theoretical philosophy)Themoderndivision ofphilosophyintotheoretical philosophyandpractical philosophyhas its origin in Aristotle's categories of natural philosophy and moral philosophy. The one has theory for its object, and the other practice.
• The trivium is the lower division of the seven liberal arts and comprises grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

  The trivium is implicit in De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii ("On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury") by Martianus Capella, but the term was not used until the Carolingian Renaissance, when it was coined in imitation of the earlier quadrivium.
• The quadrivium

  • Arithmetic
  • Geometry
  • Music
  • Astronomy
• The trivium

  • Grammar
  • Logic
  • Rhetoric
• Together, the trivium and the quadrivium comprised the seven liberal arts, and formed the basis of a liberal arts education in Western society until gradually displaced as a curricular structure by the studia humanitatis and its later offshoots, beginning with Petrarch in the 14th century
• The seven classical arts were considered "thinking skills" and were distinguished from practical arts, such as medicine and architecture
• From the time of Plato through the Middle Ages, the quadrivium (plural: quadrivia) was a grouping of four subjects or arts that formed a second curricular stage following preparatory work in the trivium