tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post8262169084426676446..comments2024-03-11T02:18:33.966-05:00Comments on Kritik: Defining the HumanitiesAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13200566567765991464noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-37836823976422330142008-07-15T09:32:00.000-05:002008-07-15T09:32:00.000-05:00"Responsive" and "relational" are good terms, alth..."Responsive" and "relational" are good terms, although I also like "lifeworld" very much, for the reasons Michael mentions. And of course all of these terms don't necessarily belong in one conceptual bucket. <BR/><BR/>Reading Kevin Healey's post today made me think that something along the lines of his reference to Ellul's call for a "radical reorientation toward the world on the part of individuals" (and this implies response and relation) could be seen as an aspect of humanities work that expands and augments the best of what the life sciences try to do, while at the same time being its own, humanities-specific, job. <BR/><BR/>Michael, I think your definition accomplishes the very difficult task of putting an enormous amount of complex information together in an accessible way; I would think that all humanists will be able to recognize themselves there. As Martha and Bruce both indicate, it could use more of an emphasis on the dynamic present and the future, and on relationships/relationality/response. And Kevin's post reminds us that humanities scholarship is in a position to define and understand specific (although also broad) forces shaping all of us, such as: technique, technology. <BR/><BR/>But when I try to do what you have done--come up with an accessible and concise (!) definition myself--I end up back at a definition of thinking that takes hold in the late eighteenth century, exactly when the overspecialization and disciplinary divides that (seem to?) threaten the humanities today started to proliferate. So, my own desire (in agreement with Bruce) that our definition of the humanities should not be overly oriented toward the past comes from, well, the humanities' past. <BR/><BR/>At that time, the focus on apperception as one of the main tasks of philosophy intersects roughly with the discovery in faculty psychology (a psychology conducted in part by authors and philosophers) that observation of an object of study changes both the observer and the object (a kind of foreshadowing of quantum mechanics; Martha's comment made me think of this). <BR/><BR/>Thinkers trying to come up with broad definitions of humanistic endeavor in that era, and under arguably similar pressure to justify the work of an increasingly specialized philosophy in the face of accelerated advances in science and technology (and in some cases in the face of the diversion of resources to those fields) tried to make a case for philosophy's value as a tool for ever-improving self-awareness *and* simultaneously as a tool for literally shaping the world.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-17633661825468661122008-07-11T15:31:00.000-05:002008-07-11T15:31:00.000-05:00Thanks to Bruce and Martha for their comments--and...Thanks to Bruce and Martha for their comments--and sympathies to Martha for the nude performance art outside her window (one of the hazards of SCT, I fear!).<BR/><BR/>I never took the "meanings, values, effects" phrase to mean only past meanings, values, and effects--indeed it seems obvious to me that such things very much exist in the present--but I take the point that some reference to temporalities might be useful along the lines of what Bruce suggests.<BR/><BR/>Martha's comment also hits precisely something I had thought of, but wasn't sure how to incorporate. I originally ended the definition with "human endeavors and lifeworlds"--where "lifeworlds" was supposed to capture the more environmental or ecological sense that I think Martha is evoking. But the sentence didn't quite work with that inclusion and I wasn't sure what the best way to rephrase would be. I don't actually want to lose the sense of human-initiated action, because I do believe that's a major part of what we work on and because, like Marx, I believe we make our history, although not under conditions of our choosing. At the same time, I would like to supplement it with the more "responsive"/"relational"/environmental perspective Martha brings up (as well as the future-oriented one mentioned by Bruce).<BR/><BR/>I'd be happy to have suggestions for the actual wording--and other ideas/thoughts--before I post a new definition...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-47514709590573720142008-07-11T14:19:00.000-05:002008-07-11T14:19:00.000-05:00First off I should say - I'm terribly late with my...First off I should say - I'm terribly late with my own post this week (an "endeavor" of mine that has been delayed both by my sleeping patterns and my upstairs neighbors, whom I would like to think were staging an impromptu, inebriated, nude performance of <I>A Midsummer's Nights Dream</I> outside of my window at 3:30am the other evening but I'm pretty sure they were just naked, drunk, loud people.)<BR/><BR/>I think moving towards an understanding/working definition of "the humanities" is helpful provided it's not created to exclude or typify, but rather to try to articulate what might be a shared understanding or expectations for the concept (which seems what your motivations are).<BR/><BR/>I agree with Bruce's desire to challenge the "past-orientedness" of the working definition (in large part because so many endeavors are seemingly "future-oriented"), but I'm also hung up on the limitations of the word "endeavor" - which seems to bring along with it both ideas of purposefulness/industriousness/efforts that may not always be there in the objects of inquiry that have passed under the banner of the humanities, but also that the word focuses on human action that may allow "the rest" fall away from notice or suggest a priority or precedence to human action.<BR/><BR/>The way I suppose I've conceived of it, but haven't always made explicit in my own work, is that I'm not focusing on human endeavors, but how - materially, ideologically, etc. - humans have related to (either constructing or entering into established relationships) or interfaced with their environment (in a rich sense of the word).<BR/><BR/>A perhaps too simplistic example of this might be the way many account for the creation of ancient myths today as pre-scientific accounts of natural phenomenon (seasonal change, death, etc). So noting the natural phenomenon of a really bright ball of warmth and light that seems to rise above your head isn't something one really "endeavors" to notice - I would think it's pretty inescapable (provided you're born with the relatively common set of sense receptors that most humans are endowed with) - but in that moment of "noting" or that forced relationship the object has pushed upon you - a variety of human responses and relationships may arise. This might be a silly example (in fact, it's the very same one that I never thought Frege handled particularly well), but I see that sense of responsiveness or relationality more integral to my understanding of the humanities.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8617857852696675419.post-19112604433079114222008-07-10T15:08:00.000-05:002008-07-10T15:08:00.000-05:00I think that Michael's definition is great, but I ...I think that Michael's definition is great, but I wonder if the verb "to study" is bit narrow, and the object of the verb, "meanings, values, and effects of human endeavors" is a bit too past-oriented. How about clearly dividing it into a temporal framework? How about "... to preserve and study the meanings, etc. of past human endeavor and to imagine and create new pathways for future endeavor." That's clumsy, but you get the point.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com