What are the humanities and why do we desperately need them to survive?
What do we mean by science after all?
In many modern languages, including English, science only refers to natural science.
This is not the case in German as science (Wissenschaft) may also apply to the humanities (Geisteswissenschaft) as well as the natural sciences (Naturwissenschaft).
Especially around and after the turn of the 20th century, there were multiple academic discussions in Germany about the difference between the scientific method of the humanities and the natural sciences. It was generally agreed that they both constitute a fundamental aspect in the human pursuit of knowledge and that there can’t be a single method for the humanities and the sciences.
It was commonly argued that the natural sciences aim to measure and predict while the humanities seek to observe and understand.
The natural sciences aim to make predictions, which make their hypothesis empirically falsifiable, which the humanities don’t.
Natural science is also considered to be more precise and concrete in its results as there is often no singular or simple answer for a given question or problem raised in the humanities.
These two aspects, (1) the creation of falsifiable hypotheses and the (2) precise results, are often seen as an advantage of the natural sciences.
Instinctively, many people like testable, simple, and understandable explanations while disliking ambiguity and paradox.
But sometimes they are unavoidable, especially when grappling with the complex problems embedded in the human condition.
The humanities are a self-reflective endeavor, they are the attempt of humanity to make sense of itself and its role in the world.
They don’t shy away from asking the big questions and they don’t look for finite answers but aim to continuously expand our understanding of the human condition. There can be no easy answers and no general formula here.
Of course, there are branches of psychology, sociology, or linguistics that are mainly engaged with empirical data and the scientific method. Similarly, some areas of the sciences are fully embracing the insights and methods of the humanities. It isn’t black and white after all. My point here is to point out general tendencies by pointing to the extremes. Unfortunately, some oversimplifications will be unavoidable.
As Jeffrey Kripal (author and college professor for religious studies) eloquently points out in an amazing interview for the Sacred Speaks:
The humanities and the sciences are two ways to see the world.
The sciences turn everything into an object. They study the world as a collection of objects that function according to mathematic equations. Everything is seen as mechanical and quantifiable.
But you can’t really talk about meaning. You can’t even talk about what things really are, for example, what matter is.
The humanities on the other hand assume everything works through culture, language, and thought.
The sciences think the world is made out of numbers and stuff, the humanities think the world is made out of words, thoughts, and ideas.
Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash.
The Inevitable Paradox of Meaning-Making
When we ask the humanities and the sciences what the purpose of life is (or what a human being) is, we will naturally get very different answers.
One of the biggest paradoxes we have to come to terms with is that we exist in an infinitely big universe, hence we are nothing and of no importance on this cosmic scale.
But the cosmos is as infinite and majestic as it is uncaring and merciless. In this view, we are nothing but an accident.
And at the same time in all the worlds and universes that might exist, there is only one you that has the exact experience you are having right now. In all this infinity you are entirely unique.
So even as the big events in our life can be seen as seemingly meaningless, from another perspective even the smallest thing, the smallest action can be infinitely meaningful.
Everything can be entirely meaningless, determined, and mechanic or infinitely meaningful, mysterious, and divine.
This split and this paradox encompasses the divide between the humanities and the natural sciences in a nutshell.
What is your starting point? Are you explaining the subjective through the objective, or vice versa?
The sciences will look from the outside in, they will try to make sense of the personal, and the subjective through the evidence gathered in the outside material world.
By examining our evolution, our place in nature, and our biology and biochemistry they seek to create an objective answer.
The purpose we encounter for humanity will inevitably be devoid of any subjective meaning as the dimension of the input determines the dimension of the output. It’ll be the same for anyone:
Survival, procreation, maintaining/increasing health and well-being etc.
Looking at humans, animals, nature, and the universe through the lens of the sciences is to objectify and quantify it, to reduce it to a set of laws.
Objective observation without subjective interference.
It’s no mistake or accident the sciences can’t find meaning in the universe as the meaning is created through us.
The sciences offer great answers but they are in nature, they are general laws and mechanics at work. They will not be yours; they won’t offer any emotion, expression, beauty, humor, or absurdity.
How can you expect to satisfy millions and billions of people with the same answer to a question that should be considered the most intimate one of all?
What do you want from life?
The humanities will have to approach a question like this as an open one.
Their dimension is meaning, expressed and compressed in words, symbols, ideas, thoughts, and narratives.
Of course, in a sense, there may be theorems and formulas as well, but they will not be filled in for you. Instead, there is a blank that needs to be filled, by every culture and every individual on their own.
The perspective of the humanities is built from the inside out, starting with the subjective and looking at the world to make sense of it.
They will look at the utterings and insights of countless generations of researchers, writers, poets, and philosophers. Overlaying and comparing these different individual experiences a grand canvas of perspectives becomes visible.
Out of these great narratives and myths you can choose and build your own.
Because we are meaning-making machines, narrating monkeys, we can’t help it. The only question is whether we do it consciously or by accident.
These two perspectives the sciences and the humanities, inevitably create tension as all polarities do.
But in itself this is nothing bad, only something to be aware of.
The Need for Integration
It becomes clear that we need both and neither perspective can or should be diminished, belittled, or reduced.
It’s an illusion that one could ever function without the other.
Scientific results inevitably need interpretation and theory to be backed up and this is often impossible without the insights of the humanities. Many scientific ideas were born through unfalsifiable ideas.
A philosophy free science is merely a science in which its philosophical baggage is unexamined.
-Daniel C. Dennet
At the same time, the humanities are constantly informed through the sciences. Their theories are thus backed up through empirical data so the subjective experience can be augmented through the instruments of hard science.
Both are essential to our existence and both have their utility.
Going further, I would argue that both are vital to our existence.
But by letting science guide our ways without the insight of the humanities, we have created an imbalance.
I want to let one of the great scientists of the 21st century, who combined rigorous scientific thinking with creative imagination, speak a few words on that matter:
Our technology has exceeded our humanity.
The splitting of the atom has changed everything except our mode of thinking. Hence we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe. If humans are to survive we need a whole new mode of thinking.
-Albert Einstein
The assumption that it needs no philosophy, no spirituality, no morals, no myths, and no art to be fully human and create a functioning society is in itself a myth. We have always needed and created these; either consciously or unconsciously.
For far too long we have let markets, egotistical politicians, or profit-driven companies dictate our philosophies, write our narratives, and invent our myths, while taking morality and art hostage.
And surprise, the outcome was neither very creative nor beneficial for the collective.
We need to recapture control over how we live together and how we create our shared reality and for this we need the humanities. And we need to integrate them with the sciences.
Not as an extra or an appendix, but on a face-to-face basis taking the human experience as it is in all its manifestation and with all its irreducible weirdness.
Science and technology have enabled us to gain an enormous amount of material wealth and well-being.
We have capabilities people even 100 years ago could have never dreamed of.
But are we using them wisely?
Are we guided by moral people with good intentions?
Is our economy guided by the right incentives?
Are we satisfying our basic needs in regard to meaning in life?
Are we connected to each other?
Are we able to communicate well and create a shared reality for us?
I think here we need the humanities. More than ever. To recapture the split in our societies and ourselves. Only when our humanness can match our technology, we can be successful as a species.
I want to leave you with a quote from Gut Speth, the founder of the National Ressources Defense Council:
I used to think the top environmental problems facing the world were global warming, environmental degradation, and eco-system collapse, and that we scientists could fix those problems with enough science. The real problem is not those three items, but greed, selfishness, and apathy. And for that we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. And we scientist don’t know how to do that.
If you enjoyed this content and would like to support my work, consider tickling the algorithm a little by leaving a comment, clapping or sharing this article.
If you are interested in topics like philosophy, breathwork, mysticism, meditation, altered states, the mystery religions of Antiquity, and psychedelic therapy, or more generally in philosophical consideration about our human nature in the context of science and society subscribe for more.
