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A practical case on why we need the humanities

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Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#31

Post by honksillet »

ianleeclark wrote: post #9
recursivedoubts wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes to all of that. A culture of fear and loathing. Charging obscene levels of tuition for it while piling the real work onto adjuncts. Close-mindedness that would make John Calvin blush. The list is extremely long. There is no chance I would let a university humanities department anywhere near my children at this point.

> A culture of fear and loathing. Examples? > Charging obscene levels of tuition for it while piling the real work onto adjuncts. This is endemic to the US university system, in general. > Close-mindedness that would make John Calvin blush. Again, it's all fun and games to riff and instantly disregard a vast number of fields of study, but you're not doing yourself any favors by just throwing out a laundry list. You h…

Here is an example... https://reason.com/2020/06/10/ucla-business-school-lecturer-...

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#32

Post by unishark »

Frippy wrote: post #12

This article has some good points but is a bit meandering. The best point is right there at the beginning: the humanities study things which are not (entirely) subject to scientific rigor, but which are still worth studying. This sort of begs the question, why is anything worth studying? I think Francis Bacon made the best point about this: knowledge—real knowledge—is about the ability to reliably recreate some effec…

If you can't control the experiment and identify causation or limit the number of changed variables, you really shouldn't even use the word "experiment".

Sure there's an upside in letting smart people try to figure things out. But there's a downside in legitimizing the practice. Especially since academia isn't so just about intelligence but as much or more about self-agency. The people who push hardest for agendas get the funding, write the books, etc.

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#33

Post by ianleeclark »

kortilla wrote: post #30
ianleeclark wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An issue with these things is that institutions and government make major decisions ... what you get is agenda driven decision making What do you think politics is? Everyone in politics has an agenda. > It’s not that we discount them completely but we should also consider opposing data from alternate studies Politicians already do this. Whenever there's a decision being made, it's being processed through a host of…

Agendas are expected. Don’t use an economics paper to back a policy decision under the guise of data/science-driven policy making though.

Economics is a social science, not under the umbrella of humanities. Maybe subfields within economics like economic history could be in the humanities, but most micro and macro would be outside of it.

There are a lot of overlapping fields between the two, but economics isn't in the humanities.

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#34

Post by Frippy »

unishark wrote: post #32
Frippy wrote: post #12

This article has some good points but is a bit meandering. The best point is right there at the beginning: the humanities study things which are not (entirely) subject to scientific rigor, but which are still worth studying. This sort of begs the question, why is anything worth studying? I think Francis Bacon made the best point about this: knowledge—real knowledge—is about the ability to reliably recreate some effec…

If you can't control the experiment and identify causation or limit the number of changed variables, you really shouldn't even use the word "experiment". Sure there's an upside in letting smart people try to figure things out. But there's a downside in legitimizing the practice. Especially since academia isn't so just about intelligence but as much or more about self-agency. The people who push hardest for agendas ge…

I'm not sure what a better word would be. We use the same word informally to describe how babies learn—they poke and prod at their environment and see what happens. Just because they aren't rigorous doesn't mean the process doesn't give them some idea (with an implicit confidence level, of course) of how things work.

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#35

Post by ianleeclark »

honksillet wrote: post #31
ianleeclark wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A culture of fear and loathing. Examples? > Charging obscene levels of tuition for it while piling the real work onto adjuncts. This is endemic to the US university system, in general. > Close-mindedness that would make John Calvin blush. Again, it's all fun and games to riff and instantly disregard a vast number of fields of study, but you're not doing yourself any favors by just throwing out a laundry list. You h…

Here is an example... https://reason.com/2020/06/10/ucla-business-school-lecturer-...

Im sorry, but I'm not getting your point. A guy in a non-humanities field of study got put on involuntary leave, and, in your mind, this is due to the humanities department?

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#36

Post by unishark »

ianleeclark wrote: post #19
mc32 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>” the humanities study things which are not (entirely) subject to scientific rigor, but which are still worth studying.” An issue with these things is that institutions and government make major decisions based on the output from these fields. It’s not that we discount them completely but we should also consider opposing data from alternate studies, but what you get is agenda driven decision making (on all sides, th…

> An issue with these things is that institutions and government make major decisions ... what you get is agenda driven decision making What do you think politics is? Everyone in politics has an agenda. > It’s not that we discount them completely but we should also consider opposing data from alternate studies Politicians already do this. Whenever there's a decision being made, it's being processed through a host of…

> What do you think politics is? Everyone in politics has an agenda.

Agendas combined with half-truths which is where the bad faith and other problems come in.

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#37

Post by Barrin92 »

What gets me the wrong way about these arguments, and it is even itself addressed somewhat in the article is the reduction of 'the humanities' to formal or academic study.

The ideal of the humanities and of the holistic, cosmopolitan citizen with a broad education in every field of human activity is not new. Humboldt (and others) formulated it long ago.

In that sense I think the humanities aren't just needed in education. They're needed in churches, in political debates, in homes and families. Humanities as a practice rather than as a four-year degree.

If you really want to democratice and popularize the humanities don't treat them as a grooming mechanism for leaders or an intellectual exercise as is common in the anglosphere, but as a part of everyday life.

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#38

Post by noch »

mc32 wrote: post #15
Frippy wrote: post #12

This article has some good points but is a bit meandering. The best point is right there at the beginning: the humanities study things which are not (entirely) subject to scientific rigor, but which are still worth studying. This sort of begs the question, why is anything worth studying? I think Francis Bacon made the best point about this: knowledge—real knowledge—is about the ability to reliably recreate some effec…

>” the humanities study things which are not (entirely) subject to scientific rigor, but which are still worth studying.” An issue with these things is that institutions and government make major decisions based on the output from these fields. It’s not that we discount them completely but we should also consider opposing data from alternate studies, but what you get is agenda driven decision making (on all sides, th…

> An issue with these things is that institutions and government make major decisions based on the output from these fields.

Indeed, the mere proliferation of x-studies (where x is arbitrary) in universities is a ringing indictment. The classic/liberal humanities (e.g. history) should be taught but it shouldn't be the case that one must go to a university, and get into debt, to learn them, and within a university where they are taught, they shouldn't be degree courses unto themselves.

Music is taught excellently in conservatoires and art taught in ateliers imho produces better artists than are produced by universities. Both are often an order of magnitude cheaper than a 4-year university education and encourage/reward the repetition necessary to achieve excellence in those who aren't naturally gifted.

Any field that has to append "science" to its name usually isn't scientific e.g. political science, social science.[0]

[0] https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/peter-thiel/

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#39

Post by pnako »

apsec112 wrote: post #3
recursivedoubts wrote: post #2

The academic humanities departments have made their bed over the last fifty years. Now they may lie in it.

Sorry, I'm not sure what you're referring to?

Humanities departments becoming de-facto meetings of the party, as opposed to a cafe where philosophers of all strokes meet to exchange ideas.

Re: A practical case on why we need the humanities

#40

Post by remexre »

noch wrote: post #38
mc32 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>” the humanities study things which are not (entirely) subject to scientific rigor, but which are still worth studying.” An issue with these things is that institutions and government make major decisions based on the output from these fields. It’s not that we discount them completely but we should also consider opposing data from alternate studies, but what you get is agenda driven decision making (on all sides, th…

> An issue with these things is that institutions and government make major decisions based on the output from these fields. Indeed, the mere proliferation of x-studies (where x is arbitrary) in universities is a ringing indictment. The classic/liberal humanities (e.g. history) should be taught but it shouldn't be the case that one must go to a university, and get into debt, to learn them, and within a university whe…

RIP computer science, materials science
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