Human Sciences: History and Sociology

Abstract

‘The human sciences’ is an increasingly used collective term. What exactly the term encompasses is an open-ended issue, ultimately because usage pragmatically leaves open philosophical questions about the ‘nature’ of being human. The term is principally one of convenience, especially used by scholars who see a breakdown of the search for unity in the social sciences, and who see disciplinary boundaries cutting across the possibilities for knowledge. In the Anglophone world, the category only exceptionally corresponds with institutional or disciplinary structures, past or present. In the Francophone world, however, ‘sciences de l'homme’ or ‘sciences humaines’ is a conventionally recognised division of knowledge. Literature addressing the human sciences overarches at least the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, linguistics, geography, economics, political science, psychology, and history, while in some hands it also draws on such areas as literary theory, organizational and business sciences, and cultural studies. The term signals an interest in general questions about the possibilities for systematic knowledge of human existence. In practice, there is emphasis on the relations between the social sciences and the humanities. Some anglophone scholars, however, sympathetic with the view that the natural sciences ground all knowledge, use ‘the human sciences’ to denote the project to integrate the social and psychological sciences with biology. Most scholars who use the term reject this, and leave open relations between forms of knowledge in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities.