For this post, think about how you would describe the humanities to someone outside this area (how this field is different from, say, the social sciences or natural or physical sciences) AND think about the part of During’s article that best helps you do this. (Of course, you can discuss parts of his article that muddy things for you, too). You’ll need to do some work with During first, and this is where Harris comes in. Focus on “Projects” (p. 25) in Harris and write a paragraph that “expresses your understanding of During’s ‘project.’” Harris wants you to paraphrase and use at least one direct quotation, so do that.
While I don’t think there’s any definitive or truly exact way to explain the humanities, to me these subjects are about what makes life worthwhile. Many of the sciences are concerned with keeping people alive, whether that’s in the medical field or social work or even economics, but the human race lives off of art and thought and culture. On pg 6, as During continues explaining what the humanities are not, he says, “the humanities also produce not truths but ‘interpretations.’ Their will to interpret meets the requirement of truthfulness nonetheless because, in the humanities, the difference between one interpretation and another is not that one is true and the other false but that both are true — both are committed to accuracy and sincerity — precisely as interpretations…” The discussion of interpretation made me remember how fluid the humanities are, how they cannot be pinned down under the title of “correct” or “done” like many sciences can. Fields like mathematics have finite values, problems and solutions that can conceivably be solved with a correct answer, but there cannot be one correct answer in the humanities.
Pages 8 and 9 brought in a wider, global view of the humanities history, discussing how whatever definition we have for the humanities cannot fit specific subjects from every single culture into a box. There is no way to both globally and historically define the humanities. However, many of these subjects are important to the lifestyle of different cultures, be that religion or art or history and archaeology. There are some parts of During’s article that I couldn’t agree with, but there are more that seem sound. How would one define something when, looking deeper, they find so many contradictions tied to it? The humanities cannot be defined by a simple set of rules, rather by the way they affect people and help them connect through time and space.
