Week 8 assignment: essay – interrelationships reflection apa format | Applied Sciences homework help
- What insights into our lives are brought to us by these works? For example, do you have a better understanding of the tragedy of beauty and of the connection between beauty and death? Again, do we have an archetype?
jac16871_ch15_378-396.indd 396 12/9/17 11:20 AM 397 ©Lee A. Jacobus Chapter 16
THE INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF THE HUMANITIES
The humaniTies and The sciences In the opening pages of Chapter 1 we defined the humanities as that broad range of creative activities and studies that are usually contrasted with mathematics and the advanced sciences, mainly because in the humanities strictly objective or scientific standards typically do not dominate. Most college and university catalogs contain a grouping of courses called “the humanities.” First, studies such as literature, the visual arts, music, history, phi- losophy, and theology are almost invariably included. Second, studies such as psychology, anthropology, sociology, political science, economics, business ad- ministration, and education may or may not be included. Third, studies such as physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and engineering are never included. The reason the last group is excluded is obvious—strict scientific or objective standards are clearly applicable. With the second group, these standards are not always so clearly applicable. There is uncertainty about whether they belong with the sci- ences or the humanities. For example, most psychologists who experiment with animals apply the scientific method as rigorously as any biologist. But there are also psychologists—C. G. Jung, for instance—who speculate about such phenom- ena as the “collective unconscious’’ and the role of myth (see Chapter 8). Those psychologists belong in the humanities. jac16871_ch16_397-406.indd 397 12/11/17 8:52 PM 398
CHAPTER 16
Rigorous objective standards may be applied in any of the humanities. Thus, painting can be approached as a science—by the historian of medieval painting, for example, who measures, as precisely as any engineer, the evolving sizes of halos. On the other hand, the beauty of mathematics—its economy and elegance of proof—can excite the lover of mathematics as much as, if not more than, paint- ing. Edna St. Vincent Millay proclaimed that “Euclid alone has looked on beauty bare.’’ And so the separation of the humanities and the sciences should not be ob- served rigidly. The separation is useful mainly because it indicates the dominance or the subordinance of the strict scientific method in the various disciplines. The arTs and The OTher humaniTies Artists are humanists. But artists differ from the other humanists because they cre- ate works that reveal values. Artists are sensitive to the important concerns of their societies. That is their subject matter in the broadest sense. They create artistic forms that clarify these values. The other humanists—such as historians, philoso- phers, and theologians—reflect upon, rather than reveal, values. They study values as given, as they find them. They try to describe and explain values—their causes and consequences. Furthermore, they may judge these values as good or bad. Thus, like artists, they try to clarify values, but they do this by means of analysis (see Chapter 3) rather than artistic revelation. Artists may contribute to other humanists by revealing values and informing them through their media of the nature and importance of those values. This is the help that the artists give to the other humanists. Suppose a historian is trying to understand the bombing of Guernica by the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Suppose he or she has explored all factual resources. Even then, something very important may be left out: a vivid awareness of the suffering of the noncombatants. To gain insight into that pain, Picasso’s Guernica (see Figure 1-4) may be very help- ful. The same may be said of Francisco Goya’s painting May 3, 1808 (see Figure 2-3), showing the execution of prisoners of war. Art can provide an emotional under- standing that data and information cannot. Other humanists, such as critics and sociologists, may aid artists by their study of values. For example, we have concerned ourselves in some detail with criticism—the description, interpretation, and evaluation of works of art. Criticism is a humanistic discipline because it usually studies values—those revealed in works of art—without strictly applying scientific or objective standards. Good critics aid our understand- ing of works of art. We become more sensitively aware of the revealed values. This CONCEPTION KEY Other Humanists and Artists 1. What is the relationship between Picasso’s painting Guernica and the historical event it portrays? Was Picasso making a statement that can be thought of as con- tributing to history?