Markup View

Author: Megestos

Jun 22nd 2013 at 5:29:23 AM

(Part 2)

Now, note that when I say 'humanities are X', I mean 'humanities, as they should be, are X', so I'm talking about the normative aim of humanities. This is usually what we do when we talk about science, though - some AIDS-deniers, for example, have scientific degrees, yet their claims and arguments are unscientific.

So why do I think that the sliding scale of sciences vs. humanities should not be considered trope? Besides promoting a wrong view of humanities (and science, actually), it is unclear to me what the discriminating parameters and attributes are supposed to be. 
You could make a sliding scale of research object complexity - but that would have to be ordered differently. Parts of philosophy (the epistemology of the analytic branch, logic and language philosophy a lÃ¡ Wittgenstein) and linguistics would actually be pretty far on the "non-complex" part of the scale. Theology would be pretty much in the middle, because it conveniently limits the scope of research by using arbitrary axioms (such as 'the bible is a revelation from god'). Some parts of biology would be more on the "complex" scale than some parts of sociology and history. 
You could try to make a sliding scale of rigidity vs. flexibility. Yet in such a scale, most of the humanities would belong to the "rigid" extreme - excluding essays and certain continental schools of thought like hegelian and/or marxist dialectics.
But, if you allow me an illustrative exxageration, the destinction between science and humanities as it is made in this scale seems to express the attempt of some people on the "science" end of the scale to boost their own importance and ego - which is graciously picked up by laypeople who are interested in humanities subjects but want to keep their myth that "all opinions are equally worthy in the humanities" so they don't have to bother doing actual research and being precise and thorough.