Simon During’s article “What are the Humanities Anyway?” Published in the chronicle of higher education defines the humanities through a variety of juxtapositions, historical contexts, and explanatory conditions. Most notably, to me, the author wrote, “Insofar the humanities are shaped by their sense of their own history, they can think of themselves as a tradition. But theirs is a tradition grounded in archives and processes of idolatry and iconoclasm that cannot themselves be contained by that tradition.” (During 9) This specific defining factor regarding the humanities seemed to most accurately represent my own definition for the humanities: the study of the human condition both presently and throughout history through both the reverence and dissection of medias expressing existence and consciousness. This is, of course, a very lengthy definition. And, naturally, it does not summate my holistic understanding of the humanities. However, I think that it covers the general scope of what we focus on as humanities students in an anglo-academic environment in the 21st century (as During might specify). This is different from the social sciences because it focuses on, as During covered, interpretation. Interpretation, as I understand it coalesces into a subjective collective commentary on the media being evaluated. On the other hand, a social science uses objective matters and manners of evaluation to make determinations on probable occurrences in the past and present. This is to say, there is, of course, some human interpretation of data retrieved from the media being evaluated, but unlike the humanities they have a rather thorough and well-established method of interpretation to use. The humanities is different because the interpretation of media/artifact relies heavily on the context that the interpreter is aware of. Additionally, the interpreter’s own social, cultural, and global background become substantially important in the humanities— unlike the social sciences— because it informs others of the interpreters likely context/understanding of the object of interpretation.
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I’m wondering about your comment that social sciences don’t take account of the “interpreter’s own social, cultural, and global background.” Is this the “science” part of social science? There’s an interesting article on scientism in our reading list (Wieseltier, “Crimes Against Humanities” in the syllabus) that would apply here.