Humanities -- What are they?
- They are studies of human attempts to understand our relationship
to ourselves, to others, to our past, to the future, to nature, and to
God.
- “When we reflect on the changes in our lives, when we recognize
some of the things we love about the world, and when we resist loss and
death with all our strength--we are participating in the humanities.
All adults think and choose; all adults reflect and wonder. The
humanities address our deepest contemporary concerns.” (Annie Dillard,
Pulitzer Prize winning novelist)
- “Through the humanities we reflect on the fundamental question:
what does it mean to be human? The humanities offer clues but never a
complete answer. They reveal how people have tried to make moral,
spiritual, and intellectual sense of a world in which irrationality,
despair, loneliness, and death are as conspicuous as birth, friendship,
hope and reason. (Report of the Commission on the Humanities)
- History
- Art
- Philosophy
- Music
- Literature
- Architecture
- Dance
- Film
When did they big begin?
- 1250 A.D. --In Verona and Padua, there began a rediscovery of the
total culture of classical antiquity: literature, history, rhetoric,
ethics, politics. Humanism stressed the earthly fulfillment of humans
rather than only seeing earth as a preparation for paradise.
Why study them?
- “Knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and and
dignified life. Humanity has every reason to place the proclaimers of
high moral standards and values above the discoverers of objective
truth. What humanity owes to personalities like Buddha, Moses, and
Jesus ranks for me higher than all the achievements of the inquiring
and constructive mind.” (Einstein)
- "It is not enough to teach man a specialty. Through it he may
become a kind of useful machine, but not a harmoniously developed
personality. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding
of and a lively feeling for values. He must learn to understand the
motives of human beings, their illusions, and their sufferings in order
to acquire a proper relationship to individual fellow-men and to the
community. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of the
morally good. Otherwise he—with his specialized knowledge—more closely
resembles a well-trained dog. . . .Premature specialization on the
ground of immediate usefulness kills the spirit on which all cultural
life depends, specialized knowledge included." (Einstein)
Greek Models
- Venus de Milo
- Renaissance Humanism: Michelangelo: Bacchus, God of Wine, and
sketch of a torso
- Sandro Botticelli: The Birth of Venus
When did they big begin?
- Pico della Mirandola (1463-94) wrote the Oration on the Dignity of
Man, a kind of manifesto of humanism. He put these words into the mouth
of God’s character: “We have made you neither of heaven nor of earth,
neither mortal nor immortal, so that with freedom of choice and with
honor, as though the maker and molder of yourself, you may fashion
yourself in whatever shape you shall prefer. . . . You shall have the
power, out of thy soul’s judgement, to be reborn into the higher forms,
which are divine.” (contrast with St. Augustine’s idea of will)
Renaissance Humanism
- Humanism is a contrast to the medieval Christian view of humans as
sinful and depraved. Humanists praised humans as God’s highest
creation, capable of learning and creativity.
Renaissance Art
- Titan: Madonna of the Cherries
Renaissance Art - Perspective
- Healing of the Cripple by Masolino
- School of Athens by Raphael
- Ognissanti: Madonna (Medieval)
- Leonardo da Vinci: Madonna of the Rocks
Renaissance Humanism
- A humanist was a student of Greek and Roman literature, history,
rhetoric, and ethics. These subjects comprised studia humanitas, “the
course that made one human.” In such studies, scholars reconciled
Christian beliefs with the moral teaching of the ancients. They
challenged the medieval notion that the material world contained only
temptation and evil; instead, they glorified the beauty and order in
nature.
Humanities: Why study them?
- “Where does one acquire wisdom? Courses in wisdom are not listed in
college catalogs, but there are courses that can nurture the
development of wisdom. You can find them listed under the title of
humanities.” (Willard C. Butcher, Chairman, The Chase Manhattan
Corporation)
- “It is never too late to strengthen our character by deepening our
awareness of the humanities.” (Willard C. Butcher, Chairman, The Chase
Manhattan Corporation)
Theme of this course:
- The history of western civilization is a story of a tension between
faith and reason, religion and science.
- That tension is the source of much of our greatness.
- We have moved from a paternalistic view of governing people to
humanistic democracy.
- Scientific determinism is the dark smudge on the bright banner of
scientific progress.
Citation: administrator2. (2007, September 14). Introduction to Humanities. Retrieved February 08, 2012, from Dixie State College of Utah Web site: http://dixie.educommons.net/humanities/introduction-to-humanities/introduction-to-humanities.
Copyright 2008,
by the Contributing Authors.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.