The 8 Branches Of The Humanities (and What Each Of Them Studies)
The Humanities are a fairly heterogeneous group of studies that include various areas of knowledge. All these areas have, however, a common link: they revolve around the human being, from both an artistic and intellectual as well as a social perspective.
In this article we will give a review of the different aspects or branches of the Humanities and we will briefly explain what each of them consists of and what they study.
The Humanities as general knowledge of the human being
The Humanities have always offered, throughout the centuries, an excellent overview of each and every one of the artistic and intellectual manifestations of the human being This general vision allows, among other things, to understand the human being in a comprehensive way and to decipher the cause and effect of multiple and varied events.
For example, if we know well the historical context of a specific event, it will be much easier for us to understand the artistic manifestations that developed at that time. Thus, if we understand the psychological tear that the First World War entailed, we will be in a position to better appreciate the meaning of the different artistic manifestations of the time, which sought to either denounce this social shipwreck or escape from the horror of war.
That is just one of the many, many examples that we can find. When you delve into the study of the Humanities, everything seems to fit together as if by magic; You find meaning in many questions and, of course, you are predisposed to understand the current world in greater depth
The branches of the Humanities
But what are the branches of the Humanities, and what do they study specifically?
This branch is essential to understand the future of humanity and, therefore, our own current world. History is a very ancient discipline; All human groups have felt the need to reconstruct their past and, thus, understand their present However, history has been distorted, on many occasions, for specific purposes. The task of the historian is, therefore, to be as objective as possible and not to be fooled by these manipulations. Otherwise, we will have a distorted view of the past that will only cloud the truth of the present.
2. The art
Art is a basic expression of the human being. Any culture, any era, any community has expressed its ideas, its religion or its ideal of beauty through artistic manifestations. Art is, then, one of the best ways to understand a specific culture and historical period But, precisely for this reason, it is extremely important to contextualize correctly.
Once again, the art historian must carefully insert that artistic expression into its true context and, above all, not exercise judgments from his personal reality. For example, to accurately analyze a medieval altarpiece, it is very important to know the social context in which it was created, which is, precisely, very different from ours. It is no use looking at the art of the Middle Ages with the eyes of our secular society; This will only make us confused and reach erroneous conclusions.
3. Philosophy
This branch of the Humanities studies the thought of a specific author or a group, and raises universal questions on topics as diverse as life and death, society or human behavior. Philosophy is essential when it comes to delving not only into the history of the human being and the different thoughts of different times, but also to understand how the human mind works, since it collects the fears and questions that men and women have expressed for millennia.
Although a priori it may seem somewhat contradictory, philosophy is closely linked to religion. Both collect these questions and propose possible answers, either from myth or from logos (logic). In any case, and as we have already mentioned, it is a basic branch of the Humanities, since it offers a very intimate x-ray of the human being over time.
4. Literature
Although, indeed, literature is still just another artistic expression, It is generally studied as an independent branch within the Humanities, linked of course to Philology Literary expression, like pictorial or architectural expression, reveals concrete realities of an individual, a group or a specific historical moment, so it is equally important to know how to contextualize it well. You cannot understand, for example, medieval chivalric novels outside the context of medieval estates and Courtly Love. Nor is it possible to understand why Leopoldo Alas Clarín wrote La Regenta if we ignore the anticlerical atmosphere that existed among the Spanish intellectuals at the end of the 19th century. And so on, with a long etcetera.
Literature, therefore, It does not simply involve the reading of a series of works and their formal analysis ; It goes further, since the study of the philological corpus of a culture allows us to delve into the bases of that culture. Even more; Through literature we can learn about historical facts about which, perhaps, we lack information. In this case, of course, the historian must know how to distinguish between facts and literary embellishment.
5. Philology
Closely linked to literature, philology is, we could say, its formal aspect. In university studies they are always linked to each other, since Philology deals with the study of the formation and evolution of a language, and literature, of its use as artistic and cultural expression. Philology implies, of course, a great knowledge of the language in question, as well as its historical and geographical variants.
It is the most modern branch of the Humanities, since psychology as a discipline does not begin to have a place in academic circles until the end of the 19th century. Traditionally, the date 1879 is established as the starting point for psychology studies, since it was in that year that, in Leipzig, Wilhelm Wundt created the first experimental psychology laboratory.
Psychology is a discipline that It is located between the Humanities and the Sciences since it not only analyzes human behavior from a social and family perspective, but also introduces concepts related to neurology and medicine.
7. Anthropology
Like psychology, anthropology is a relatively modern science, since the first studies were officially established in the second half of the 19th century. And also in a similar way to psychology, anthropology combines humanistic elements (the culture in which the individual is inserted, which is a non-biological characteristic) with scientific elements related to biology.
Ultimately, we can say that anthropology aims understand the behavior of a human society and its manifestations both from a cultural and biological perspective.
8. The right
The perspective of law is more practical than theoretical, since it is a discipline that decodes a legal system for its correct implementation in specific cases Thus, we can distinguish it from the History of Law, which deals with compendia of laws from a historical perspective and taking into account the specific situation of each society and culture.
