Study of the Humanities in Western Society

Lamm ac intimacys the interdisciplinary nature of the field, and, although his text emphasizes the study of the arts of individual socialisations, he places these studies within the pagan and historical context from which each work arose.

Nevertheless, finding an make definition is difficult. Jones attempts to outline the scope of the problem:

What are the humanistic tick off? They include philosophy in all its branches (such as ethics, logic, and epistemology - the possibleness of knowledge), the languages, literature in all its varied aspects, music, the fine arts, the nonfunctional arts, the arts of the theater. Certain aspects of anthropology and folklore are of interest to humane learning. So are many of the philosophical aspects of science and the social sciences (11).

By this definition, the humanistic discipline can be made to include a broadly diverse body of knowledge, in part because the discipline is not necessarily about specific information only if is instead about the way such information is processed, analyzed, and understood.

memorial is also important to the humanities, especially in its ability to can context and perspective, as Jones observes:

So uttermost as the physical composition of story is the product of art, it belongs with literature and therefore with the humanities. So far as the interpretation of score rests upon philosophical assumptions about

---. The Reformation: A History of European nicety From Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1957.

What may be more important to the humanities is the maintenance of the western sandwich way of approaching problems, an open-mindedness that is especially indication of the Western perspective and lays an essential foundation for the unprejudiced interrogatory of whatever materials may be presented for study. John M. Ellis contends,"The idea of knowledge for its own sake, of letting an argument go wherever its logic leads, without fear or favor, is an extraordinarily precious part of our Western heritage" (229).

This open acceptance of ideas (a willingness to listen first and tap later) is inherent in the cultural heritage of ancient Greece, only when it is also a gift of a more new epoch. As Durant writes, "In passing from the Age of Faith to the spiritual rebirth we [advanced] from the uncertain childhood to the lusty and exhilarating youth of a culture that married classic grace to barbaric strength, and inherited to us, rejuvenated and enriched, that heritage of civilization to which we mustiness always add, but which we must never let die" (Faith 1086).

We teach rigorous rendition skills, modes of expression, general habits of critical analysis, the history of literary achievement, and the subtler means of self-development. alone these strengths have not generally allowed humanists to see themselves as providers of a legitimate form of macrocosm knowledge . . . The effect of the Right's public attacks was to overcome the humanities' code of modesty (8).

Francis Fukuyama points out the differences that each culture brings to the way it looks at the past: "In the Greek view, history . . . is not secular but cyclical" (56). The Greeks saw history as a series of repeating cycles. For them, even a culture that understood history was doomed to repeat it. Yet, by the time of the Christian era, the past, while it could be changed and learn
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