Humanities: Interpretations of Life and History

The humanities are a study that focuses more on intellectual skills when compared to professional and various occupational skills. In contrary to the science discipline, the humanities are considered as an art stream and aims to garner general knowledge. This term though is widely associated with the college of arts and science has much to offer than a regular college course.

The humanities broadly include art, history, and literature. The humanities comprises of literature, history, philosophy, culture, foreign language, ethics, law, linguistics, archaeology, religion and theory of arts. The various branches of Social science such as anthropology, psychology, sociology, political science, economics and government also come under this umbrella. More importance is given to the study of language. This study follows a critical, analytical and speculative approach. The conventional empirical approach of Science is replaced by empirical and quantitative methods. It is in fact a cyclic process and the different stages are exploring, assessing, interpreting and refining. The branch of humanities is unique as it is dynamic and continuously evolving.

In a society, the knowledge of humanities facilitates quicker understanding of different people and eases the process of communication. The study of humanities helps us to interrogate and interpret the basic questions of value and purpose with respect to our lives. The humanities not only bridge the gap between past and present but also relates to the future .The facts, findings and the literature facilitates us to draw information on the past society, its history and culture. This knowledge guides us to predict the future and communicate it to the world.

The comprehensive discipline of humanities is a collective information storehouse and stresses on the fact that whatever our society has achieved today is the consequence of series of steps taken in the past. Hence it proves that our society is continuously evolving and hence need to be constantly updated. The humanities give us a better understanding of how different issues were tackled in other parts of world and in different cultures in the past. Sometimes the written record serves us a reference too. This helps to have a better insight of our civilization.

A basic study of humanities gives us a broad spectrum of information about the various significant contribution as well as atrocities created by men in the past. This basic understanding of past is needed in these troubled times, so that such horrendous massacres could be avoided and the new society which evolves after considerable thought would be a repository of ethics.