Contrary to what the name suggests, humanities scholars do not study the mind, which is fodder for psychologists. So what do humanities scientists research? And how do they do that? Together with a few students, NEMO Kennislink takes a dive into the humanities.
“Nice to know, but other than that it doesn't help you much.” “It is interesting, but not really scientific.” Two recurring responses from students to the questions submitted in the humanities category of the National Science Agenda for Students. Together they discuss the questions in this category, posed by other students. The questions are about the persecution of the Jews in Rotterdam, the influence of America on Spanish cuisine and the end of the Mayan calendar.
Lotte Jensen, philosopher and Dutch scientist at Radboud University and member of De Jonge Akademie, understands the students' reactions. “These are certainly nice questions that the students have asked, but they are all about history. I suspect that these questions are strongly influenced by the students' living environment and the subjects they receive at school," says Jensen. “But the humanities are much broader than that.”
From grammar to computer science
So spiritual science is more than just history, but what exactly? Humanities scholars study everything that produces the human mind, such as language, music, religion, art, and literature. The humanities thus includes a broad spectrum of disciplines:in addition to history, for example, linguistics, literature, philosophy, art history, archaeology, religious studies, musicology, cultural studies and media studies. Subjects that you hardly get in secondary school.
The direct benefit is perhaps less obvious in the humanities than in medical or technical research. Yet humanities scholars are regularly involved in important developments, as professor Rens Bod shows in his book The forgotten sciences. For example, Panini described the grammar rules of Sanskrit sometime between the fifth and seventh centuries BC. The idea of capturing a language in a finite number of formal rules is the foundation of modern programming languages and computer science.
And in the fifteenth century, Lorenzo Valla's research into sources showed that the document stating that the emperor gave the Western Roman Empire to the Pope was forged. This indisputable evidence played an important role in the eventual separation of church and state. Today, critical source research is still important, for example in research into the question of guilt about the fall of Srebrenica or in the judiciary.
The roots of the Dutchman
“Everything starts with language,” says Lotte Jensen. “Language is necessary for communication and understanding. And at the same time, that language is never neutral, the speaker or writer always resounds in it. That is what the humanities investigate:how language directs, how language forms a community and which identity is linked to it.”
Jensen himself investigates the origin of the Dutch identity. What is a real Dutchman? And where are the roots of this identity? She tries to answer this question with the help of cultural-historical sources, such as songs, pamphlets and treatises.
Philosopher and Dutch scientist Lotte Jensen investigates the origin of Dutch identity on the basis of cultural-historical sources, such as songs, pamphlets and treatises.
The art and literature of today are therefore valuable resources for the humanities scientists of the future. But even now they have a function, says Jensen. “Literature is still sold a lot, so that's proof enough. Many people like to read fiction. It creates worlds and ideas, it makes you think about good and evil. And sometimes, for example with historical novels, you also learn something about history.”
Perspective
“The humanities may have less of a predictive function than other fields,” says Jensen. “But through knowledge about history, we can better understand today's society. Look, for example, at Beatrice de Graaf's lecture on terrorism. She shows that terrorism has a long history with many rising and falling waves. Knowing that will also help you understand the present better. It places contemporary society in historical perspective.”
At the end of the nineteenth century, the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey set the goal of verstehen (‘understanding’) in the humanities versus erklären (‘explain’) in the natural sciences. Where a natural scientist seeks a causal explanation for a phenomenon, the humanities scientist tries to understand his subject. This dichotomy is not set in stone – humanities scientists also look for patterns in data – but it does reflect the general trend.
Other methods
During the student day of the National Science Agenda, the students work on the submitted questions in order to transform them into good research questions. “Actually, a good research question in the humanities is not fundamentally different from that in other fields,” says Jensen. “The question must be researchable, so you need sources, and it must be innovative for the acquisition of knowledge.” In addition, a good research question is not too big or too small, and it does not contain a (political) value judgment.
“What is different in the humanities are the methods used to answer those research questions,” says Jensen. Earlier we saw the critical approach to historical sources and the formulation of grammatical systems. Another typical humanities research method is the interpretation of sources. This so-called 'hermeneutics' states that you can only understand the meaning of a source if you study the context in which the source was created.
This ensures that hermeneutics – in contrast to the other methods – is subjective. Two researchers can interpret the same source in different ways, without being able to attach a measurable truth to it. “That is sometimes a criticism of the humanities, but it is a misconception that other fields are so quantifiable,” says Jensen. “In the social sciences, for example, measurements are often made in the context of terms, but they are also linguistic in themselves and therefore interpretable. Moreover, the humanities are also easily measurable, even more so with the rise of big data.”
Exceeding fields of expertise
Jensen is enthusiastic about the National Science Agenda initiative to involve students in thinking about future research. “The great thing about the Science Agenda is that it transcends disciplines and poses big questions. Only in this way can real steps forward be taken. It is good that students are also working on this and thinking about what the humanities are.”
While discussing, the students are also increasingly realizing the value of humanities research. “This knowledge could be interesting for the future. Maybe then we can better see it coming if something like this threatens to happen again.” And:“If we investigate this, we better understand how people think about this.”