Overview of and topical guide to the humanities
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the humanities:
Humanities – academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences.
What types of things are the humanities?
The humanities can be described as all of the following:
- a branch of academic disciplines – an academic discipline is a field of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined (in part), and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies and academic departments or faculties to which their practitioners belong.
- study of the human condition – unique and inescapable features of being human in a social, cultural, and personal context. The study of the humanities (history, philosophy, literature, the arts, etc.) all help understand the nature of the human condition and the broader cultural and social arrangements that make up human lives.