What’s the point of the humanities? Of studying philosophy, history, languages, the arts? This question has become increasingly urgent lately, as enrollment in the humanities continues to plummet. According to one analysis, the number of American students majoring in humanities has dropped under five percent.
Last month, an LA-based public radio station, WUTC, asked me to join a discussion about the purpose of the humanities. I’ve given this topic a lot of thought, because I’ve been teaching required freshman humanities courses for years here at Stevens. I love teaching these courses, but I don’t assume students love taking them. When I ask how many would skip the courses if they weren’t required, many raise their hands.
They say they came to Stevens for engineering, computer science, math, physics, pre-med, finance. They don’t see the point of reading impractical stuff by Plato, Kant, Kuhn, and other old dead guys. Then I give them my pitch for the course, which goes like this:
We live in a world increasingly dominated by science. And that’s fine. I became a science writer because I think science is the most exciting, dynamic, consequential part of human culture, and I wanted to be a part of that.
But it is precisely because science is so powerful that we need the humanities now more than ever. In your science, mathematics, and engineering classes, you’re given facts, answers, knowledge, truth. Your professors say, “This is how things are.” They give you certainty. The humanities, at least the way I teach them, give you uncertainty, doubt, and skepticism.
The humanities are subversive. They undermine the claims of all authorities, whether political, religious, or scientific. This skepticism is especially important when it comes to claims about humanity, about what we are, where we came from, and even what we can be and should be. Science has replaced religion as our main source of answers to these questions. Science has told us a lot about ourselves, and we’re learning more every day.
But the humanities remind us that we have an enormous capacity for deluding ourselves. They also tell us that every single human is unique, different than every other human, and each of us keeps changing in unpredictable ways. The societies we live in also keep changing — in part because of science and technology! So in certain important ways, humans resist the kind of explanations that science gives us.
The humanities are more about questions than answers, and we’re going to wrestle with some ridiculously big questions in this class. Like, What is truth anyway? How do we know something is true? Or rather, why do we believe certain things are true and other things aren’t? And how do we decide whether something is wrong or right to do, for us personally or for society as a whole?
Also, what is the meaning of life? What is the point of life? Should happiness be our goal? Well, what the hell is happiness? And should happiness be an end in itself or just a side effect of some other more important goal? Like gaining knowledge, or reducing suffering?
Each of you has to find your own answer to these questions. Socrates, one of the philosophers we’re going to read, said wisdom means knowing how little you know. Socrates was a pompous ass, but there is wisdom in what he says about wisdom.
If I do my job, by the end of this course you’ll question all authorities, including me. You’ll question what you’ve been told about the nature of reality, about the purpose of life, about what it means to be a good person. Because that, for me, is the point of the humanities: they keep us from being trapped by our own desire for certainty.
John Horgan directs the Center for Science Writings, which is part of the College of Arts & Letters. This column is adapted from one originally published on his Scientific American blog, “Cross-check.”
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