Major Difference in Humanities and Social Sciences - Essay Example

Humanities and social sciences are very similar in makeup, with the major difference being the research methods that are used. Humanities tend to useanalytic methods, while social sciences tend to use quantitative and qualitative methods of research. Quantitative research is defined as the systematic scientific investigation of quantitative properties and phenomena and their relationships. Quantitative research is widely used in both the natural and social sciences, from physics and biology to sociology and journalism” (Quantitative), while qualitative research is “involves an in-depth understanding of human behaviour and the reasons that govern human behaviour” (Qualitative). Humanities is defined as “those academic disciplines which study the human condition using methods that are largely analytic, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences. Conventionally the humanities include the classics, languages, literature, music, philosophy, history, religion, and the visual and performing arts. Additional subjects sometimes included in the humanities are anthropology, area studies, communications and cultural studies, although these are often regarded as social sciences“ (Humanities). One thing that has been a constant throughout Western civilization is philosophy. Since the beginning, individuals have spent great amounts of time attempting to learn about life and trying to interpret all that happens in it. Two such philosophers are Plato and Saint Thomas Aquinas, each of whom had differing ideas on what it meant to live in a just society. This includes things like how to treat other people, government, and property ownership, as they are things that are very important to our society. While Plato was more focused on the positives that a totalitarian government would bring to society and how it would more or less force people into treating each other right, Aquinas believed that if each person believed that there was a reward for him or her after they died, that each individual would want to be a virtuous person. These two differing philosophies tell a great deal about how Western society has evolved because they take us from a society where a greater power is not even discussed, into one where a greater power in the reason why we should treat other justly. This debate is also relevant today because many different countries in Western society are still unsure of whether we should have secular or non-secular states. Through these works it is possible to see that the same questions have been asked in Western society since its beginnings and that the humanities are reliant on these discussions in order to create academic writing. In Plato’s Republic, there are elements of communism present, but not in the same manner that contemporary society would portray them. Plato believed that the lower classes should have rights to property ownership, but that the ruling classes should be placed there with them. His ideology was that since philosophers were the only people in society who would be fair rulers, because power leads to corruption, philosopher kings should be allowed to be in charge. He also makes the argument that wives and children should be communal and that the state should decide who mates with who because this would allow for society to eventually become ideal. These ideas are different from current communism, but Plato believed that they would create a just society. There are also two separate definitions of justice presented as this book brought about the ideas of Plato’s model state, and incidentally, launched the study of political philosophy in the West. The first definition defines justice as doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies, which is a version of conventional morality. Plato does, however, reveal the faults of this ideology, as the question is asked of how is it possible to know who is a friend and who is an enemy because friends are capable of doing just as much harm to us as enemies are. Therefore, a friend should be punished if he or she commits an evil act, just as an enemy should. If an enemy disguises him of her self as a friend, then is that person still a friend or is it an enemy. The second definition that is offered in this book is the obedience to the interest of the stronger, which is also seen as not just because it gives all the power to a select number of people. The conclusion is the format mentioned before where the government has nearly absolute control. This format will work, according to Plato, when the government has the public’s best interest in mind when making a decision. He says that justice is the means and good is the end, which would create a just society to live in. This all comes in the first book of The Republic but it is an ideology that hangs over the entire work and guides its outcome. The post-modern period was also important in the field of humanities and it was highlighted by an abundance of changes that occurred not only in the artistic world, but in society in general. There was a change in the culture of many parts of the world that took place after the modern era ended and we moved into the post-modern era. Artists began to change their ways of creating art by rejects all of the modern ideals and creating new methods and, along with those methods, new norms in the art world. Postmodernist theory is described as the calls for new categories, modes of thought and writing, and values and politics to overcome the deficiencies of modern discourses and practices. Some post-modern theorists, like Lyotard and Foucault, focus on developing alternative modes of knowledge and discourse, while others, like Baudrillard, Jameson, and Harvey emphasize the forms of economy, society, culture, and experience. It can be said that “in this view, facts exist independently of any theories or human observation. This perspective dominates Western philosophical tradition, which provides the foundation of Western science: reality is assumed to be objective, that is, it exists outside of our perceptions of things. In this paradigm, neither the search for truth nor truth itself is problematic: Truth (with a capital "T") is definite and ascertainable. The “men in white coats” conduct an empirical experiment in a lab and then pronounce to the rest of us what they, as ‘experts,’ have discovered” (Methodology). The main weakness of this type of research method is that it does not have the statistical analysis to back it up. This method is based on solving the problems through critical thinking methods rather than scientific methods that the social sciences often rely upon. The social sciences, on the other hand, are defined as “a group of academic disciplines that study human aspects of the world. They diverge from the arts and humanities in that the social sciences tend to emphasize the use of the scientific method in the study of humanity, including quantitative and qualitative methods” (Social Sciences). An example of a social science is economics. A form of economic theory is called the Heckscher-Ohlin theorem. This theorem is based on a model that was created by Eli Heckscher and furthered by Bertil Ohlin at the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden. This theorem is one of four critical theorems that are found in the Heckscher-Ohlin model and it basically says that countries with more resources will export these resources and counties with more labour will export the intensive-intensive goods. What this assumes is that the two countries that are exporting these different goods are exactly the same, but they have different types and amounts of resources. This includes differing supplies of natural resources and different populations. This can also include the number of skilled workers that each country has, as the United States has more university graduates than many countries across the world, even if those countries have a greater population. This theorem also assumes that the countries have the same economic goals as each other, which would imply that they have the same economic ideology. If these factors are true, then the country with the most resources will be able to produce these products cheaper than the other country and the country with the most available labour in a particular field will be able to produce that labour at a cheaper cost. If these two countries happen to not be trading, then the price of the resources in the capital endowed country will go down because supply must meet demand and if there is too much surplus, then it must be sold off for cheaper. Likewise, the same resource in the other country will not go down as much because it is not profitable to do so. The same happens to the price of labour in the other country, as workers will be forced to work for less because there will not be enough jobs to go around. If the two countries are trading, then the country with the excess capital will not have to worry about having too much surplus so they can sell it at a regular price. Likewise labour intensive goods can be exported so the price of these does not have to be reduced either. The weakness of this type of research is that it is more based on pure facts and, therefore, the results are not questioned or discussed as much. This can lead to close-mindedness amongst scholars in these fields. Social sciences and humanities use different research methods to reach their results and this causes different style of writing in the two disciplines. Social sciences use qualitative and quantitative research methods, which use methods that are very similar to the natural sciences, such as statistical data, in order to reach its results. Because of this, many facts and figures are used in these research methods. The humanities focus more so on analytical research of the subject. This includes revisiting the subject and finding secondary sources to support it when writing in this field. While neither one of these styles will agree with one another completely, they are both valuable to academic writing. Works Cited “Humanities”. Wikipedia. retrieved 4 February 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanities “Methodology”. Wikipedia. retrieved 4 February 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methodology “Qualitative research”. Wikipedia. retrieved 4 February 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_method “Quantitative research”. Wikipedia. retrieved 4 February 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_method “Social sciences”. Wikipedia. retrieved 4 February 2007. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_science Read More