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Humanities

Humanities

The humanities (sometimes called Human Studies) are a group of academic subjects united by a commitment to studying aspects of the human condition and a qualitative approach that generally prevents a single paradigm from coming to define any discipline. In academia, the humanities are generally considered to be, along with the social sciences and the natural sciences, one of three major components of the liberal arts and sciences. While the precise definition of the humanities can be contentious, the following disciplines are generally recognized to form their core:
- Literature, literary criticism, and comparative literature
- Philosophy
- The Classics:
- Ancient Greek
- Latin
- The study of religion
- Law and Jurisprudence
- Art, art history, art criticism, and theory
- Music and Musicology
- Cultural and Area studies
- Regional interdisciplinary fields such as East Asian studies, American studies, and African-American studies (Interdisciplinarity) History, while also considered at times a social science, is one of the most prominent humanities in the United States as measured by foundation contributions, National Endowment for the Humanities projects, and National Humanities Centers fellowships. Some expand the definition to include other studies of human life using qualitative description and analysis, including at large parts of the following fields:
- Cultural anthropology
- Sociology
- Political science
- Archaeology
- Some branches of economics The 1980 United States Rockefeller Commission on the Humanities described the humanities in its report, The Humanities in American Life: : Through the humanities we reflect on the fundamental question: What does it mean to be human? The humanities offer clues but never a complete answer. They reveal how people have tried to make moral, spiritual, and intellectual sense of a world in which irrationality, despair, loneliness, and death are as conspicuous as birth, friendship, hope, and reason. Scholars working in the humanities are sometimes described as humanists, but this can be confusing, as it also describes a philosophical position (humanism) which some antihumanist scholars in the humanities reject.

Weblinks

- [http://homepage.uibk.ac.at/~c720126/humanethologie/ws/medicus/block1/inhalt.html Theory of Human Sciences (Documents No. 8 and 9 in English)] ko:인문 과학 ja:人文科学

Academia

Academia is a collective term for the scientific and cultural community engaged in higher education and research, taken as a whole. The word comes from the akademeia just outside ancient Athens, where the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning. The sacred space had formerly been an olive grove, hence the expression "the groves of Academe". By extension Academia has come to connote the cultural accumulation of knowledge, its development and transmission across generations and its practitioners and transmitters. In the 17th century, English and French religious scholars popularized the term to describe certain types of institutions of higher learning. The English adopted the form academy while the French adopted the forms academe and academie. An academic is a person who works as a researcher (and usually teacher) at a university or similar institution. In the United States, the term is approximately synonymous with professor. In the United Kingdom, various titles are used, typically fellow, lecturer, reader and professor (see also academic rank), though the loose term don is often popularly substituted. In other parts of the world, the term scholar is probably closer. Academic administrators are not typically included in this use of the term. Some sociologists have divided, but not limited, academia into four basic historical types: ancient academia, early academia, academic societies and the modern university. There are at least two models of academia: a European model developed since ancient times, as well as an American model developed by Benjamin Franklin in the mid-18th century and Thomas Jefferson in the early 19th century.

Structure

Academia is usually conceived of as divided into disciplines or fields of study. These have their roots in the subjects of the ancient trivium and quadrivium, which provided the model for Scholastic thought in the first universities in medieval Europe. The disciplines have been much revised, and many new disciplines have formed since medieval times; in general, academic fields have probably become more and more specialized since the Enlightenment, dividing their research into smaller and smaller areas. Because of this, interdisciplinary research is often prized in today's academy. It can also be made difficult by practical matters of administration and funding. In fact, many new fields of study have initially been conceived as interdisciplinary, and later become specialized disciplines in their own right (cognitive science is one recent example). In short, there is a historical process behind the internal differentiation of the academy. Most academic institutions reflect the divide of the disciplines in their administrative structure, being divided internally into departments or programs in various fields of study. Each department is typically administered and funded separately by the academic institution, though there may be some overlap and faculty members, research and administrative staff may in some cases be shared among departments. In addition, academic institutions generally have an overall administrative structure (usually including a president and several deans) which is controlled by no single department, discipline, or field of thought. Also, the tenure system, a major component of academic employment and research, serves to ensure that academia is relatively protected from political and financial pressures on thought.

Qualifications

Main article: Academic degree The degree awarded for completed study is the primary academic qualification. Typically these are, in order of completion, bachelor's degree (awarded for completion of undergraduate study), master's degree, and doctorate (awarded after graduate or postgraduate study). These are only currently being standardized in Europe as part of the Bologna process, as many different degrees and standards of time to reach each are currently awarded in different countries in Europe. In most fields the majority of academic researchers and teachers have doctorates or other terminal degrees, though in some professional and creative fields it is common for scholars and teachers to have only master's degrees.

Academic conferences

Closely related to academic publishing is the practice of bringing a number of intellectuals in a field to give talks on a paper they have written, often allowing for a wider audience to be exposed to their ideas. The papers are usually refereed first and only a smaller number of authors are invited to speak about their writing. The chance to speak can allow fuller explanation of points that may not have been clearly written or fully expanded upon in writing. The greater interactivity that is inherent in the conference format can allow for quicker feedback and criticism on the ideas discussed. Since papers are typically submitted ahead of time, conference attendees have had time to read the paper and be prepared with insightful questions if they wish.

Conflicting goals

Within academia, diverse constituent groups have diverse, and sometimes conflicting, goals. In the contemporary academy several of these conflicts are widely distributed and common. A salient example of conflict is that between the goal to increase services and the goal to reduce costs. The conflicting goals of professional education programs and general education advocates currently are playing out in the negotiation over accreditation standards.

Practice and theory

Academia is sometimes contrasted pejoratively with "practice", such as daily living, employment, and business. Critics of academia say that academic theory is insulated from the 'real world', and thus does not have to take into account the real effects, results, and risks of actually performing the actions which academics study. Academic insularity is sometimes referred to as the ivory tower. This often leads to a real or perceived tension between academics and practitioners in many fields of knowledge, particularly when an academic is critical of the actions of a practitioner. Depending on the degree of criticism, the practitioner's critique of academia could also be seen as anti-intellectualism. The balance to the view from the practitioner is that even if academia is insulated from practice in the real world, that does not mean academic study is valueless. In fact it is often seen that many academic developments turn out only much later to have great practical results. However, given that among practitioners there is a perception of academic insularity, it may increase the value and impact of the academician's studies and or opinion if she takes that insularity into account when discussing or offering criticism of a practitioner or a practice in general.

Town and gown

Universities are often culturally distinct from the towns or cities where they reside. In some cases this leads to discomfort or outright conflict between local residents and members of the university over political, economic, or other town and gown issues. Some localities in the Northeastern United States, for instance, have tried to block students from registering to vote as local residents—instead encouraging them to vote by absentee ballot at their parents' residence—in order to retain control of local politics. Other issues can include deep cultural and class divisions between local residents and university students. The film Breaking Away dramatizes such a conflict.

Commerce and scholarship

The goals of research for profit and for the sake of knowledge often conflict to some degree.

History

Ancient times

Main article: Academy Academia takes its name from the Academy, a sacred sanctuary outside the city walls of ancient Athens. It was dedicated to the legendary hero Akademos and contained several olive groves, a gymnasium and an area suited for intimate gatherings. In these gardens, largely planted and enchanced with statuary by its previous owner Cimon, the philosopher Plato conversed with followers who believed Plato would enlighten them. These informal sessions came to be known as the Academy. Plato later further developed his sessions into a method of teaching philosophy and in 387 BC, established what is known today as the Old Academy. Plato's colleagues and pupils developed spin-offs of his method. Arcesilaus, a Greek student of Plato established the Middle Academy. Carneades, another student, established the New Academy. In 335 BC, Aristotle refined the method with his own theories and established the Lyceum in another gymnasium.

Early development

Main article: Medieval university Academia as a modern institution began to take shape in the Middle Ages (AD 350 to 1450). At this time, the Roman Empire had crumbled and new regimes were beginning to take shape throughout Western Europe. Europe had just come out of the Dark Ages, a period of mass illiteracy and loss of information. The only repositories of ancient knowledge were the Roman Catholic monasteries with hermits, monks and priests compiling all the world's knowledge into elaborate hand written books. The earliest precursors of the colleges and universities were just being developed at these monasteries in order to redistribute the knowledge they had saved through the Dark Ages. One had to go to a monastery to learn about ancient Greece and Rome and the wealth of information created in those societies. Being schooled at a monastery meant academia was effectively restricted to men who wanted to become monks and priests. But by the 11th century, some Roman Catholic church leaders began a revolutionary campaign to proliferate the knowledge they had to the greater society of early Europe. They believed that Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Homer, Sophocles and the others belonged to the people and not just for the religious. The monks and priests moved out of the monasteries and went to the city cathedrals where they opened the first schools dedicated to advanced study. Most notable of these schools were in Bologna, Paris, Oxford and Cambridge, though others were opened throughout Europe. Studying at these schools, now called universities, meant sitting through a method of education called the lecture. In a lecture, the master read aloud from manuscripts written by monks and priests while students sat at their pews reading along from their own handwritten copies of the massive amounts of texts. Only the master could determine if a student had achieved enough knowledge to graduate and organize lectures of their own. By the end of the 13th century, there were over 80 universities in Europe.

Early methods

Seven liberal arts

The seven liberal arts became codified in late antiquity through textbooks by Varro and Martianus Capella, who offered the standardized structure through which men (and it was men, by and large, for women were excluded) could visualize the world of learning. The Liberal Arts consisted of the Trivium, the basic "three ways" of Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic, and the Quadrivium, the "four ways" of Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy. Philosophy and Theology were the all-embracing studies that encompassed the Liberal Arts, but philosophy in the early Middle Ages was largely a matter of dialectic. The didactic allegory of the 5th-century pagan Martianus Capella's De nuptiis philologiæ et Mercurii ("The wedding of philology and Mercury") was of stupendous importance in fixing the unchanging formulas of Academia for the Latin West, from the Christianized Roman Empire of the 5th century until newly available Arabic texts and the works of Aristotle became available in Western Europe in the 12th century. The conceptual scheme established by Martianus Capella, given Christian readings and interpretations, remained largely in effect in western Academia, even after the new scholasticism of the School of Chartres and the encyclopedic work of Thomas Aquinas, until the humanism of the 15th and 16th centuries opened new studies of arts and sciences.

Encyclopedists

Three medieval writers attempted to encompass the whole of Academia, the entire world of learning: Isidore of Seville, Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas.

Abelard

In the 12th century, French philosopher Peter Abelard instituted his own revolution in the world of academia with the 1123 publication of his book, Sic et Non. He did away with the master reading from a text aloud in lectures and instead sat his students at desks in front of two separate texts contradicting each other. Instead of telling them which method was correct and which was wrong, he required his students to ask each other questions and come up with their own conclusions. Soon, almost all universities experimented with the use of the Abelard method.

Scholasticism

In the early 13th century, Saint Thomas Aquinas revolutionized academia once again with his popularization of scholasticism. Scholasticism employed the Abelard method of education but went further. Masters offered their students long, involved resolutions in examining two opposing texts and asked them to consider religious faith in their reasoning. The resolutions were based on newly rediscovered philosophies of Aristotle which tried to balance out reason with faith in God.

Rise of academic societies

Main article: Learned society Academic societies or learned societies began as groups of academics who worked together or presented their work to each other. These informal groups later became organized and in many cases state-approved. Membership was restricted, usually requiring approval of the current members and often total membership was limited to a specific number. The Royal Society founded in 1660 was the first such academy. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences was begun in 1780 by many of the same people prominent in the American Revolution. Academic societies served both as a forum to present and publish academic work, the role now served by academic publishing, and as a means to sponsor research and support academics, a role they still serve. Membership in academic societies is still a matter of prestige in modern academia.

Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Academia began to splinter from its Christian roots in 18th-century colonial America. In 1753, Benjamin Franklin established the Academy and Charitable School of the Province of Pennsylvania. In 1755, it was renamed the College and Academy and Charitable School of Philadelphia. Today, it is known as the University of Pennsylvania. For the first time, academia was established as a secular institution. For the most part, church-based dogmatic points of view were no longer thrust upon students in the examination of their subjects of study. Points of view became more varied as students were free to wander in thought without having to add religious dimensions to their conclusions. In 1819, Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia and developed the standards used today in organizing colleges and universities across the globe. The curriculum was taken from the traditional liberal arts, classical humanism and the values introduced with the Protestant Reformation. Jefferson offered his students something new: the freedom to chart their own courses of study rather than mandate a fixed curriculum for all students. Religious colleges and universities followed suit. The Academy movement in the U.S. in the early 19th century arose from a public sense that education in the classic disciplines needed to be extended into the new territories and states that were being formed in the Old Northwest, in western New York State, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. Dozens of academies were founded in the area, supported by private donations. During the Age of Enlightenment in 18th-century Europe, the academy started to change in Europe. In the beginning of the 19th century Wilhelm von Humboldt not only published his philosophical paper On the Limits of State Action, but also directed the educational system in Prussia for a short time. He introduced an academic system that was much more accessible to the lower classes. Humboldt's Ideal was an education based on individuality, creativity, wholeness, and versatility. Many continental European universities are still rooted in these ideas (or at least pay lip-service to them). They are, however, in contradiction to today's massive trend of specialization in academia.

Recent economic changes

In the 1980s and 1990s significant changes in the economics of academic life began to be felt, identified by some as a catastrophe in the making and by others as a new era with potentially huge gains for the university. Some critics identified the changes as a new "corporatization of the university." Academic jobs have been traditionally viewed by many intellectuals as desirable, because of the autonomy and intellectual freedom they allow (especially because of the tenure system), despite their low pay compared to other professions requiring extensive education. And until the mid-1970s, when federal expenditures for higher education fell sharply, there were routinely more tenure-track jobs than Ph.D.'s. Now, by contrast, despite rising tuition rates and growing university revenues (especially in the U.S.) well-paid professorial positions are rarer, replaced with poorly paid adjunct positions and graduate-student labor. People with doctorates in the sciences and, to a lesser extent, mathematics, often find jobs outside of academia (or use part-time work in industry to supplement their incomes), but a Ph.D. in the humanities and many social sciences prepares the student primarily for academic employment. However, in recent years a large proportion of such Ph.D.'s—ranging from 30 percent to 60 percent—have been unable to obtain tenure-track jobs. They must choose between adjunct positions, which are poorly paid and lack job security; teaching jobs in community colleges or in high schools, where little research is done; the non-academic job market, where they will tend to be overqualified; or some other course of study, such as law or business. Indeed, with academic institutions producing Ph.D.'s in greater numbers than the number of tenure-track professorial positions they intend to create, there is little question that administrators are cognizant of the economic effects of this arrangement. The sociologist Stanley Aronowitz wrote: "Basking in the plenitude of qualified and credentialed instructors, many university administrators see the time when they can once again make tenure a rare privilege, awarded only to the most faithful and to those whose services are in great demand" (The Knowledge Factory 76). Most people who are knowledgeable of the academic job market advise prospective graduate students not to attend graduate school if they must pay for it; graduate students who are admitted without tuition remission and a reasonable stipend are forced to incur large debts that they will be unlikely to repay quickly. In addition, most people recommend that students obtain full and accurate information about the placement record of the programs they are considering. At some programs, most Ph.D.'s get multiple tenure-track offers, whereas at others few obtain any; such information is clearly very useful in deciding what to do with the next 5–7 years of one's life. Some believe that, as a number of Baby Boomer professors retire, the academic job market will rebound. However, others predict that this will not result in an appreciable growth of tenure-track positions, as universities will merely fill their needs with low-paid adjunct positions. Aronowitz ascribed this problem to the economic restructuring of academia as a whole: :In fact, the program of restructuring on university campuses, which entails reducing full-time tenure-track positions in favor of part-time, temporary, and contingent jobs, has literally "fabricated" this situation. The idea of an academic "job market" based on the balance of supply and demand in an open competitive arena is a fiction whose effect is to persuade the candidate that she simply lost out because of bad luck or lack of talent. The truth is otherwise. (75–76) The effects of a growing pool of unemployed, underemployed, and undesirably employed Ph.D.'s on the Western countries' economies as a whole is undetermined.

Academic publishing

Main article: Academic publishing

History of academic journals

Among the earliest research journals were the Proceedings of meetings of the Royal Society in the 17th century. At that time, the act of publishing academic inquiry was controversial, and widely ridiculed. It was not at all unusual for a new discovery to be announced as an anagram, reserving priority for the discoverer, but indecipherable for anyone not in on the secret: both Isaac Newton and Leibniz used this approach. However, this method did not work well. Robert K. Merton, a sociologist, found that 92% of cases of simultaneous discovery in the 17th century ended in dispute. The number of disputes dropped to 72% in the 18th century, 59% by the latter half of the 19th century, and 33% by the first half of the 20th century. The decline in contested claims for priority in research discoveries can be credited to the increasing acceptance of the publication of papers in modern academic journals. The Royal Society was steadfast in its unpopular belief that science could only move forward through a transparent and open exchange of ideas backed by experimental evidence. Many of the experiments were ones that we would not recognize as scientific today—nor were the questions they answered. For example, when the Duke of Buckingham was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society on June 5, 1661, he presented the Society with a vial of powdered "unicorn horn". It was a well-accepted 'fact' that a circle of unicorn's horn would act as an invisible cage for any spider. Robert Hooke, the chief experimenter of the Royal Society, emptied the Duke's vial into a circle on a table and dropped a spider in the centre of the circle. The spider promptly walked out of circle and off the table. In its day, this was cutting-edge research.

Current status and development

Research journals have been so successful that the number of journals and of papers has proliferated over the past few decades, and the credo of the modern academic has become "publish or perish". Except for generalist journals like Science or Nature, the topics covered in any single journal have tended to narrow, and readership and citation have declined. A variety of methods reviewing submissions exist. The most common involves initial approval by the journal, peer review by two or three researchers working in similar or closely related subjects who recommend approval or rejection as well as request error correction, clarification or additions before publishing. Controversial topics may receive additional levels of review. Journals have developed a hierarchy, partly based on reputation but also on the strictness of the review policy. More prestigious journals are more likely to receive and publish more important work. Submitters try to submit their work to the most prestigious journal likely to publish it to bolster their reputation and curriculum vitae. Andrew Odlyzko, an academician with a large number of published research papers, has argued that research journals will evolve into something akin to Internet forums over the coming decade, by extending the interactivity of current Internet preprints. This change may open them up to a wider range of ideas, some more developed than others. Whether this will be a positive evolution remains to be seen. Some claim that forums, like markets, tend to thrive or fail based on their ability to attract talent. Some believe that highly restrictive and tightly monitored forums may be the least likely to thrive.

Academic dress

Main article: Academic dress Gowns have been associated with academia since the birth of the university in the 1300s and 1400s, perhaps because most early scholars were priests or church officials. Over time, the gowns worn by degree-holders have become standardized to some extent, although traditions in individual countries and even institutions have established a diverse range of gown styles, and some have ended the custom entirely, even for graduation ceremonies. At some universities, such as the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, undergraduates may be required to wear gowns on formal occasions and on graduation. Undergraduate gowns are usually a shortened version of a bachelor's gown. At other universities, for example, outside the UK or U.S., the custom is entirely absent. In general, in the U.S. and UK recipients of a bachelor's degree are entitled to wear a simple full-length robe without adornment and a mortarboard cap with a tassel. In addition, holders of a bachelor's degree may be entitled to wear a ceremonial hood at some schools. In the U.S., bachelor's hoods are rarely seen. Bachelor's hoods are generally black, but may have a silk lining denoting the subject of the degree, and are often edged in white fur. Recipients of a master's degree in the U.S. or UK wear a similar cap and gown but closed sleeves with slits, and usually receive a ceremonial hood that hangs down the back of the gown. The hood is traditionally edged with a silk or velvet strip displaying the disciplinary colour, and is lined with the university's colors. Recipients of a doctoral degree tend to have the most elaborate academic dress, and hence there is the greatest diversity at this level. In general, doctoral gowns are similar to the gowns worn by master's graduates, with the addition of velvet stripes across the sleeves and running down the front of the gown, tinted with the disciplinary color for the degree received. Holders of a doctoral degree may be entitled or obliged to wear scarlet (a special gown in scarlet) on high days and special occasions. The doctoral hood is identical in virtually every way to the master's hood, with the exception that it is generally longer, and the velvet strip is wider. While some doctoral graduates wear the mortarboard cap traditional to the lower degree levels, most wear a cap or tudor bonnet that resembles a tam o'shanter, from which a colored tassel is suspended. In modern times in the U.S. and UK, gowns are normally only worn at graduation ceremonies, although some colleges still demand the wearing of academic dress on formal occasions (official banquets and other similar affairs). In the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was more common to see the dress worn in the classroom, a practice which has now all but disappeared. One notable exception is the University of Oxford, where students are required to wear formal academic dress in the examination room.

References

- Aronowitz, Stanley. The Knowledge Factory: Dismantling the Corporate University and Creating True Higher Learning. ISBN 0807031232.

External links

- [http://palinurus.english.ucsb.edu/BIBLIO-UNIVERSITY-history-of-university.html Bibliography on the history of the university][http://www.academicforum.co.uk ,] provided by [http://palinurus.english.ucsb.edu/ Palinurus: The Academy and the Corporation], a web site from the University of California, Santa Barbara
- [http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Frequently_Asked_Questions3&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=8086 An Academic Costume Code and An Academic Ceremony Guide] Category:Education

Social sciences

The social sciences are a group of academic disciplines that study the human aspects of the world. They diverge from the arts and humanities in that the social sciences emphasize the use of the scientific method and rigorous standards of evidence in the study of humanity, including quantitative and qualitative methods. The social sciences are also known pejoratively as the soft sciences in contrast to the hard sciences. Social science theories typically deal with aggregated, not individual, behavior.

Major fields

The main social sciences include:
- Anthropology
- Communication
- Economics
- Education
- History
- Geography
- Linguistics
- Law
- Political Science
- Psychology
- Sociology
- Cultural Studies
- Social Policy Not all institutions recognize these fields as social sciences. For example, communication, cultural studies and history may be classified as humanities depending on how they are taught, and in which country they are taught. Some disciplines have characteristics of both the humanities, social and natural sciences: for example some subfields of anthropology, such as biological anthropology, are closely related to the natural sciences whereas archaeology and linguistics are social sciences. Similarly diverse subjects like geography also traverse the natural and social sciences (e.g., geomorphology and historical geography are often taught in single departments of geography). Some social sciences may converge with certain fields from the natural sciences, and become interdisciplinary. Examples of such fields include sociobiology -- an interdisciplinary field drawing on sociology and biology.

History

In ancient philosophy, there was no difference between the liberal arts of mathematics and the study of history, poetry or politics—only with the development of mathematical proof did there gradually arise a perceived difference between "scientific" disciplines and others, the "humanities" or "liberal arts". Thus, Aristotle studies planetary motion and poetry with the same methods, and Plato mixes geometrical proofs with his demonstration on the state of intrinsic knowledge. This unity of science as descriptive remains, for example, in the time of Thomas Hobbes who argued that deductive reasoning from axioms created a scientific framework, and hence his Leviathan was a scientific description of a political commonwealth. What would happen within decades of his work was a revolution in what constituted "science", particularly the work of Isaac Newton in physics. Newton, by revolutionizing what was then called "natural philosophy", changed the basic framework by which individuals understood what was "scientific". While he was merely the archetype of an accelerating trend, the important distinction is that for Newton, the mathematical flowed from a presumed reality independent of the observer, and working by its own rules. For philosophers of the same period, mathematical expression of philosophical ideals was taken to be symbolic of natural human relationships as well: the same laws moved physical and spiritual reality. For examples see Blaise Pascal, Gottfried Leibniz and Johannes Kepler, each of whom took mathematical examples as models for human behavior directly. In Pascal's case the famous wager, for Leibniz, the invention of binary computation and for Kepler the intervention of angels to guide the planets. In the realm of other disciplines, this created a pressure to express ideas in the form of mathematical relationships. Such relationships, called "Laws" after the usage of the time (see philosophy of science) became the model which other disciplines would emulate. August Comte (1797-1857) argued that ideas pass through three rising stages, Theological, Philosophical and Scientific. He defined the difference as the first being rooted in assumption, the second in critical thinking, and the third in positive observation. This framework, still rejected by many, encapsulates the thinking which was to push economic study from being a descriptive to a mathematically based discipline. Karl Marx was one of the first writers to claim that his methods of research represented a scientific view of history in this model. With the late 19th century, attempts to apply equations to statements about human behavior became increasingly common. Among the first were the "Laws" of philology, which attempted to map the change overtime of sounds in a language. It was with the work of Darwin that the descriptive version of social theory received another shock. Biology had, seemingly, resisted a basis as a mathematical study, and yet the Theory of Natural Selection and the implied idea of Genetic inheritance - later found to have been enunciated by Gregor Mendel, seemed to point in the direction of a scientific biology based, like physics and chemistry, on mathematical relationships. With the early 20th century, a wave of change came to science that saw "statistical" study sufficiently mathematical to be "science". This application of statistics to physics would yield Quantum Dynamics and an increasingly statistical view of biology. The first thinkers to attempt to combine inquiry of the type they saw in Darwin with exploration of human relationships, which, evolutionary theory implied would be based on selective forces, were Freud in Austria and William James in the United States. Freud's theory of the functioning of the mind, and James' work on experimental psychology would have enormous impact on those that followed. Freud, in particular, created a framework which would appeal not only to those studying psychology, but artists and writers as well. One of the most persuasive advocates for the view of scientific treatment of philosophy would be John Dewey (1859-1952). He began, as Marx did, in an attempt to weld Hegelian idealism and logic to experimental science, for example in his "Psychology" of 1887. However, it is when he abandoned Hegelian constructs, and joined the movement in America called Pragmatism, possibly under the influence of William James' "Principles of Psychology" that he began to formulate his basic doctrine, enunciated in essays such as "The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy" (1910). This idea, base on his theory of how organisms respond, states that there are three phases to the process of inquiry: #Problematic Situation, where the typical response is inadequate. #Isolation of Data or subject matter. #Reflective, which is tested empirically. With the rise of the idea of quantitative measurement in the physical sciences, for example Lord Rutherford's famous maxim that any knowledge that one cannot measure numerically "is a poor sort of knowledge", the stage was set for the conception of the humanities as being precursors to "social science" was set. This change was not, and is not, without its detractors, both inside of academia and outside. The range of critiques begin from those who believe that the physical sciences are qualitatively different from social sciences, through those who do not believe in statistical science of any kind, through those who disagree with the methodology and kinds of conclusion of social science, to those who believe the entire framework of scientificizing these disciplines is solely, or mostly, from a desire for prestige and to alienate the public.

Rise

Theodore Porter argued in "The Rise of Statistical Thinking" that the effort to provide a synthetic social science is a matter of both administration and discovery combined, and that the rise of social science was, therefore, marked by both pragmatic needs as much as by theoretical purity. An example of this is the rise of the concept of Intelligence Quotient, or IQ, a test which produces a number which it is not clear what, precisely, is being measured, except that it has pragmatic utility in predicting success in certain tasks. The rise of industrialism had created a series of social, economic, and political problems, particularly in managing supply and demand in their political economy, the management of resources for military and developmental use, the creation of mass education systems to train individuals in symbolic reasoning and problems in managing the effects of industrialization itself. The perceived senselessness of the "Great War" as it was then called, of 1914-1918, now called World War I, based in what were perceived to be "emotional" and "irrational" decisions, provided an immediate impetus for a more "scientific" and easier to manage form of decision making. Simply put, to manage the new multi-national enterprises, private and governmental, required more data. More data required a means of reducing it to information upon which to make decisions. Numbers and charts could be interpreted more quickly and moved more efficiently than long texts. In the 1930s this new model of managing decision making became cemented with the New Deal in the US, and in Europe with the increasing need to manage industrial production and governmental affairs. Institutions such as The New School for Social Research, International Institute of Social History, and departments of "social research" at prestigious universities were meant to fill the growing demand for individuals who could quantify human interactions and produce models for decision making on this basis. Coupled with this pragmatic need was the belief that the clarity and simplicity of mathematical expression avoided systematic errors of holistic thinking and logic rooted in traditional argument. This trend, part of the larger movement known as Modernism provided the rhetorical edge for the expansion of social sciences.

Present state

There continues to be little movement toward consensus on what methodology might have the power and refinement to connect a proposed "grand theory" with the various midrange theories which, with considerable success, continue to provide usable frameworks for massive, growing data banks. See consilience.

Criticism

The social sciences are sometimes criticized as being “less scientific” than the natural sciences, in that they are seen as being less rigorous or empirical in their methods. This claim is most commonly made when comparing social sciences to fields such as physics, chemistry or biology in which direct experimentation and falsification of results is generally carried out in a more direct fashion. Social scientists refute such claims by pointing to the use of a rich variety of scientific processes, mathematical proofs, and other methods in their professional literature. Others, however argue that the social world is much too complex to be studied as one would study static molecules. The actions or reactions of a molecule or chemical substance are always the same when placed in certain situations. Humans, on the other hand, are much too complex for these traditional scientific methodologies. Humans and society do not have certain rules that always have the same outcome and they cannot guarantee to react the same way to certain situations. Another criticism is that social sciences tend to be compromised more frequently by politics, since results from social science may threaten certain centers of power in a society, particularly ones which fund the research institutions. (For example, in the US, corporations and the state are frequently cited as these centers of power.) Further, complexity exacerbates the problems, since observed social data may be the result of factors which are hard to evaluate in isolation.

Reference

The beginnings of the social sciences in the eighteenth century are reflected in the grand encyclopedia of Diderot, with articles from Rousseau and other pioneers. The growth of the social sciences is also reflected in its specialised encyclopedias. The older editions are therefore of strong historical interest while the newest reflects current discussions, methodologies and ideologies.
- 1934, Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
- 1968, International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
- 2001, International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences / ed.-in-chief Neil J. Smelser; Paul B. Baltes, Amsterdam [etc.] : Elsevier, 2001-

External links

- [http://www.dialogical.net/socialsciences/index.html Social Science Virtual Library]
- [http://xlab.berkeley.edu UC Berkeley Experimental Social Science Laboratory]
- [http://www.sosig.ac.uk Social Science Information Gateway] (UK) Category:Humanities occupations ko:사회 과학 ja:社会科学 th:สังคมศาสตร์

Liberal arts

(12th century)]] The term liberal arts has come to mean studies that are intended to provide general knowledge and intellectual skills, rather than more specialized occupational or professional skills. The scope of the liberal arts has changed with society. It once emphasised the education of elites in the classics; but, with the rise of science and humanities during the Age of Enlightenment, the scope and meaning of "liberal arts" expanded to include them. Still excluded from the liberal arts are topics that are specific to particular occupations, such as agriculture, business, dentistry, engineering, medicine, pedagogy (school-teaching), and pharmacy. In the history of education, the seven liberal arts comprised two groups of studies: the trivium and the quadrivium. Studies in the trivium involved grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic (logic); and studies in the quadrivium involved arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. These liberal arts made up the core curriculum of the medieval universities. The term liberal in liberal arts is from the Latin word liberalis, meaning "appropriate for free men" (social and political elites), and they were contrasted with the servile arts. The liberal arts thus initially represented the kinds of skills and general knowledge needed by the elite echelon of society, whereas the servile arts represented specialized tradesman skills and knowledge needed by persons who were employed by the elite. Today, the liberal arts are often promoted as "liberal" in a later Enlightenment sense, as liberating of the mind, removing prejudices and unjustified assumptions. In spite of the earlier medieval meaning, this is regarded by many today as the more relevant sense of the broader term liberal education. In the United States, Liberal arts colleges are still a particular kind of higher education institution that are typified by their rejection of more direct vocational education during undergraduate studies. Following completion of their undergraduate studies at liberal arts colleges, graduates often do obtain specialized training by going to other institutions, such as professional schools (for instance, in business, law, medicine, or theology) or graduate schools. Institutions outside the United States that have been inspired by U.S. liberal-arts colleges include the [http://www.ecla.de/ European College of Liberal Arts] in Germany and [http://www.ashesi.org/ Ashesi University] in Ghana. This category of higher education does not exist in the United Kingdom, and the term "liberal arts" is very little used in any contemporary context in the UK. In Melbourne, Australia, Victoria University offers a two year TAFE Diploma known as The Diploma of Liberal Arts.

External links

- [http://www.ditext.com/libed/libed.html Philosophy of Liberal Education]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/1992-1/liberal.htm Liberal Arts at the Community College]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-926/liberal.htm A Descriptive Analysis of the Community College Liberal Arts Curriculum]
- [http://liberalarts.wabash.edu/ The Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts] Category:Education Category:History of education ja:リベラル・アーツ

Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals. Though the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists. Modern literary criticism is often published in essay or book form. Academic literary critics teach in literature departments and publish in academic journals, and more popular critics publish their criticism in broadly circulating periodicals such as the New York Times Book Review, the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, The Nation, and The New Yorker.

History of literary criticism

Classical and medieval criticism

Literary criticism has probably existed for as long as literature. Aristotle wrote the Poetics, a typology and description of literary forms with many specific criticisms of contemporary works, in the 4th century BC. Poetics developed for the first time the concepts of mimesis and catharsis, which are still crucial in literary study. Plato's attacks on poetry as imitative, secondary, and false were formative as well. Later classical and medieval criticism often focused on religious texts, and the several long religious traditions of hermeneutics and textual exegesis have had a profound influence on the study of secular texts.

Renaissance criticism

The literary criticism of the Renaissance developed classical ideas of unity of form and content into a literary neoclassicism which proclaimed literature to be central to culture and entrusted the poet or author with the preservation of a long literary tradition. Much more could be said about pre-19th-century literary interpretation.

19th-century criticism

The British Romantic movement of the early nineteenth century brought new aesthetic ideas to the study of literature, including the idea that the object of literature did not always have to be beautiful, noble, or perfect, but that literature itself could elevate a common subject to the level of the sublime. German Romanticism, which followed closely after the late development of German classicism, emphasized an aesthetic of fragmentation which can seem startlingly modern to a reader of English literature, and valued Witz – that is, "wit" or "humor" of a certain sort – more highly than the apparently serious Anglophone Romanticism. The late nineteenth century brought several authors better known for their critical writings than for their own literary work, such as Matthew Arnold.

The New Criticism

However important all of these aesthetic movements were as antecedents, current ideas about literary criticism derive almost entirely from the new direction taken in the early twentieth century. Early in the century the school of criticism known as Russian Formalism, and slightly later the New Criticism in Britain and America, came to dominate the study and discussion of literature. Both schools emphasized the close reading of texts, elevating it far above generalizing discussion and speculation about either authorial intention (to say nothing of the author's psychology or biography, which became almost taboo subjects) or reader response. This emphasis on form and precise attention to "the words themselves" has persisted, after the decline of these critical doctrines themselv

Theory

In the British and American literary establishment, the New Criticism was more or less dominant until the late 1960s. Around that time Anglo-American university literature departments began to witness a rise of a more explicitly philosophical literary theory, influenced by structuralism, then post-structuralism, and other kinds of Continental philosophy. It continued until the mid-1980s, when interest in "theory" peaked. Many later critics, though undoubtedly still influenced by theoretical work, have been comfortable simply interpreting literature rather than writing explicitly about methodology and philosophical presumptions.

The current state of literary criticism

Today interest in literary theory and Continental philosophy coexists in university literature departments with a more conservative literary criticism of which the New Critics would probably have approved. Acrimonious disagreements over the goals and methods of literary criticism, which characterized both sides taken by critics during the "rise" of theory, have declined (though they still happen), and many critics feel that they now have a great plurality of methods and approaches from which to choose. Some critics work largely with theoretical texts, while others read traditional literature; interest in the literary canon is still great, but many critics are also interested in minority and women's literatures, while some critics influenced by cultural studies read popular texts like comic books or pulp/genre fiction. Many literary critics also work in film criticism or media studies. Some write intellectual history; others bring the results and methods of social history to bear on reading literature.

Bibliography

- Encyclopedia of literary critics and criticism, ed. by Chris Murray, London [etc.] : Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999

External link

- [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-71 Dictionary of the History of Ideas:] Literary Criticism
- [http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908430.html Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism] Award Winners ja:文芸評論 Category:Literary criticism Category:Social philosophy Category:Aesthetics

Classics

For other meanings, see Classics (disambiguation) ---- Classics, particularly within the Western University tradition, when used as a singular noun, means the study of the language, literature, history, art, and other aspects of Greek and Roman culture during the time frame known as classical antiquity. As a plural noun "classics" can refer to texts written in the ancient Mediterranean world. The study of classics is a primary subject for the humanities, and the people reading classics are sometimes called humanists but are more often referred to as classicists. Symmetrically, in China's cultural sphere of influence, the character 經 (jing in pinyin) refers to a set of texts written during Chinese antiquity and the study of the language, literature, history and philosophy of ancient China, mostly through this corpus of Chinese classical texts, can be described as studying classics. Chinese men of letters sharing Confucian values can also be paralleled with Western humanists.

Western Classics

The word is derived from the Latin adjective classicus which literally means "belonging to the highest class of citizens", and has further connotations of superiority, authority and even perfection. The first recorded use of the word was by Aulus Gellius, a Roman author of the second century who in his miscellany Noctes Atticae (19, 8, 15) refers to classicus scriptor, non proletarius. He was ranking writers according to the classification of the Roman taxation classes. This method was started when the Greeks were constantly ranking their cultural work. The word they used was canon; ancient Greek for a carpenter's rule. Moreover, early Christian Church Fathers used this term to classify authoritative texts of the New Testament. This rule further helped in the preservation of works since writing platforms of vellum and papyrus and methods of reproduction was not cheap. The title of canon placed on a work meant that it would be more easily preserved for future generations. In modern times, a Western canon was collated that defined the best of Western culture. At the Alexandrian Library, the ancient scholars coined another term for canonized authors, hoi enkrithentes; "the admitted" or "the included". Classical studies incorporate a certain type of methodology. The Rule of the classical world and of Christian culture and society was Philo's rule: :"Philo's rule dominated Greek culture, from Homer to Neo-Platonism and the Christian Fathers of late antiquity. The rule is: "μεταχαραττε το θειον νομισμα" ("metacharatte to theion nomisma"). It is the law of strict continuity. We preserve and do not throw away words or ideas. Words and ideas may grow in meaning but must stay within the limits of the original meaning and concept that the word has." Classical education was considered the best training for implanting the life of moral excellence arete, hence a good citizen. It furnished students with intellectual and aesthetic appreciation for "the best which has been thought and said in the world". Copleston, an Oxford classicist said that classical education "communicates to the mind...a high sense of honour, a disdain of death in a good cause, (and) a passionate devotion to the welfare of one's country". Cicero commented, "All literature, all philosophical treatises, all the voices of antiquity are full of examples for imitation, which would all lie unseen in darkness without the light of literature". At Oxford University Classics is known as Literae Humaniores, comprising the study of Ancient Greek and Latin language and literature, Greek and Roman art and archaeology, history and philosophy. It is sometimes known as Greats after the nickname for the final examinations.

Quotes

- "Nor can I do better, in conclusion, than impress upon you the study of Greek literature, which not only elevates above the vulgar herd but leads not infrequently to positions of considerable emolument."
—Thomas Gaisford, Christmas sermon, Christ Church, Oxford.

Bibliography

- "Classicism in Literature", René Wellek, Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, ed. by Philip P. Wiener, Charles Scribner's Sons, NY, l968, l973.
- The Oldest Dead White European Males, And Other Reflections on the Classics, Bernard Knox, W. W. Norton & Co., NY, London, l993.

Western Classical Reference Library

- Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities, ed. by Harry Thurston Peck, Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1st pub. 1896, 2nd ed. 1897, reprinted l962. (1701 pages)
- The New Century Classical Handbook, ed. by Catherine B. Avery, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., Ny, l962. (1162 pages)
- The Oxford Classical Dictionary, N. G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard, 2nd ed., Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1970. (1176 pages)
- The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, ed. by M.C. Howatson, Oxford University Press, NY, l989. (615 pages)
- Loeb Classical Library

Misc. Bibliography

- Beard, Mary; Henderson, John. Classics: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995 (paperback, ISBN 0192853139); 2000 (new edition, paperback, ISBN 0192853856).
- Briggs, Ward W.; Calder, III, William M. Classical scholarship: A biographical encyclopedia (Garland reference library of the humanities). London: Taylor & Francis, 1990 (ISBN 0824084489).
- Macrone, Michael. Brush Up Your Classics. NY: Gramercy Books, l991. (Guide to famous words, phrases and stories of Greek classics.)
- Dictionary of British classicists, 1500–1960 by Richard B. Todd (General editor). Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004 (ISBN 1855069970).

Classical links

- [http://www.ancientlibrary.com/ The Ancient Library]
- [http://www.apaclassics.org/ American Philological Association]
- [http://www.annee-philologique.com/aph/ L'Année philologique]
- [http://www.fh-augsburg.de/~harsch/augusta.html Bibliotheca Augustana]
- [http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/faculty/associationsw.html Classical associations worldwide] at the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge.
- [http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/faculty/departments.html Classical departments worldwide] at the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge.
- [http://www.ut.ee/klassik/links/pages/ Classical Resources on Internet] at the Chair of Classical Philology, University of Tartu.
- [http://www.roman-emperors.org/ De Imperatoribus Romanis: An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Emperors]
- [http://www.tlg.uci.edu/index/resources.html Electronic Resources for Classicists] by the University of California, Irvine.
- [http://www.roman-empire.net/ Illustrated History of the Roman Empire]
- [http://www.nfhdata.de/premium/datenbasis-information/pages/International_News_Service_for_Historians/index.shtml International News Service for Historians] (is not dedicated to the Classics only, but very useful, especially for book reviews).
- [http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/ The Online Medieval and Classical Library]
- [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ The Perseus Digital Library]
- [http://pomoerium.com/index.htm Pomoerium Classics]
- [http://www.tlg.uci.edu/ Thesaurus Linguae Graecae]
- [http://www.ancientlibrary.com/wcd/ Wiki Classical Dictionary] Category:Classical studies Category:Culture Category:Ancient Greece Category:Ancient Rome ja:古典

Latin

Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages, those being most notably Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian, are descended from Latin, and many words based on Latin are found in other modern languages such as English. The Latin alphabet, derived from the Greek, remains the most widely-used alphabet in the world. It is said that 80 percent of scholarly English words are derived from Latin (in a large number of cases by way of French). Moreover, in the Western world, Latin was a lingua franca, the learned language for scientific and political affairs, for more than a thousand years, being eventually replaced by French in the 18th century and English in the late 19th. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the formal language of the Roman Catholic Church to this day, and thus the official national language of the Vatican. The Church used Latin as its primary liturgical language until the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. Latin is also still used (drawing heavily on Greek roots) to furnish the names used in the scientific classification of living things. The modern study of Latin, along with Greek, is known as Classics.

Main features

Latin is a synthetic inflectional language: affixes (which usually encode more than one grammatical category) are attached to fixed stems to express gender, number, and case in adjectives, nouns, and pronouns, which is called declension; and person, number, tense, voice, mood, and aspect in verbs, which is called conjugation. There are five declensions (declinationes) of nouns and four conjugations of verbs. There are six noun cases: #nominative (used as the subject of the verb or the predicate nominative), #genitive (used to indicate relation or possession, often represented by the English of or the addition of s to a noun), #dative (used of the indirect object of the verb, often represented by the English to or for), #accusative (used of the direct object of the verb, or object of the preposition in some cases), #ablative (separation, source, cause, or instrument, often represented by the English by, with, from), #vocative (used of the person or thing being addressed). In addition, some nouns have a locative case used to express location (otherwise expressed by the ablative with a preposition such as in), but this survival from Proto-Indo-European is found only in the names of lakes, cities, towns, small islands, and a few other words related to locations, such as "house", "ground", and "countryside". Latin itself, being a very old language, is far closer to Proto-Indo-European than are most modern Western European languages; it has, in fact, about the same relationship with PIE as modern Italian or French has to Latin. There are six general tenses in Latin (technically they are tense/aspect/mood complexes). The indicative mood can be used with all of them. The subjunctive mood, however, has only present, imperfect, perfect, and pluperfect tenses. These tenses in the subjunctive mood do not completely correlate in meaning to the tenses in the indicative. The following examples are of the first conjugation verb "laudare" ("to praise") in the indicative mood and the active voice:
Primary sequence tenses
# present (laudo, "I praise") # imperfect (laudabam, "I was praising") # future (laudabo, "I shall praise," "I will praise")
Secondary sequence tenses
# perfect (laudavi, "I praised", "I have praised") # pluperfect (laudaveram, "I had praised") # future perfect (laudavero, "I shall have praised," "I will have praised") The future perfect tense can also imply a normal future idea (like in "When I will have run...") and so may also sometimes be included in the primary sequence.
Latin and Romance
After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Latin evolved into the various Romance languages. These were for many centuries only spoken languages, Latin still being used for writing. For example, Latin was the official language of Portugal until 1296 when it was replaced by Portuguese. The Romance languages evolved from Vulgar Latin, the spoken language of common usage, which in turn evolved from an older speech which also produced the formal classical standard. Latin and Romance differ (for example) in that Romance had distinctive stress, whereas Latin had distinctive length of vowels. In Italian and Sardo logudorese, there is distinctive length of consonants and stress, in Spanish only distinctive stress, and in French even stress is no longer distinctive. Another major distinction between Romance and Latin is that all Romance languages, excluding Romanian, have lost their case endings in most words except for some pronouns. Romanian retains a direct case (nominative/accusative), an indirect case (dative/genitive), and vocative. In Italy, Latin is still compulsory in secondary schools as Liceo Classico and Liceo Scientifico which are usually attended by people who aim to the highest level of education. In Liceo Classico Ancient Greek is a compulsory subject.
Latin and English
See Latin influence in English for a more complete exposition. English grammar is independent of Latin grammar, though prescriptive grammarians in English have been heavily influenced by Latin. Attempts to make English grammar follow Latin rules — such as the prohibition against the split infinitive — have not worked successfully in regular usage. However, as many as half the words in English were derived from Latin, including many words of Greek origin first adopted by the Romans, not to mention the thousands of French, hundreds of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian words of Latin origin that have also enriched English. During the 16th and on through the 18th century English writers created huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek roots. These words were dubbed "inkhorn" or "inkpot" words (as if they had spilled from a pot of ink). Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, but some remain. Imbibe, extrapolate, dormant and inebriation are all inkhorn terms carved from Latin words. In fact, the word etymology is derived from the Greek word etymologia, meaning "true sense of the word." Latin was once taught in many of the schools in Britain with academic leanings - perhaps 25% of the total [http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/teachem2/thennow/]. However, the requirement for it was gradually abandoned in the professions such as the law and medicine, and then, from around the late 1960s, for admission to university. After the introduction of the Modern Language GCSE in the 1980s, it was gradually replaced by other languages, although it is now being taught by more schools along with other classical languages.
Latin education
The linguistic element of Latin courses offered in high schools or secondary schools, and in universities, is primarily geared toward an ability to translate Latin texts into modern languages, rather than using it in oral communication. As such, the skill of reading is heavily emphasized, whereas speaking and listening skills are barely touched upon. However, there is a growing movement, sometimes known as the Living Latin movement, whose supporters believe that Latin can, or should, be taught in the same way that modern "living" languages are taught, that is, as a means of both spoken and written communication. One of the most interesting aspects of such an approach is that it assists speculative insight into how many of the ancient authors spoke and incorporated sounds of the language stylistically; without understanding how the language is meant to be heard it is very difficult to identify patterns in Latin poetry. Institutions offering Living Latin instruction include the Vatican and the University of Kentucky. In Britain the Classical Association encourages this approach, and there has been something of a vogue for books describing the adventures of a mouse called Minimus. In the United States there is a thriving competitive organization for high school Latin students, the National Junior Classical League (the second-largest youth organization in the world after the Boy Scouts), backed up by the Senior Classical League for college students. Many would-be international auxiliary languages have been heavily influenced by Latin, and the moderately successful Interlingua considers itself to be the modernized and simplified version of the language (le latino moderne international e simplificate). Latin translations of modern literature such as Paddington Bear, Winnie the Pooh, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Le Petit Prince, Max und Moritz, and The Cat in the Hat have also helped boost interest in the language.
See also

About the Latin language

- Latin grammar
- Latin spelling and pronunciation
- Latin declension
- Latin conjugation
- Latin alphabet
- List of Latin words with English derivatives
- Latin verbs with English derivatives
- Latin nouns with English derivatives
- ablative absolute
- Word order in Latin
About the Latin literary heritage

- Latin literature
- Romance languages
- Loeb Classical Library
- List of Latin phrases
- List of Latin proverbs
- Brocard
- List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names
- List of Latin place names in Europe
- Carmen Possum
Other related topics

- Roman Empire
- Internationalism
References

- Bennett, Charles E. Latin Grammar (Allyn and Bacon, Chicago, 1908)
- N. Vincent: "Latin", in The Romance Languages, M. Harris and N. Vincent, eds., (Oxford Univ. Press. 1990), ISBN 0195208293
- Waquet, Françoise, Latin, or the Empire of a Sign: From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Centuries (Verso, 2003) ISBN 1859844022; translated from the French by John Howe.
- Wheelock, Frederic. Latin: An Introduction (Collins, 6th ed., 2005) ISBN 0060784237
External links

- [http://www.jambell.com/latin.html Latin Phrases for after dinner conversation (Thanks to Elaine Poole)]
- [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=lat Ethnologue report for Latin]
- [http://forumromanum.org/literature/index.html Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum] is a comprehensive webography of Latin texts and their translations.
- [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ The Perseus Project] has many useful pages for the study of classical languages and literatures, including [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform?lang=Latin an interactive Latin dictionary].
- [http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe words by William whitaker] is a dictionary program online capable of looking up various word forms.
- [http://retiarius.org/ Retiarius.Org] includes a Latin text search engine.
- [http://www.nd.edu/~archives/latgramm.htm Latin-English dictionary and Latin grammar from U of Notre Dame]
- [http://latin-language.co.uk/ Latin language] History of Latin language, Latin texts with English translation and a collection of dictionaries.
- [http://augustinus.eresmas.net/scl/ Societas Circulorum Latinorum] gathers together Latin Circles all over the world.
- [http://www.learnlatin.tk LearnLatin.tk] - Free online course in Latin
- [http://www.latintests.net/ LatinTests.net] - Lets Latin learners test their grammar and vocabulary with self-checking quizzes.
- [http://thelatinlibrary.com/ The Latin Library] contains many Latin etexts
- [http://www.textkit.com/ Textkit] has Latin textbooks and etexts.
- [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Latin-english/ Latin–English Dictionary]: from Webster's Rosetta Edition.
- [http://www.language-reference.com/ Language reference] Cross-foreign-language lexicon powered by its own search engine. All cross combinations between Latin and French, German, Italian, Spanish.
- [http://comp.uark.edu/~mreynold/rhetor.html Rhetor by Gabriel Harvey] was originally published in 1577 and never again reprinted.
- [http://freewebs.com/omniamundamundis omniamundamundis] Latin hypertexts from fourteen ancient Roman authors.
- [http://www.saltspring.com/capewest/pron.htm Pronunciation of Biological Latin, Including Taxonomic Names of Plants and Animals]
- [http://www.yleradio1.fi/nuntii Nuntii Latini (News in Latin)], written and spoken (RealAudio) news in latin. Weekly review of world news in Classical Latin, the only international broadcast of its kind in the world, produced by YLE, the Finnish Broadcasting Company.
- [http://www.tranexp.com:2000/InterTran?url=http%3A%2F%2F&type=text&text=Replace%20Me&from=eng&to=ltt InterTran Latin], Translate from Latin to ENGLISH or vice versa.
- [http://www.latinvulgate.com Latin Vulgate] The Latin and English of the Old & New Testaments in parallel, along with the Complete Sayings of Jesus in parallel Latin and English. Category:Classical languages Category:Ancient languages Category:Fusional languages Category:Languages of Italy Category:Languages of Vatican City als:Latein zh-min-nan:Latin-gí ko:라틴어 ja:ラテン語 simple:Latin language th:ภาษาละติน

Religion

)]] Religion (see etymology below) —sometimes used interchangeably with faith or belief system—is commonly defined as belief concerning the supernatural, sacred, or divine; and the moral codes, practices, values, institutions and rituals associated with such belief. In its broadest sense some have defined it as the sum total of answers given to explain humankind's relationship with the universe. In the course of the development of religion, it has taken many forms in various cultures and individuals. Occasionally, the word "religion" is used to designate what should be more properly described as "organized religion" – that is, an organization of people supporting the exercise of some religion, often taking the form of a legal entity (see religion-supporting organization). There are many different religions in the world today.

Etymology

religion-supporting organization] The origins of the word "religion" have been debated for centuries. Some explanations for the origin of the word are:
- re-reading--from Latin re (again) + legio (read), referring to the repetition of scripture.
- treating carefully--from Latin relegere (Cicero's interpretation)
- re-connection to the divine--from Latin re (again) + ligare (to connect, as in English ligament). This interpretation is favoured by modern scholars such as Tom Harpur, but probably originated with St. Augustine.
- to bind or return to bondage--an alternate interpretation of the "reconnection" etymology, possibly also originating with Augustine but emphasising a sense of servitude to God. However, the bondage interpretation, while popular with critics of religion, is often considered imprecise and possibly offensive in many modern religious contexts.
- concerning a gathering--from Latin ablative res (with regard to) + legere (to gather). More emphatically, religion concerns an organization. What is clear about the word "religion" is that the religious connotations (in the sense of gods, morality, afterlife, etc.) were not a part of the term's Latin precursors.

Religion and science

According to the religious, knowledge can be gained from a religious leader, a sacred text, or personal revelation. It is not limited in scope and can try to answer any question. Some religious people maintain that knowledge obtained in this way is absolute and infallible (religious cosmology). Religious knowledge tends to vary from religion to religion, from sect to sect, and from individual to individual. In contrast, the scientific method gains knowledge by interaction with the world, and can only answer cosmological questions about the physical universe. It tries to give theories of the world which best fit the observed evidence. All scientific knowledge is tentative, and subject to later improvement or revision in the face of better evidence. It should be noted that science can not only describe the world physically, but can also state facts that aren't physical, e.g. facts of economics, linguistics or much of psychology. Many early scientists held strong religious beliefs (see Scientists of Faith) and strove to reconcile science and religion. Isaac Newton, for example, believed that gravity caused the planets to revolve about the sun, but credited God with the design. In the concluding General Scholium to the Principia Mathematica he wrote "This most beautiful System of the Sun, Planets and Comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful being." Nevertheless, conflict arose between religious organisations and individuals who propogated scientific theories which they deemed unaccaptable. The Roman Catholic Church, for example, has reserved to itself the right to decide which scientific discoveries are acceptable and which are unacceptable. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for unacceptable scientific theories, while Galileo was tried and forced to recant the theory that the earth goes around the sun. The modern Roman Catholic Church accepts most current scientific theories, but still reserves the right to make the final judgment. Here are a few of the areas in which some scientists and the organized Church have come into conflict from time to time.
- Does the earth move around the sun or does the sun move around the earth?
- Is the earth a few thousand years old or more than a billion years old?
- Was there a flood that covered all the earth?
- Did the various species evolve or were they individually created by God? (see Evolution)
- Did the universe have a beginning or is it infinite?
- Is the speed of light constant and is Einstein's Theory of Relativity correct?
- Does radioactive decay occur at a predictable rate? (see Age of the Earth)

Philosophy and metaphysics

In between the doctrines of religion and science, stands the philosophical perspective of metaphysical cosmology. This ancient field of study seeks to draw logical conclusions about the nature of the universe, humanity, and god. One important philosophical tool that attempts to resolve the conflict between religion and science is Occam's razor, which was originally developed by William of Occam to support religion but is now often used in the philosophy of science to support science. Occam's razor cuts both ways. One should also take note of the related philosophic field of epistemology which questions the very nature of how we come to understand and accept that a belief is true or false, such as belief in Darwinian evolution as compared to Christian young earth creationism and vice versa. young earth creationism]

Esotericism and mysticism

:young earth creationism] Mysticism, in contrast with philosophy and metaphysics, denies that logic is the most important method of gaining enlightenment. Rather physical disciplines such as yoga, starvation, self-strangulation, or whirling (in the case of the Sufi dervishes) or the use of drugs such as LSD, lead to higher states of consciousness that logic can never hope to grasp. Mysticism ("to conceal") is the pursuit of communion with, or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, the divine, spiritual truth, or God through direct, personal experience (intuition or insight) rather than rational thought. Mystics believe in the existence of realities beyond perceptual or intellectual apprehension that are central to being and directly accessible through personal experience. They believe that such experience is a genuine and important source of knowledge. Esotericism claims to be more sophisticated than religion, to rely on intellectual understanding rather than faith, and to improve on philosophy in its emphasis on techniques of psycho-spiritual transformation (esoteric cosmology). Esotericism refers to "hidden" knowledge available only to the advanced, privileged, or initiated, as opposed to exoteric knowledge, which is public. It applies especially to spiritual practices. The mystery religions of ancient Greece and the modern religion of Scientology are examples of Esotericism. Esotericism

Spirituality

Members of an organized religion may not see any significant difference between religion and spirituality. Or they may see a distinction between the mundane, earthly aspects of their religion and its spiritual dimension. Some individuals draw a strong distinction between religion and spirituality. They may see spirituality as a belief in ideas of religious significance (such as God, the Soul, or Heaven), but not feel bound to the bureaucratic structure and creeds of a particular organized religion. They choose the term spirituality rather than religion to describe their form of belief, perhaps reflecting a disillusionment with organized religion (see Religion in modernity), and a movement towards a more "modern" — more tolerant, and more intuitive — form of religion. These individuals may reject organized religion because of historical acts by religious organizations, such as Islamic terrorism or the Spanish Inquisition. Mahatma Gandhi who was born a Hindu wrote the following about religion in his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth :"Thus if I could not accept Christianity either as a perfect, or the greatest religion, neither was I then convinced of Hinduism being such. Hindu defects were pressingly visible to me. If untouchability could be a part of Hinduism, it could but be a rotten part or an excrescence. I could not understand the raison d'etre of a multitude of sects and castes. What was the meaning of saying that the Vedas were the inspired Word of God? If they were inspired, why not also the Bible and the Koran? As Christian friends were endeavouring to convert me, so were Muslim friends. Abdullah Sheth had kept on inducing me to study Islam, and of course he had always something to say regarding its beauty." He then went on to say: :"As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side." He also said the following about Hinduism: :"Hinduism as I know it entirely satisfies my soul, fills my whole being ... When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita." Later in his life when he was asked whether he was a Hindu, he replied: :"Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew."

Myth

Hindu, Israel]] The word "myth" has two main meanings, according to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary: # a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon # a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence Ancient polytheistic religions, such as those of Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia, are categorized under the heading of mythology. Religions of pre-industrial peoples, or cultures in development, are similarly called myths in the anthropology of religion. Mythology can be a term used pejoratively by both religious and non-religious people. But by defining another person's religious stories and beliefs as mythology, one implies that they are less real than one's own religious stories and beliefs. The term "myth" in sociology, however, has a non-pejorative meaning. There "myth" is defined as stories that are important for the group and not necessarily untrue. Examples include the death and resurrection of Jesus, which, to Christians, explains the means by which they are freed from sin, as well as being ostensibly a historical event.

Approaches to the study of individual religions

Methods of studying religion subjectively (in relation to one's own beliefs)

These include efforts to determine the meaning and application of "sacred" texts and beliefs in the context of the student's personal worldview. This generally takes one of three forms:
- one's own — efforts by believers to ascertain the meaning of their own sacred text or other traditions, and to conform their thoughts and actions to th

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