Describing the Humanities to someone who is unfamiliar with them is a rather intriguing task. I believe that the best way to go about doing so would be to capture the essence, or the soul, if you will, of the discipline or discourse. As During touches on, and as I have read and heard countless times before, I think that the discipline of the Humanities is a way of looking at the world, of being able to analyze, critique, revise and combine the words of others with the goal of furthering your own, and by extension, other’s, view of our world and how it functions. During channels this kind of insight when he explains that the Humanities are “interdisciplinary” and that they are searching only for “truthfulness”, descriptions that back up the fact that the discipline is more of a way of thinking than a concrete methodology, akin to some of its associates. The natural or physical sciences are about as far flung in the opposite direction that one can reach, as they are rigid, strict, and close-minded, as opposed to the Humanities fluid nature and openness. The social sciences are more similar than different I would say, but they certainly borrow some of the rigidness and methodological thinking that creates the divide between it and the Humanities.
Some of During’s arguments that I thought would be meaningful to flush out in class were his analysis of the relationship between religions and the studies of Humanities (being supportive as opposed to the rigid antagonistic stance of the natural or physical sciences), and his explanation of the various sources that have come together to create the modern field of the Humanities (including the Europeans, Islamic world and the combination between ancient Confucianism and modern Chinese society), of which I think would be an interesting task to attempt to identify what aspects originated from what source or sources.
