The 8 branches of the Humanities (and what each of them studies)

The Humanities are a fairly heterogeneous group of studies that include various areas of knowledge. All these areas have, however, a common link: they revolve around the human being, from an artistic and intellectual as well as a social perspective.

In this article we will give a review of the different aspects or branches of the Humanities, and we will briefly explain what each of them consists of and what they study.

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The Humanities as general knowledge of the human being

The Humanities have always offered, throughout the centuries, an excellent overview of each and every one of the artistic and intellectual manifestations of the human being. This general vision allows, among other things, to understand the human being in an integral way and to decipher the cause and effect of multiple and varied events.

For example, if we know the historical context of a specific event well, it will be much easier for us to understand the artistic manifestations that took place at that time. Thus, if we understand the psychological toll caused by the First World War, we will be in a position to better appreciate the meaning of the different artistic manifestations of the time, which sought to either denounce this social shipwreck, or escape from the horror of war.

That is just one of the many, many examples that we can find. When you get into the study of the Humanities, everything seems to fit together as if by magic; you find meaning in many questions and, of course, you are willing to understand the world in greater depth.

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The branches of the Humanities

But what are the branches of the Humanities, and what do they study specifically?

1. The history

This branch is essential to understand the future of humanity and, therefore, our own current world. History is a very old discipline; all human groups have felt the need to reconstruct their past and thus understand their present. However, history has been distorted, on many occasions, for specific purposes. The historian's task is therefore to be as objective as possible and not be fooled by these manipulations. Otherwise, you will have a distorted vision of the past that will only cloud the truth of the present.

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2. The art

Art is a basic expression of the human being. Any culture, any age, any community has expressed its ideas, its religion or its ideal of beauty through artistic manifestations. Art is, then, one of the best ways to understand a specific culture and historical period. But, precisely for this reason, it is extremely important to contextualize correctly.

Once again, the art historian must carefully insert that artistic expression into its true context and, above all, not make judgments based on his personal reality. For example, to precisely analyze a medieval altarpiece, it is very important to know the social context in which it was created, which is precisely very different from ours. It is useless to look at the art of the Middle Ages through the eyes of our secular society; this will only cause us to get confused and come to wrong conclusions.

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3. The philosophy

This branch of the Humanities studies the thought of a specific author or of a group, and raises universal questions on topics as diverse as life and death, society or human behavior. Philosophy is essential when it comes to delving into, not only the history of the human being and the different thoughts of the different times, but also also to understand how the human mind works, since it includes the fears and questions that men and women have expressed during millennia.

Although a priori it seems somewhat contradictory, philosophy is closely linked to religion. Both collect these questions and propose possible answers, either from the myth or from the logos (logic). In any case, and as we have already commented, it is a basic branch of the Humanities, since it offers a very intimate x-ray of the human being over time.

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4. Literature

Although, indeed, literature does not cease to be one more artistic expression, it is generally studied as an independent branch within the Humanities, linked of course to Philology. The literary expression, like the pictorial or the architectural, reveals concrete realities of a individual, a group or a specific historical moment, so it is equally important to know it contextualize well. For example, medieval chivalric novels cannot be understood outside the context of medieval estates and Courtly Love. Nor is it possible to understand why Leopoldo Alas Clarín wrote La Regenta if we are unaware of the anticlerical atmosphere that existed among the Spanish intelligentsia at the end of the 19th century. And so, with a long etcetera.

Literature, therefore, does not simply involve reading a series of works and their formal analysis; it goes further, since the study of the philological corpus of a culture allows us to delve into the bases of that culture. Even more; through literature we can know historical facts of which, perhaps, we lack information. In this case, of course, the historian must be able to distinguish between fact and literary embellishment.

5. philology

Closely linked to literature, philology is, we could say, its formal aspect. In university studies they are always linked to each other, since Philology is concerned with the study of the formation and evolution of a language., and literature, of its use as an artistic and cultural expression. Philology implies, of course, a great knowledge of the language in question, as well as its historical and geographical variants.

6. psychology

It is the most modern branch of the Humanities, since psychology as a discipline does not begin to have a place in academic circles until the end of the 19th century. Traditionally, the date of 1879 is established as the starting point for psychology studies, since it was in that year that, in Leipzig, wilhelm wundt He created the first experimental psychology laboratory.

Psychology is a discipline that straddles the Humanities and the Sciences, since it not only analyzes human behavior from a social and family perspective, but also introduces concepts related to neurology and medicine.

7. anthropology

In the same way as psychology, anthropology is a relatively modern science, since the first studies were officially established in the second half of the 19th century. And also similar to psychology, anthropology combines humanistic elements (the culture in which inserts the individual, which is a non-biological characteristic) with scientific elements related to biology.

Ultimately, we can say that anthropology aims to understand the behavior of a human society and its manifestationsboth from a cultural and biological perspective.

8. The right

The perspective of law is more practical than theoretical, since it is a discipline that decodes a legal system for its correct implementation in specific cases. Thus, we can distinguish it from the History of Law, which deals with the compendia of laws from a historical perspective and taking into account the specific situation of each society and culture.