Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: The purpose of the article is to analyze the impact of Kant’s ideas on the development of the current problem of the scientific foundations of humanities knowledge. Of particular importance in this regard was the ideal of scientism formulated by Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason. On the one hand, he defined mathematics and natural science as a general form of scientific knowledge, setting a general model of scientism. But, on the other hand, he laid down a tradition within which many humanities disciplines and their special methodology could not acquire scientific status. The importance of the unity of scientific methodology was not so obvious to other German philosophers. Here, the influence of Kant’s idea of two spheres of existence, two worlds in which man exists: the natural world and the human world, was evident. This led to the idea of a fundamental difference between nature and culture, nature and society. From here, it is not far from the idea of the difference and opposition between the humanities and the natural sciences and the methods they use. In the works of W. Dilthey, I. Droysen, G. Simmel, F. Schleiermacher, and others, there is a rather developed concept of the specificity of the humanities as sciences of the spirit, that is, of spiritual life, the world of experience, and the corresponding cultural and historical formations. In this sense, the revival of the Kantian idea of the constructive role of reason, in particular by neo-Kantians, was of great importance, and the slogan “back to Kant” rather meant a move forward on the path of expanding the scope of the rational. The possibility of joining humanities knowledge to the scientific sphere is a research topic in contemporary world philosophy, but it is Kant who is largely the milestone from which this topic was able to unfold. The history of philosophical understanding of humanities knowledge in post-Kantian philosophy reveals two trends. The first tendency emphasized that the humanities knowledge, at least in some aspects, is very similar to the natural sciences and uses the same methods and means of cognition and presentation of knowledge, representing general scientific ideals. The second tendency emphasized another feature: humanities knowledge is significantly different from natural science knowledge and uses specific conceptual guidelines and means of cognition and presentation of knowledge. We can distinguish between two types of humanities knowledges, which correspond to strict or weakened ideals of science, and humanities, a vast field of non-scientific humanities knowledge with varying degrees of remoteness from science in its individual components. Kant’s ideal of science and the idea of two worlds of human existence potentially laid down two trends in the development of humanities knowledge: the first oriented humanities knowledge toward scientific norms, while the second sought unique specificity. Eventually, this led to the division of humanities knowledge into humanities and humanities studies, which are in a state of mutual exclusion and complementarity.
Source: Doxa
Author: Oleksandr Afanasiev
Institution: Odesа Polytechnic National University
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4411620166