What is the difference between the humanities and social sciences?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:History is borderline humanities/social sciences.

Is the discipline of history more similar to psychology (clearly a social science) or English (clearly in humanities)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where does history fit?

I think there's some variation on this, depending on the emphasis on quantitative methods in programs. Traditionally a humanity, but there is some wiggle room.

I'm not so sure if quantitative distinguishes social science from humanities. Economics is the only purely quantitative discipline and economics majors have GRE quantitative scores similar to hard science and engineering majors. Other social science have minimal quantitative components. Philosophy majors (humanities) score better on the quantitative section than all social science majors except economics. A lot of analytic philosophy is similar to math.

[Anonymous]

As has been noted, boundaries can be fuzzy.

Economics and psychology mimic the methodology of hard science the most. They aren't really "humanistic" disciplines. You don't really read the "cannon" of great thinkers. It's mainly textbooks, tests and problem sets.

Political science, sociology and anthropology are methodologically diverse but have a humanistic component that in some ways resemble the discipline of history (humanities, but on the border with social sciences).

[Anonymous]

Part of the problem is there is much variationwithin the social sciences and within the humanities than between the social sciences and humanities.

[Anonymous]

Another angle on this debate is whether new information supersedes previous information or if it us just an alternative.

With physical sciences, once you find out a previous belief is wrong, there isn’t much reason to study it; you would study the new, correct info.

In the humanities, older isn’t necessarily useless and “wrong.” Older novels & poetry can be better than newer stuff. Older philosophy can be as useful as newer philosophy.

The social sciences seem to have a foot on both sides of this issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:History is borderline humanities/social sciences.

Is the discipline of history more similar to psychology (clearly a social science) or English (clearly in humanities)?

Yes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:History is borderline humanities/social sciences.

Is the discipline of history more similar to psychology (clearly a social science) or English (clearly in humanities)?

Yes

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