Some Second Thoughts About the Humanities

Willem Drees’ excellent What Are the Humanities For? triggered a series of second thoughts about the role of the humanities in modern society. These include several topics on which he and I agree but where we may be out of step with current trends, such as a dedication to “value-free” scholarship an...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Drakeman, Donald L. 1953- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Open Library of Humanities$s2024- 2021
In: Zygon
Year: 2021, Volume: 56, Issue: 3, Pages: 732-745
Further subjects:B Critical Thinking
B Humanities
B Academic Freedom
B Religious Studies
B Public health
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Summary:Willem Drees’ excellent What Are the Humanities For? triggered a series of second thoughts about the role of the humanities in modern society. These include several topics on which he and I agree but where we may be out of step with current trends, such as a dedication to “value-free” scholarship and the continuing importance of the academic study of religion. It also provided an opportunity to question why religion has been excluded from policy debates involving the principal interface between science and religion in the twenty-first century: the creation of new medicines and their delivery to the billions of religious people around the world. Finally, I question the assumption that studying the humanities necessarily promotes critical thinking and argue that achieving that goal is more important now than ever before.
ISSN:1467-9744
Contains:Enthalten in: Zygon
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/zygo.12730