Syllabus+Notes+-+Human+Sciences


 * What the TOK Syllabus has to say about … **** Human Sciences **
 * Key Quotations:**
 * ‘It is the great destiny of human science not to ease man's labour or to prolong his life, noble as these ends may be, nor to serve the ends of power, but to enable man to walk upright without fear in a world he at length will understand and which is his home.’ Paul B Sears
 * ‘Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do exactly as it pleases’ (Anon).
 * ‘Believing, with Max Weber, that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be, therefore, not an experimental science in search of laws but an interpretive one in search of meaning.’ Clifford Geertz

It is often said that human behaviour is unpredictable, and that this is what makes it impossible to study humans scientifically. But our everyday interactions depend on the fact that we do, most of the time think we know how other people will respond to what we say or do. Does the fact that we are sometimes wrong mean that prediction of human behaviour is impossible? Can human behaviour be studied scientifically? What differences and similarities are there between the human sciences and the natural sciences, in terms of both their methods and procedures for gaining knowledge and the nature of the knowledge produced? In order to understand conscious behaviour do we have to examine motives, or the meaning of an action for the people involved? Research in the human sciences often has a relationship to practical matters and concerns. Market research typically aims to increase profits; research in economics may seek to influence public policy. Does such a relationship between research and its context affect its status as science?
 * Overall Summary:**


 * Questions about … the Nature of the human sciences**
 * What kinds of knowledge are usually included in the category of human science? How do we decide whether a particular area of study is a human science? What are the similarities and differences between the subject matter and methodologies of the various human sciences?
 * To what extent does the human subject matter of this area of knowledge affect a scientific approach? Is it reasonable to think that human behaviour can be studied scientifically?
 * In what ways and to what extent are the objects of study in the natural and the human sciences similar or different?


 * Questions about … Methods of gaining knowledge**
 * Are the human sciences, as a whole, fundamentally different from the natural sciences? Or are there sometimes surprising similarities between the two areas in, for example, the ways they use models and theories, their methods for collecting data, the nature of facts, the role of observation and experimentation, the impact of the observer on the observed phenomena, quantification, falsifiability, precise prediction, identification of constants, and the degree of complexity of the phenomena studied?
 * It is not uncommon for very different approaches to coexist within a single human science (for example, classical versus Keynesian versus Marxist economics, or psychodynamic versus behaviourist versus humanistic approaches in psychology). If two competing paradigms give different explanations of a phenomenon, how can we decide which is correct? The human sciences are sometimes conceived as aiming not only to explain human behaviour or action (“from the outside”) but also to understand it (“from the inside”). From this perspective, can the human sciences be said to have a richness that the natural sciences lack, in terms of ways of knowing and access to different forms of justification?
 * In what ways does language play a similar or different role in the human sciences and the natural sciences? In what senses can empathy, intuition and feeling be considered legitimate or especially powerful ways of knowing in the human sciences? Are there circumstances under which this might not be the case?
 * How might the language used in polls, questionnaires and other information-gathering devices of this sort influence the conclusions reached? If there is an influence, does it, or a similar one, occur in natural science research? Does the extent of the influence relate to the degree of certainty attributed to the natural sciences and the human sciences respectively, or to the social status or value associated with each?
 * What are the main difficulties human scientists confront when trying to provide explanations of human behaviour? What methods have been invented to circumvent these difficulties and to minimize their influence on the results that are obtained?
 * Both the human sciences and certain forms of art, such as poetry and literature, seek knowledge about humans. In what ways are these types of knowledge similar or different? Is Geertz’s search for meaning similar to the poet’s or novelist’s ?
 * Questions about … Human sciences and knowledge claims**
 * How does the use of numbers, statistics, graphs and other quantitative instruments affect the way knowledge claims in the human sciences are valued?
 * Is it reasonable to attempt to explain human behaviour independently of what people claim are their intentions? Are there insights into behaviour that can only be afforded by finding these out?
 * What kinds of explanations do human sciences offer, and how do these explanations compare with those in other areas of knowledge? To what extent do the human sciences offer any of the following: scientific laws, recognition of general patterns and tendencies, prediction of the future? To what extent do they offer insight or understanding?
 * Questions about … Human sciences and values**
 * Can human behaviour be usefully classified and categorized? Can it be classified within a culture? Across cultures? Can patterns of behaviour be identified as human behaviour? Within a culture? Across cultures? What beliefs or prejudices might be involved in our answers to these questions?
 * In what ways might the beliefs and interests of human scientists influence their conclusions? Do the same considerations apply in other areas of knowledge such as the natural sciences or mathematics?
 * In what ways might social, political, cultural and religious factors affect the types of human science research that are financed and undertaken, or rejected? Is research in the human sciences a viable route to learn about and, in the long run, transform or improve public policy or the common good? Or is human science research intrinsically valuable for the sake of the knowledge that can be gained? Might it rather have a utilitarian or even covert purpose behind it? How, if at all, can we determine when it is which, and if one or another of these purposes predominates?