Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

This study considers how to give science and the humanities a common perspective again? I argue that the only way to do so is to let go of the social and behavioral sciences. This paper studies two gradually diverging perspectives within science. That of the behavioral and social sciences on the one hand, and that of the humanities on the other. Taking a historical approach, my aim is to glance at the evolution of European knowledge systems from 1650 to 1950. I show that whereas the antique circle of the Muses still presided to representations of knowledge before the Era of the democratic revolutions, this image completely disappeared as the social and behavioral sciences became official institutions of knowledge, during the long nineteenth century. My case study sheds light on this shift away from science as an activity driven by civility and towards a cultivation of knowledge for the benefit of Nation-States or for that of capitalistic corporations. I therefore analyse the epistemic assumptions of scholars who believed in the equal intellectual abilities of all human races from 1650 to 1950, with a particular attention to the most systematic endeavor in this regard before WWII. Showing how Haitian author Anténor Firmin used classical letters in 1885 to conter the physical anthropology of his time, I hope to expose the shortcomings of theoretical judgments, which are the bread and butter of the social and behavioral sciences, when fostering a sense of civility among students.