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The Global and the Local in the Study of the Humanities

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Relocating the History of Science

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science ((BSPS,volume 312))

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on some tensions—inherent to the humanities as a field of studies—between an epistemic commitment to truth, an ethical and political commitment to reflexivity and critique, and the quest of the arts and sciences for institutional autonomy. In the first part I delineate a quick genealogy of the problem of the humanities in three stations: the Studia Humanitatis of the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries; Kant’s ideas of the freedom of philosophy; and Humboldt’s conceptualization of the position of the university vis-à-vis the state and the nation. In the second part I present the migration of the tradition of Geisteswissenschaften to Palestine and its transformation into Madaei Haruah at the Hebrew University. I conclude with a few words about the present and future of the humanities in Israel.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Petrarch (1948).

  2. 2.

    Garin (1961a, b, 1965).

  3. 3.

    Kristeller (1961).

  4. 4.

    Rabil (1988).

  5. 5.

    Camporele (1972), Struever (1970).

  6. 6.

    Waswo (1987), Kahn (1985).

  7. 7.

    Maylender (1926–193), Field (1988), Hankins (1991).

  8. 8.

    Schmitt (1984), Kraye and Stone (eds.) (2000), Edelheit (2014).

  9. 9.

    Yoran (2010).

  10. 10.

    I. Kant, Basic Writings of Kant, ed. By A. W. Wood, New York 2001; See for example, Preface to the Critique of Pure Reason, where Kant speaks about an [inner] “court of appeal which should protect the just rights of reason, but dismiss all groundless claims”, p. 5; and Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. and trans. By A. W. Wood, New Haven: Yale University Press 2002, Preface, p. 4: “All trades, handicrafts, and arts have gained through the division of labor, since, namely, one person does not do everything, but rather each limits himself to a certain labor… (My emphasis, R.F.).

  11. 11.

    Ibid. see, for example pp. 49–50.

  12. 12.

    Kant (1979).

  13. 13.

    Ibid. p. 25, “General Division of the Faculties”.

  14. 14.

    Ibid. pp. 27;29.

  15. 15.

    Ibid. Preface, p. 13.

  16. 16.

    The Sphere and Duties of Government. Translated from the German of Baron Wilhelm von Humboldt, by Joseph Coulthard, Jun. (London: John Chapman, 1854). In Online Library of Liberty : http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/589, p. 41.

  17. 17.

    Ibid. p. 40.

  18. 18.

    Ibid. p. 42.

  19. 19.

    von Freese, (comp.) (1953).

  20. 20.

    Ringer (1969).

  21. 21.

    Vollanksy (2005).

  22. 22.

    Ibid., p. 41.

  23. 23.

    Koebner (1952).

  24. 24.

    Ibid., p. 405.

  25. 25.

    Ibid., p. 275.

  26. 26.

    Koebner (1951).

  27. 27.

    Idem (1934).

  28. 28.

    Koebner (1944).

  29. 29.

    Ibid., p. 99.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., pp. 100–101.

  31. 31.

    Koebner (1945).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Rivka Feldhay

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  1. Rivka Feldhay
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Correspondence to Rivka Feldhay .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Theodore Arabatzis

  2. Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany

    Jürgen Renn

  3. Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e Tecnologia (CIUHCT), Faculdade de Ciência, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Ana Simões

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Feldhay, R. (2015). The Global and the Local in the Study of the Humanities. In: Arabatzis, T., Renn, J., Simões, A. (eds) Relocating the History of Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 312. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14553-2_17

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