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Comment by VirusNewbie | Hacker News Reader

I find it very suspicious that people who avoid learning rhetoric, or formal logic, or axiomatic thinking in general, are able to draw useful conclusions from studying humanities.

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I find it fascinating that "STEM people" think all problems are best solved with logic and rhetoric instead of intuition and anecdotal evidence. While in real life many things simply cannot be measured and we must act on hunches or "feelings" and many, many people are very successful in navigating the world without any education in the (powerful, but very narrow) tools of formal logic, rhetoric and axiomatic thinking. That is precisely the reason humanities have value: it is because they foster other ways of approaching the world. It is not about truth in the absolute ways that make STEM so appealing (and very narrow). It is more about fluid truth of finding patterns in the total of human experience. These truths can likewise be harnessed and formalised into institutions and systems that work on shared belief systems that are not necessarily logical, but do work nonetheless. Its basic selection. You need a wide pool of ideas to get the best ideas.

If intuition and hunches are important as you say, why study humanities?

We can just wing it, if we don’t care about things like absolute truth or sticking to something logical.

You are making a charicature of what I am saying. But to answer your question: Because quality thoughts are collected in the works that the humanities study. To say that you can and will have these quality thoughts by yourself - by winging it - is quite arrogant.

There are many works that find new ideas or are really thorough, combing through the breadth of human experience.

It is useful for people to spend their lives analysing these concepts and ideas. Their discourse can then be synthesized into new thoughts that will shape our societies. Do you think the laws you live by, the governmental structures, the way people treat each other, the structures of our societies would be like this without the studies of the humanities?

I think you are putting words in GP's mouth. They never said anything about avoiding learning formal logic or math. The context of that statement was a sarcastic position.

You misunderstood, I was criticizing the majority of people who study humanities in college, because they don’t have the requisite skills to make valid conclusions about what they are learning.

And you think that those individuals are representative of the value of the field of humanities? Sorry, but that's just a red herring.

I mean, I'm suspicious of individuals who can't hack it in general, too, but not sure how that's relevant.

you are pointing out I did a poor job of distinguishing the material itself and the current pedagogy surrounding it.

I’m skeptical of the latter, not the former, if that helps clarify my position.

That makes sense. No disagreement there. Thank you for clarifying your position.

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