Conference Report on "The Making of the Humanities III: The Making of the Modern Humanities"

  • Carlo Ierna

Press/Media: Expert Comment

Description

Similar results were provided in the panel "Philosophy and the Humanities" by CARLO IERNA (Utrecht University), who talked about the foundation of the humanities and of their 'scientificity' in Franz Brentano's thought, underlining how the division of labour and the reciprocal cooperation between various disciplines was a key concept in the structure of scientific research for Brentano's school. Ierna showed that Brentano's thesis, that "the true method of philosophy" would be the method of the natural sciences, constituted a "scientific foundation" of the humanities: once again, the project of a unifying method for the sciences and the humanities, which also constitutes a solid scientific basis for the humanities and the realization of a "unity of science", appears to be a core theme around 1900. This happens, however, without aiming at a reduction of the human to the natural: in Brentano, indeed, the object of the humanities is 'consciousness'; this means that their method was conceived as empirical without being reductionist, subjective without being "introspective".

Period20 Dec 2012

Media coverage

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Media coverage

Keywords

  • Franz Brentano
  • Carlo Ierna