Humanities

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A Scheme for abolishing all Words is one of the wittiest and smartest comments on semantics. (Illustration: extreme close-up from the movie "The Big Swallow" (1901), produced and directed by James Williamson (1855-1933)

The humanities are academic disciplines which study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytic, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences.

Examples of the disciplines, related to humanities are ancient and modern languages, literature, history, philosophy, religion, visual and performing arts (including music). Additional subjects sometimes included in the humanities are technology, anthropology, area studies, communication studies and cultural studies, although these are often regarded as social sciences. Scholars working in the humanities are sometimes described as "humanists". However, that term also describes the philosophical position of humanism, which some "antihumanist" scholars in the humanities reject.

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