The human sciences
Systematic study of human behaviour and social life, where the objects of study are aware of being studied and can change in response. This makes measurement, replication and the isolation of variables harder here than in the natural sciences, without making them impossible.
Through the knowledge framework
Knowledge questions
- 01Where does the subject matter of a discipline stop, and who decides?
- 02Does every area of knowledge aim at explanation?
Knowledge questions
- 01Whose questions has this discipline historically taken seriously?
- 02Can a field be rigorous and systematically blind at the same time?
- 03What is lost when a perspective is absent from a body of knowledge?
Knowledge questions
- 01What can a discipline's methods not detect, even in principle?
- 02How does a community decide that a result has been established?
- 03What assumptions does a method build in before it is applied?
Knowledge questions
- 01Are there questions a discipline should decline to ask?
- 02What does a practitioner owe when communicating uncertainty?
- 03Who bears responsibility when knowledge is applied badly?