Insights into the Relationships between Humanities and Sciences: A Working Outlook

This book offers an overview of existing and developing relationships between humanities and science, considering those that have developed throughout centuries and still persist, as well as novel relationships whose design needs to respond to modern challenges. Its content responds to modern challenges, as the relationships between humanities and sciences are becoming a hot theme, above all because of the increasing awareness of the importance of their synergies to pursue sustainability effectively, and in view of the merger of the former International Council for Science (ICS) and the International Social Science Council (ISSC) into one body. The main challenge is the identification of practical routes for constructive synergies. Knowing about existing and possible synergies is the key, but this knowledge is not yet sufficiently present. How many people would be able to mention examples in which some humanities-born tool is fundamental in the sciences or some science-born tool in the humanities? The book proposes responses. Because of increasing tendencies to underestimate the roles of humanities, the book devotes extensive attention to the negative impacts resulting from the neglect of humanities-born expertise. It also sheds light on the fact that the separation between humanities and sciences is not as sharply defined as often assumed. This book is of great value to students, teachers and researchers (at any level) who wish to broaden their professional perspectives or attain a more complete understanding of human intellectual activities. It can also be useful to anybody who has to make decisions about curricula and educational approaches.