“Humanities and Social Sciences Are No Longer Useful in Academia”
My younger brother and I were having a few drinks the other night and discussing his decision to return to college after quitting in the first semester a few years prior. He drunkenly stated, “Humanities and social sciences are no longer useful in academia.”
I asked him to elaborate on his assertion. He couldn’t provide valid reasoning without denying the antecedent of his initial proposal, unable to support his argument without recourse to non-sequiturs or circular reasoning. I explained how every academic discipline has the potential for further research and studies, so it advances our knowledge in each academic field.
People frequently assume others are pseudointellectuals or esoteric fools when they contest any established academic premise with unique or impractical concepts or approaches. Maintaining reservations and skepticism is natural, albeit most presuppositions rely on different biases.
They aren’t branded fools when they discover what the original theory lacked or required revision. For instance, Kurt Gödel hypothesized that Einstein’s field equations had the potential for a time loop since the expressions in the equations have closed timelike curves (CTS) rather than open ones. The theory also offers further specific issues regarding how or if the laws of physics can effectively eradicate them or if we can materialize the radical conditional factors, so Gödel’s proposal can enhance our understanding of the many possibilities of the cosmos.
Every academic field requires the humanities and social sciences, which is why philosophy is considered the “mother of academia.” After all, where would we be if we never stopped asking why, or worse, what if we had never asked why in the first place?
But what the hell do I know?
ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat
