Ayn Rand on natural sciences vs humanities
August 20, 2008
This is just a short note or reminder to myself, and to anyone who might be interested, since I find the following very interesting. At OCON some of us discussed whether it is legitimate to split human knowledge into the natural sciences on the one hand and the humanities or Geisteswissenschaften on the other hand, especially in the way which it is done – because it usually comes down to denying that the humanities are sciences.
Now, I found a very brief statement by Ayn Rand on this issue, which I want to put here without further comment:
“Growing from a common root, which is philosophy, man’s knowledge branches out in two directions. One branch studies the physical world or the phenomena pertaining to man’s physical existence; the other studies man or the phenomena of his consciousness. The first leads to abstract science, which leads to applied sience or engineering, which leads to technology–to the actual production of material values. The second leads to art.
Art is the technology of the soul.”
(Ayn Rand: The Romantic Manifesto, p. 169.)
Entry Filed under: Epistemology. Tags: art, ayn rand, consciousness, engineering, Geisteswissenschaften, humanities, natural sciences, philosophy, technology.
1.
Sascha Settegast | August 20, 2008 at 11:31 pm
If technology is the production of material values, then art–being the technology of the soul–is the way man produces spiritual values.
2.
Sascha Settegast | August 20, 2008 at 11:49 pm
And just as technology, by producing material values, shapes man’s body (by providing for the health of his constitution) and thereby secures his physical well-being — so art, by producing spiritual values, shapes man’s soul (by providing for the health or proper functioning of his consciousness, e.g. in cognitive terms) and thereby secures his psychologial well-being.
3.
Sascha Settegast | August 20, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Material values are the fuel for man’s bodily organs; spiritual values are the fuel for man’s consciousness.
4.
Sascha Settegast | August 26, 2008 at 8:48 pm
From that perspective, one way to justify a strict distinction between the natural sciences and the humanities would be to emphazise their quite different function in our pursuit of life and happiness: the natural sciences provide us with the knowledge necessary to fulfull our bodily needs; the humanities provide us with the knowledge necessary to fulfill our spiritual needs. The one is geared toward the material realm, the other towards the mental realm; the one’s subject of study is the material, the other’s the mental.