A purported occupation for the humanities

Abstract

This article seeks to provide a reflection based on philosophy and sociology around the occupation, if any, of the humanities. According to the hermeneutics of founding texts on the question “What is man?” and on various perspectives on it, a reflection is configured that aims to sustain what, in the author's view, corresponds to be the basic and determining occupation of the humanities. For this, five sections will be developed in which an introduction to some basic ideas about the humanities, foundations of a philosophical anthropology, what is man from the study of sociology, what is man from the study of biology and neurosciences, and the humanities as a whole are exposed. The article aims to contribute to the understanding that cultivating the humanities and developing them requires an intention to make them a conceptual and unfinished representation of the world, not a piece of ductile clay in the image and likeness of those who see in them the stage of praxis by excellence. It is mainly concluded that the relevance, the very nature of the humanities, lies in broadening the spectrum of questions about what is man, before attempting to provide complete answers, so that, at the very moment in which the crucial question “What is man?” is found a finished answer and it becomes law, not only is a resolved question left, but also a meaningless life.