Progress and Values in the Humanities

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At many universities, money and support tend to flow in the direction of economics, science, and other departments that demonstrate measurable "progress." The humanities, however, present more abstract and uncertain outcomes. Medical research can cure disease, whereas the benefits of studying Hebrew scripture are hard to quantify, especially when so many scholars have already studied the texts. Because a humanist's objects of study are obscure in ways that pathogens and cell manufacture are not, the humanities will never progress according to scientific criteria. By comparing the objects of science, such as the brain, the galaxy, the amoeba, and the quark, to the objects of humanistic inquiry, such as the poem, the photograph, the belief, and the philosophical concept, Volney Gay reestablishes a fundamental distinction between science and the humanities, freeing the latter from its pursuit of material-based progress and restoring its disciplines to a place of privilege and respect