Humanities Definition

In President Carol Quillen’s lecture, “Humanistic Inquiry”, she explored humanism by discussing ideas associated with humans and what human means. She distinguished the meaning of human by the words “divine, bestial, and natural“.

Professor Quillen worked towards answering the question, what is considered human? Ultimately, a connection between human and reason arose.

Humanism is exhibited by Diderot’s exploration of human knowledge and the categorization of ways of knowing and areas of knowledge. Diderot’s map also exhibits humanism by being the product of human inquiry and the studies that took place to make it.

“Diagram.” The Encyclopedia of Diderot & D’Alembert Collaborative Translation Project, quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/tree.html.