Humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the time. Today, the humanities are more contrasted with natural, sometimes social, sciences as well as professional training; the humanities use methods that are critical, or speculative, have a significant historical element—as distinguished from the empirical approaches of the natural sciences, unlike the sciences, it has no central discipline. The humanities include ancient and modern languages, philosophy, human geography, politics and art. Scholars in the humanities are humanists; the term "humanist" describes the philosophical position of humanism, which some "antihumanist" scholars in the humanities reject. The Renaissance scholars and artists were called humanists; some secondary schools offer humanities classes consisting of literature, global studies and art.
Human disciplines like history and cultural anthropology study subject matters that the manipulative experimental method does not apply to—and instead use the comparative method and comparative research. Anthropology is a science of the totality of human existence; the discipline deals with the integration of different aspects of the social sciences and human biology. In the twentieth century, academic disciplines have been institutionally divided into three broad domains; the natural sciences seek to derive general laws through verifiable experiments. The humanities study local traditions, through their history, literature and arts, with an emphasis on understanding particular individuals, events, or eras; the social sciences have attempted to develop scientific methods to understand social phenomena in a generalizable way, though with methods distinct from those of the natural sciences. The anthropological social sciences develop nuanced descriptions rather than the general laws derived in physics or chemistry, or they may explain individual cases through more general principles, as in many fields of psychology.
Anthropology does not fit into one of these categories, different branches of anthropology draw on one or more of these domains. Within the United States, anthropology is divided into four sub-fields: archaeology, physical or biological anthropology, anthropological linguistics, cultural anthropology, it is an area, offered at most undergraduate institutions. The word anthropos is from the Greek for "human being" or "person". Eric Wolf described sociocultural anthropology as "the most scientific of the humanities, the most humanistic of the sciences"; the goal of anthropology is to provide a holistic account of human nature. This means that, though anthropologists specialize in only one sub-field, they always keep in mind the biological, linguistic and cultural aspects of any problem. Since anthropology arose as a science in Western societies that were complex and industrial, a major trend within anthropology has been a methodological drive to study peoples in societies with more simple social organization, sometimes called "primitive" in anthropological literature, but without any connotation of "inferior".
Today, anthropologists use terms such as "less complex" societies, or refer to specific modes of subsistence or production, such as "pastoralist" or "forager" or "horticulturalist", to discuss humans living in non-industrial, non-Western cultures, such people or folk remaining of great interest within anthropology. The quest for holism leads most anthropologists to study a people in detail, using biogenetic and linguistic data alongside direct observation of contemporary customs. In the 1990s and 2000s, calls for clarification of what constitutes a culture, of how an observer knows where his or her own culture ends and another begins, other crucial topics in writing anthropology were heard, it is possible to view all human cultures as part of one large. These dynamic relationships, between what can be observed on the ground, as opposed to what can be observed by compiling many local observations remain fundamental in any kind of anthropology, whether cultural, linguistic or archaeological.
Archaeology is the study of human activity through the analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, biofacts or ecofacts, cultural landscapes. Archaeology can be considered a branch of the humanities, it has various goals, which range from understanding culture history to reconstructing past lifeways to documenting and explaining changes in human societies through time. Archaeology is thought of as a branch of anthropology in the United States, while in Europe, it is viewed as a discipline in its own right, or grouped under other related disciplines such as history. Classics, in the Western academic tradition, refers to the studies of the cultures of classical antiquity, namely Ancient Greek and Latin and the Ancient Greek and Roman cultures. Classical studies is considered one of the cornerstones of the humanities; the influence of classical ideas on many humanities disciplines, such as philosophy and literature, remains strong. History is systematically collected information about the past.
When used as the name of a field of study, history refers to the study and interpretation of the record of humans, societies and any to
Charles-François Lebrun
Charles-François Lebrun, 1st duc de Plaisance, was a French statesman who served as Third Consul of the French Republic and was created Arch-Treasurer and Prince of the Empire by Napoleon I. Born in Saint-Sauveur-Lendelin, after studies of philosophy at the Collège de Navarre, he started his career during the Ancien Régime, making his first appearance as a lawyer in Paris in 1762, he filled the posts of censeur du Roi and Inspector General of the Domains of the Crown. During the early 1760s, Lebrun became a disciple of Montesquieu and an admirer of the British Constitution, travelling through Southern Netherlands, the Dutch Republic, to the Kingdom of Great Britain, he became one of Chancellor René Nicolas de Maupéou's chief advisers, taking part in his struggle against the parlements and sharing his downfall in 1774. Lebrun devoted himself to literature, translating Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered and the Iliad, he retreated from public life to his property in Grillon, attempting to live a life as envisaged by the philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
During the cabinet of Jacques Necker, he was consulted on several occasions, but never appointed to high office. At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, he foresaw its importance in his volume La voix du Citoyen, published the same year, predicted the course which events would take. In the Estates-General and in the National Constituent Assembly, where he sat as deputy for the Third Estate in the bailiwick of Dourdan, he professed Liberalism and proposed various financial laws, without affiliating to any particular faction. A partisan of constitutional monarchy after King Louis XVI's flight to Varennes, he became the target for the suspicions of the Jacobin Club. After the voting of the 1791 Constitution, he was ineligible for the Legislative Assembly, became instead president of the directory of Seine-et-Oise département. Lebrun retired from this position on 7 August 1792, again retired to Dourdan. Three days the storming of the Tuileries Palace signalled the move towards the establishment of the French Republic by the creation of the National Convention.
Lebrun further aroused the indignation of republicans when he accepted to represent Dourdan in the electoral college of Seine-et-Oise which nominated deputies to the Convention. A suspect during the Reign of Terror, he was twice arrested: the first time in September 1793, liberated after the intervention of Joseph Augustin Crassous. In 1795, Lebrun was elected as a deputy to the French Directory's Council of Ancients and, although a supporter of the House of Bourbon, he voted against prosecutions of Jacobins, showed himself in favour of national reconciliation. Lebrun was made Third Consul following Napoleon Bonaparte's 18 Brumaire coup in the Year VIII. In this capacity, he took an active part in Napoleon's reorganization of the national finances and in the administration of France's départements, he was made a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1803, in 1804, he was appointed Arch-Treasurer of the French Empire. From 1805 to 1806, he was governor-general of Liguria, during which time he completed its annexation by France.
He opposed Napoleon's restoration of the noblesse and, in 1808, only reluctantly accepted the title of duc de Plaisance, a rare, but hereditary duché grand-fief, extinguished in 1926. From 1811 to 1813, he served as governor-general of a part of the annexed Netherlands, reorganizing its départements - Zuyderzée and Bouches-de-la-Meuse, he was assisted by Goswin de Stassart. Although to a certain extent opposed to the autocracy of the Emperor, he was not in favor of his deposition, although he accepted the fait accompli of the Bourbon Restoration in April 1814. Louis XVIII made him a Peer of France, but during the subsequent Hundred Days, he accepted from Napoleon the post of grand maître de l'Université; as a consequence, he was suspended from the House of Peers when the Bourbons returned again in 1815, but was recalled in 1819. He died five years in Sainte-Mesme; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. "Lebrun, Charles François". Encyclopædia Britannica.
16. Cambridge University Press. P. 352. Endnotes: Auguste-Armand de la Force, L'Architrésorier Lebrun M. Marie du Mesnil, Memoire sur le prince Le Brun, due de Plaisance ed. Anne-Charles Lebrun, rapports et choix d'écrits politiques de C. F. Lebrun Heraldica.org
Jean Sylvain Bailly
Jean Sylvain Bailly was a French astronomer, mathematician and political leader of the early part of the French Revolution. He presided over the Tennis Court Oath, served as the mayor of Paris from 1789 to 1791, was guillotined during the Reign of Terror. Born in Paris, Bailly was the son of Jacques Bailly, an artist and supervisor of the Louvre, the grandson of Nicholas Bailly an artist and court painter; as a child he intended to follow in his family's footsteps and pursue a career in the arts. He became attracted to science, however astronomy, by the influence of Nicolas de Lacaille. An excellent student with a "particularly retentive memory and inexhaustible patience", he calculated an orbit for the next appearance of Halley's Comet, reduced Lacaille's observations of 515 stars, he participated in the construction of an observatory at the Louvre. These achievements along with others got him elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1763. In the years prior to the French Revolution, Bailly's distinctive reputation as a French astronomer led to his recognition and admiration by the European scientific community.
Due to his popularity amongst the scientific groups, in 1777, Bailly received Benjamin Franklin as a guest in his house in Chaillot. Bailly published his Essay on The Theory of the Satellites of Jupiter in 1766.a The essay was an expansion of a presentation he had made to the Academy in 1763. He released the noteworthy dissertation On the Inequalities of Light of the Satellites of Jupiterb in 1771. In 1778, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Bailly gained a high literary reputation thanks to his Eulogies for King Charles V of France, Molière, Pierre Corneille and Gottfried Leibniz, which were issued in collected form in 1770 and 1790, he was admitted to the Académie française on 26 February 1784 and to the Académie des Inscriptions in 1785. From on, Bailly devoted himself to the history of science, he published A History of Ancient Astronomy c in 1775, followed by A History of Modern Astronomy.d Other works include Discourse on the Origin of the Sciences and the Peoples of Asia,e Discourse on Plato's'Atlantide',f and A Treatise on Indian and Oriental Astronomy.g Though his works were "universally admired" by contemporaries commentators have remarked that "their erudition was… marred by speculative extravagances."
In a short period of time, Bailly made his way up the judicial ranks. From being the deputy of Paris, he was elected Estates-General on 20 May 1789. Soon after he was elected inaugural president of the National Assembly and led the famous proceedings in the Tennis Court on 20 June, being the first to take the Tennis Court Oath. In the National Assembly Bailly was one of the deputies who secured the passage of a decree that declared Jews to be French citizens on 17 September 1791, he was met with threats and ridicule for this action. This decree repealed the special taxes, imposed on the Jews, as well as all the ordinances existing against them. Bailly was a member of the Club de 1789, one of the most well-known societies at the time. Though calls on his time from his mayoral duties restricted his involvement in the group, by May 1790, Bailly had risen to presiding officer of the club. In 1791, Jean Sylvain Bailly took no active role in it. Shortly after the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, he became the first mayor of Paris under the newly adopted system of the Commune.
On 15 July 1789, Bailly took office as the mayor of Paris. Two days he was met by Louis XVI at the Hôtel de Ville, there to endorse the Revolution. Bailly presented him with the new symbol of the revolution: the tricolour cockade. In his function as mayor, he was attacked by Camille Desmoulins and Jean-Paul Marat as too conservative. Bailly continuously sought to promote the authority of the mayor while limiting the power of the General Assembly of the Commune. Jean Sylvain Bailly sought to be in full control of his administration as the mayor of Paris, he envisioned being in a position where all answered to him, only his orders were to be followed. Creating a centralized government within Paris was his plan, however Parisians were not keen with this vision, his views are depicted in the following passage of his Mémoires: "... in the executive assembly, the mayor who presides over it is a specific officer of the commune. This Assembly possesses the totality of power, but its chief is its agent, its executive authority, who should be charged with the execution of its orders and the maintenance of its regulations.
Moreover, since he is at the head of the administration, he understands all of its branches and has all of its strings in his hands. He is in a better position to detect the difficulties and the dangers than the other members who do not have the same information. If the law does not demand it, reason dictates that no important step be taken and no important questions be decided in his absence, unless he be allowed at least to make observations..." During the early years of the French Revolution, Paris was going through a major food shortage. Bailly's actions to circumvent the situation were of great importance in keeping the revolution alive. Bailly had deputies gather grain, being hoarded, made the sale of wheat mandatory by farmers, helped the bakers by making them first in line in the village markets. Convoys that transported grain obtained by deputies were attacked. To deter these attacks, Bailly signed a decree imposing a fine of five hundred livres on anyone found obstructing such convoys.
Not only did the mayor contr
Jean Chapelain
Jean Chapelain was a French poet and critic during the Grand Siècle, best known for his role as an organizer and founding member of the Académie française. Chapelain acquired considerable prestige as a literary critic, but his own major work, an epic poem about Joan of Arc called "La Pucelle," was lampooned by his contemporary Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux. Chapelain was born in Paris, his father wanted him to become a notary, but his mother, who had known Pierre de Ronsard, had decided otherwise. At an early age Chapelain began to qualify himself for literature, under Nicolas Bourbon, French and teaching himself Japanese and Spanish. Having finished his studies, Chapelain taught Spanish to a young nobleman for a short time, before being appointed tutor to the two sons of Sébastien Le Hardy, lord of la Trousse, grand-prévôt de France, Gouye de Longuemarre, ""Eclaircissemens sur un officier de la maison de nos rois, appelé roi des ribauds", in Constant Leber, ed. Collection des meilleurs dissertations, notices et traités particuliers relatifs à l'histoire de France, part V notes Nicolas Hardi, sieur de la Trousse, grand-prévôt de France.
Attached for the next 17 years to this family and given the responsibility of administering their fortune, he seems to have published nothing but to have acquired a great reputation for potential. His first published work was a preface for the Adone of Giambattista Marino, who printed and published that notorious poem at Paris, it was followed by a translation of Mateo Alemán's novel, Guzmán de Alfarache and by four indifferent odes, one of them addressed to Cardinal Richelieu. In a conversation with Richelieu in about 1632, reported by the abbé d'Olivet, Chapelain maintained the importance of maintaining the unities of time and action, it is explicitly stated that the doctrine was new to the cardinal and to the poets who were in his pay. Rewarded with a pension of a thousand crowns and from the first an active member of the newly constituted Academy, Chapelain drew up the plan of the grammar and dictionary, the compilation of, to be a principal function of the young institution, at Richelieu's command drew up the Sentiments de l’Académie sur le Cid.
The credit of introducing the law of the dramatic unities into French literature has been claimed for many writers, for the Abbé d'Aubignac, whose Pratique du théâtre appeared in 1657. Aristotle's theory had of course been enunciated in the Art poétique of Julius Caesar Scaliger in 1561, subsequently by other writers, but undoubtedly it was the action of Chapelain that transferred it from the region of theory to that of actual practice. In 1656 he published, in a magnificent format, the first twelve cantos of his celebrated epic on Joan of Arc, La Pucelle, on which he had been working for twenty years. Six editions of the poem were disposed of in eighteen months; this was the end of the poetic reputation of Chapelain, "the legist of Parnassus." The slashing satire of Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux resulted in Chapelain taking his place among the failures of modern art. Chapelain's reputation as a critic survived, in 1663 he was employed by Colbert to draw up an account of contemporary men of letters, destined to guide the king in his distribution of pensions.
In this pamphlet, as in his letters, he shows to far greater advantage than in his unfortunate epic. His prose is incomparably better than his verse. To him the young Jean Racine was indebted not only for advice, but for the pension of six hundred livres, so useful to him; the catholicity of Chapelain's taste is shown by his De la lecture des vieux romans, in which he praises the chanson de geste, forgotten by his generation. Chapelain refused many honours, his disinterestedness makes it necessary to receive with caution the stories of Gilles Ménage and Tallemant des Réaux, who claimed that he became a miser, that a considerable fortune was found hoarded in his apartments when he died. Guirlande de Julie George Saintsbury's History of Criticism, ii. 256-261. À P D Huet Julien Duchesne, Les Poèmes épiques du XVIIe siècle Antonin Fabre, Les Ennemis de Chapelain, Chapelain et nos deux premières Académies Alois Mühlan, Jean Chapelain Works by or about Jean Chapelain at Internet Archive This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed..
"Chapelain, Jean". Encyclopædia Britannica. 5. Cambridge University Press. Pp. 850–851
André Dacier
André Dacier, Latin Andreas Dacerius, was a French classical scholar and editor of texts. He began his career with an edition and commentary of Festus' De verborum significatione, was the first to produce a "readable" text of the 20-book work, his wife was translator, Anne Dacier. Dacier was born at Castres in upper Languedoc, his father, a Protestant lawyer, sent him first to the Academy of Puy Laurens, afterwards to the Academy of Saumur to study under Tanneguy Le Fèvre. On Lefebvre's death in 1672, Dacier moved to Paris, was appointed an editors of the Delphin Classics series. In 1683 he married the daughter of his old tutor. Better known by her married name of Madame Dacier, her work as a classicist has been acknowledged by encyclopedia editors to be far superior to his. In 1695 he was elected to the Academy of Inscriptions, to the Académie française, he died two years after his wife. The most important of Dacier's works were his editions of Pompeius Festus and Verrius Flaccus, his translations of Horace, Aristotle's Poetics, the Electra and Oedipus the King of Sophocles.
Dacier and his wife Anne together translated Meditations by Marcus Aurelius into French in 1690–91, as well as writing an extensive commentary on the work. In editing Festus, Dacier worked from the proposals of Joseph Scaliger, who provided notes and additions, his stated goal was to produce a "clear and educationally useful text." Addressing his work to the Dauphin, at that time Louis, he was more interested in the realia of Roman law and the foundations of power than in the literary quality of the text or its lack thereof. Dacier's work on Festus was first published in Paris, 1681, with subsequent editions in 1692, 1699, 1700. "André Dacier". Académie française. Retrieved 2016-12-03. Encyclopædia Britannica Andre Dacier Works by André Dacier at Project Gutenberg Works by or about André Dacier at Internet Archive
