THE VICISSITUDES OF THE HUMANITIES

Abstract

The aims of the article: – to track the change of approaches to humanitarian knowledge; – to define possible ways of its development at the present stage.
Methods. The methodology of the research is based on the content analysis of verbal and visual texts, and inductive techniques allowing us to generalize heterogeneous
approaches.
Results and scientific novelty. The author, having postulated a double objective to trace, on the one hand, how the attitude to humanities changed during centuries, and, on the other, to draft possible routes of further development, scrutinizes the concept homo duplex starting from the early renaissance period, when humanities were singled out of the common knowledge about the human being, when the component of meaning «down to earth, not divine» shaped the kernel of the field of knowledge, later named as humanities. This type of knowledge was opposed to the theology with its concept of the divine origin of man. The author attracts Leonardo da Vinci drawing to define the major research methodology of humanities. Further tackling the evolution of the concept from the homo duplex to homo triplex, the author proves that the dynamics of  econceptualization owed to a great extend to the possibility to extrapolate methods of sciences onto humanities research. Touching upon the reason of vicissitudes and recent crisis in humanities the author points to the «doctrinal way of thinking» caused on the one hand by political situation and on the other hand by the «fine art» of turning humanities postulates into a dogma. To prove the point, the author attracts verbal and visual texts, as well as historical facts. Upon this basis the contemporary structure of
the humanitarian knowledge is being scrutinized that rests upon the integration
of humanities and neurosciences, the research kernel including brain, mind, language
and subconsciousness. The author constructs the model of heterogeneous spheres, including biosphere, noosphere, technosphere, semiosphere, socisphere, and ethnosphere. Hence, a new paradigm of research approaches that rests upon «the anthropocentric trinity»: thinking (processing) individual+ self and world creating individual + an individual who communicates both with nature and computer. Practical significance. The proposed model of heterogeneous spheres enables to outline intersections variants of sciences and humanities thus defining new conceptual meaning of homo triplex.