Humanitarian Mission of the Sciences of Humans

The present article provides a critical reflection and answer to the ideas articulated in Ilya T. Kasavin's book Science - A Humanistic Project (2020). It attempts to define what must be named a humanistic science and what the mission of science is in the current world. The mission of science is not separated from its functions in society, and actually from the unique conditions of knowledge production. As Kasavin presupposes, the sciences of humans produce social technologies. Science is connected with humanism via the ethics of science and the epistemology of virtues, which introduce the regulating principles into routine practice. This kind of vision can be augmented by a thesis about the decisive role of humanitarian ideas in the renovation of culture, concerning the foundational significance of humanitarian projections for programming social codes and influence on events and people. The division between inner and outer trading zones allows conceptualizing traits of collective construction of meanings inside humanitarian laboratories or within research units intentionally designed for scholars in human sciences. Humanitarian laboratories change historically like it is so with Galison's trading zones for the case of natural sciences. They evolved from informal scientific communities, social clubs and literary salons to contemporary analytical centers and intellectual thinktanks. Human science laboratories have always formed outer trading zones and built firm bridges between theory and practice, between scholars and other social actors. Moreover, society itself must be compared with an experimental playground for testing ideas and theories, where through the sieve of experience they prove own viability and resilience. Non-reducibility of the social context of science reveals its humanistic essence. Humanistic science absorbs the potential acquired by humanity for meeting new global challenges. Thus, it requires the improvement of human living conditions and aims to resolve urgent social problems. Rejoining with the new education and new enlightenment, humanistic science shapes human worldview overcoming existential barriers and turning minds to creativity instead of destruction.

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