Abstract

The term Human Sciences is primarily a French usage, but it refers back to a much deeper tradition in the literature claiming that works of the spirit and human experience cannot be reduced to the realm of causal science, and require different methods. Following Kant, much of this discussion has focused on the problem of the conceptual formation of human experience. Methodologically, discussion has shifted back and forth between an emphasis on concepts, on experience, and external facts. Foucault and Bourdieu extended the critical possibilities of the notion of misrecognition to ally the human sciences with critique.