Biology/Philosophy the Humanities One Can Successfully Argue

Biology/Philosophy

The Humanities

One can successfully argue that yes, the humanities are in fact a manifestation of biology. In doing so, of course, there is a fairly liberal definition of the term biology, as well as of what is meant by the humanities. Biology, in its most broad sense, is simply the evolution of life. That evolution includes the minute and microscopic processes that occur within the body, as well as the overarching or outlying processes that take place outside of the body. The humanities, in turn, are some of the most demonstrable facets of that maturation of the process of life, as are most other salient facets of culture (which is what the humanities are markers or indicators of).

In fact, when one considers the very nature of the name humanities, one sees the correlation between it and the word human. Humans and humanity evolved as facets of biology. Actually, humans evolved due to very specific processes of biology, of which there are seemingly an interminable amount. At the basic fundamental level of biology, which one can argue occurs at the cellular level, there are interactions between cells that are responsible for reproduction and the forming of greater numbers of cells which are responsible for the formation of even larger organs and organisms. Such interaction requires a sort of tension, a giving and a taking, at which the environment asserts its influences on the cells which in turn respond back to this sort of pressure. The result of that pressure is the specific processes or applications of biology which are responsible for life as we currently know it.

This same friction or tension between the environment and the individual is responsible for the evolution of the humanities. The different forms of expression that the humanities take -- such as poetry, literature, film, visual art, etc. -- are a result of the same biological processes that enable children to mature and for the cycle of life to continue. In the humanities, however, these biological processes take place between the artist and his or her environment. The artist is certainly influenced by his or her surroundings, in ways both large and small. A painter, for example, can draw an infinite amount of inspiration from the sky and all of its multitude of hues and shades. A writer, perhaps, can become emotionally and politically charged by the state of social affairs and use such agency to create incendiary works that triumph or disparage such a state of affairs. Regardless of the example, the process is still the same as that of biology -- there is an interaction between people and their surroundings, which allows people to therefore create new surroundings: in this case, art.