Wissenschaft
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''Wissenschaft'' is a
German-language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a ...
term that embraces
scholarship A scholarship is a form of financial aid awarded to students for further education. Generally, scholarships are awarded based on a set of criteria such as academic merit, diversity and inclusion, athletic skill, and financial need. Scholars ...
,
research Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...
,
study Study or studies may refer to: General * Education ** Higher education * Clinical trial * Experiment * Observational study * Research * Study skills, abilities and approaches applied to learning Other * Study (art), a drawing or series of ...
,
higher education Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after compl ...
, and
academia An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
. ''Wissenschaft'' translates exactly into many other languages, e.g. ''vetenskap'' in Swedish or ''nauka'' in Polish, but there is no exact translation in modern English. The common translation to
science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...
is misleading, because ''Wissenschaft'' equally includes humanities (
Geisteswissenschaft ''Geisteswissenschaften'' (, "sciences of mind", "spirit science") is a set of human sciences such as philosophy, history, philology, musicology, linguistics, theater studies, literary studies, media studies, and sometimes even theology and ju ...
), and sciences and humanities are mutually exclusive categories in modern English. ''Wissenschaft'' includes
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 t ...
like
history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
,
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
, or
arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...
(study of literature, visual arts, or music) at the same level as
sciences Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence ...
like
chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a natural science that covers the elements that make up matter to the compounds made of atoms, molecules and ions: their composition, structure, proper ...
or
psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...
. ''Wissenschaft'' incorporates scientific and non-scientific inquiry, learning, knowledge, scholarship, and does not necessarily imply
empirical research Empirical research is research using empirical evidence. It is also a way of gaining knowledge by means of direct and indirect observation or experience. Empiricism values some research more than other kinds. Empirical evidence (the record of ...
.


History

Before
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
published his ''
Critique of Judgment The ''Critique of Judgment'' (german: Kritik der Urteilskraft), also translated as the ''Critique of the Power of Judgment'', is a 1790 book by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Sometimes referred to as the "third critique," the ''Critique o ...
'' in 1790, "''schöne Wissenschaft''" was highly regarded. "''Schöne Wissenschaft''" included
poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...
,
rhetoric Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate par ...
, and other subjects that were meant to promote an understanding of
truth Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as belief ...
,
beauty Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, together with art and taste, is the main subject of aesthetics, o ...
, and goodness. Kant argued that aesthetic judgments were not an area of systematic knowledge, and therefore were outside the realm of Wissenschaft.


Compared to the term "science"

Although ''Wissenschaft'' and ''science'' were roughly comparable words in previous centuries, the word ''science'' in English "has narrowed its meaning incomparably, whereas Wissenschaft...has retained its broad meaning". In modern English, the word ''science'' refers to systematically acquired, objective knowledge that is about a particular subject (the workings of the natural world, including the people in it) and produced through a particular methodology (the
scientific method The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientifi ...
), in a progressive, iterative process that builds on previous knowledge. Wissenschaft, by contrast, encompasses both humanities and sciences, and both knowledge of objects as well as truths, such as what it means to be good. The difficulties of being precise about knowledge are one reason why English is not considered well-suited for discussions about
epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...
, and terms from other languages, notably Latin and German, are commonly used. Some 19th-century Americans visiting German universities interpreted Wissenschaft as meaning "pure science," untainted by social purposes and opposed to the
liberal arts Liberal arts education (from Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as La ...
. Some contemporary scientists and philosophers interpret ''Wissenschaft'' as meaning any true knowledge or successful method, including philosophical, mathematical, and logical knowledge and methods.


See also

Phrases employing this term include the following: *''
Wissenschaft des Judentums "''Wissenschaft des Judentums''" (Literally in German the expression means "Science of Judaism"; more recently in the US it started to be rendered as "Jewish Studies" or "Judaic Studies," a wide academic field of inquiry in American Universities) ...
'', the "scholarship of Judaism," a 19th-century scholarly movement *'' Die fröhliche Wissenschaft'', the title of a book written by
Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
and first published in 1882 *''
Bildwissenschaft ''Bildwissenschaft'' is an academic discipline in the German-speaking world. Similar to visual studies, and defined in relation to art history, ''Bildwissenschaft'' (approximately, "image-science") refers to a number of different approaches to ima ...
'', an academic discipline in the German-speaking world associated with visual studies and art history


References


External links


Philosophy is Science
Epistemology German words and phrases de:Wissenschaft no:Vitenskap nn:Vitskap {{Germany-stub