2015, Vol.8, No.2

탈경계인문학Trans-Humanities 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.57

pISSN : 2092-6081 / eISSN : 2383-9899
https://journal.kci.go.kr/eih

The so-called “crisis of the humanities” can be understood in terms of an asymmetry between the natural and social sciences on the one hand and the humanities on the other. While the sciences approach topics related to human experience in quantificational or experimental terms, the humanities often turn to ancient texts in the search for truths about human experience. As both of these approaches have their own unique limitations, overcoming or rectifying the asymmetry between them is desirable. The present article seeks to do just that by advancing and defending the following two claims: a) that the humanities are ubiquitous wherever language is used, and b) that anything that can be experienced by humans is in need of interpretation. Two arguments are presented in support of these claims. The first argument concerns the nature of questions, which are fundamental marks or manifestations of human language. All questions are ultimately attempts to find alternative meanings or interpretations of what is presented. As such, in questioning phenomena, one seeks to transcend the oppression of imposed structures and in doing so reveals one’s humanity. Second, all phenomena are textual in nature: that which astrophysicists find in distant galaxies or which cognitive neuroscientists find in the structures of the human brain are no less in need of interpretation than the dialogues of Plato or the poems of Homer. Texts are ubiquitous. The implications of these two arguments are identified and discussed in this article. In particular, the ubiquity of humanity and textuality points to a view of human nature that is neither individualistic nor collectivist, but rather integrational in suggesting that the realization of oneself is inseparable from the realization of all others (成己成物).

This article aims to reveal differences between natural science and cultural science based on a phenomenology of perception and to suggest the logic and task of the cultural sciences. And we will analyze causes of the crisis of contemporary culture and a broken human relationship. In this context, Cassirer pointed out the differences between natural science and cultural science, that is, perception of things and perception of expression, subject-pole and ego-pole, thing-world and person-world, and absolute-other and alter-ego in terms of an analysis of the phenomenology of perception. Martin Buber pointed out the relations among people. His philosophy of “I and Thou” suggests an analysis on the existence of human Being. He distinguishes three types of “I and Thou.” The first is relation of “I and It,” that is, in this relation we deal with the Alter Ego as with a thing. Secondly in the relation of “I and You,” we deal with a human Being as with a person. Thirdly in the relation of “I and Thou,” we deal a human Being as with an Eternal Being or an Eternal You. In this discussion, Buber emphasizes meeting, dialogue, and relation among people. Buber’s philosophy of “I and Thou” is very important in the study of the cultural sciences.

This article aims to trace a history of the “cultural studies” from their emergence to the present in both Korea and the UK. There have been some fundamental problems concerning the institutionalization of cultural studies in the modern academicism, because the autonomy of the science, independent of official institutions (statism and capitalism) was counted as the most important issue in the foundation of modern science. As a result, the individual scientific fields and their cultural areas were established in academic systems as institutions. However, the scientific-cultural boundaries paradoxically made mutual communication between them impossible and caused a serious subordination of sciences/culture to the institutions controlled by market-based capitalism and bureaucratic statism. This is the sociocultural background for the emergence of cultural studies in the 1960s. From their beginning, they have aspired toward transgredient problemetics for practical solutions in modern society. In this regard, firstly, I tried to survey historical trajectories of the cultural studies from a transgredient point of view and pose several questions about their realistic strategies and so on. Under present conditions, strategic actualities of cultural studies consist in occupying the position of “exteriority within interiority.” I think we had better adopt the strategy of “implosion” by Jean Baudrillard for breaking through the boundaries between restricted cultural areas. Transgredience in cultural studies must be regarded as some sort of “de-territorialization” as with Deleuze and Guattari, because this concept-movement is not a temporary measure for the crises in modern academism. That’s why we have surveyed the historical trajectories of cultural studies from their subversive point of view.