Human Metasciences

The systematic study of the human sciences themselves—a second-order discipline that takes history, philosophy, literature, arts, and humanities as its objects of inquiry. Human metasciences ask meta-level questions about humanistic knowledge: How do humanists know what they claim to know? What methods do different humanistic disciplines use? How does humanistic knowledge change over time? How do social, cultural, and institutional contexts shape humanistic inquiry? What are the limits of humanistic understanding? Human metasciences are the humanities reflecting on themselves—the attempt to understand what the humanities are, what they can achieve, and how they relate to other forms of knowledge. They're essential for humanities to be self-aware rather than merely traditional, for humanists to understand their own practices rather than just practicing them.

Example: "Her human metasciences work examined how the discipline of history has changed over the past century—not just what historians study, but how they study it, what they count as evidence, how they argue. History studying itself reveals its own contingency and its own progress."

by Abzugal March 16, 2026