Simply Smart Two—How to Get Smart About Humanities

By Robert DiYanni, New York University

Preface

This volume follows a companion book: Simply Smart—Learning for Your Life. That work explains how to develop smart skills—critical and creative thinking, critical reading and writing, effective listening and speaking. Simply Smart Two emphasizes knowledge—how to become smarter through understanding fundamental ideas from a suite of disciplines across the humanities. Individual chapters explore basic questions and concerns of philosophy and religion; history and languages; literature and music; dance, photography, and film. My goal is to get you thinking productively about each humanities discipline’s central issues and interests.

In his Analects, Confucius says: “Learning without thinking is useless; thinking without learning is dangerous.” For Confucius, thinking needs to be wedded to learning, and learning linked to thinking. Thinking and learning are inseparable. We can neither learn without thinking nor think without learning. Simply Smart Two—How to Get Smart About Humanities takes Confucius’ idea as axiomatic; learning develops best in context, in terms of specific fields of study. Considering the differing perspectives of varied humanities disciplines will make you smarter. (And it will also prepare you to converse confidently in situations when you meet new people from different backgrounds and with varied interests—the “cocktail party” scenario.)

Although I take a wide view of the disciplines included, I make no attempt to discuss every major topic within them. Nor do I try to go deeply into any single aspect of a particular discipline. I offer, instead, a taste of the disciplines included and an opportunity to get acquainted—or re-acquainted—with their fundamental facets and essential elements.

This book, thus, is not for experts, but rather for those with limited knowledge of the fields and topics included. For some readers (and for particular subjects and topics), it will serve as a primer; for others, perhaps you among them, it will extend what you know; for still others, it offers an opportunity for synthesis, consolidation, even provocation.

My consideration of disciplinary knowledge is both eclectic and synthetic. I consolidate and synthesize a wide range of sources, many of them recent books. Getting Smart Two—How to Get Smart About Humanities offers eight chapters to discover new ideas, exercise your thinking, and engage in thoughtful inquiry—all while helping you become smarter.

Each humanities discipline follows methods that provide the grounds for its authority. Each discipline provides its own special way of gathering, presenting, and evaluating evidence for the truths it claims to present about the world and its workings. Each has its distinctive way of identifying, asking, and answering questions of importance and value.

Throughout the book, I take up the following questions: What approaches to knowledge does each humanities discipline take? What questions are central to each discipline? What makes each discipline what it is and not something else? How do practitioners of the humanities disciplines convey their knowledge, craft, and art?

Considering these and related questions provides you with an opportunity to refresh and reconsider what you already know, while broadening your knowledge base and deepening your understanding. I hope that you find in the following pages many pleasures and rewards of learning.

Why not begin discovering those rewards and pleasures right away?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One                 Getting Smart About Philosophy

Chapter Two                 Getting Smart About Religion

Chapter Three              Getting Smart About History

Chapter Four                Getting Smart About Languages

Chapter Five                 Getting Smart About Literature

Chapter Six                   Getting Smart About Music

Chapter Seven             Getting Smart About Dance

Chapter Eight               Getting Smart About Photography & Film

References
Index