Human science is a term applied to the investigation of human life and activities by a rational, systematic and verifiable methodology that acknowledges the validity of both data derived by impartial observation of sensory experience (objective phenomena) and data derived by means of impartial observation of psychological experience (subjective phenomena). It includes but is not necessarily limited to fields of study commonly included within the social sciences and humanities, including psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, and economics.
Its use of an empirical methodology that encompasses psychological experience contrasts to the purely positivistic approach typical of the natural sciences (which exclude all methods not based solely on external sensory observations). Thus the term is often used to distinguish not only the content of a field of study from those of the natural sciences, but also its methodology.
- Human science is a typically Interdisciplinary field and as such are the combination of those sciences and disciplines that relate to typically human activity.
- Human science encompasses social sciences and humanities, and art.
- Usually Human science is usually understood to have extensions towards those applied sciences that pre-suppose a high degree of human interaction, like economics, architecture, etc...
- Human science is usually not seen as a separate academic discipline, although:
- Sometimes Human science are considered, more or less loosely, as a synonym to humanities;
- In other contexts Human science is treated as a subdivision of e.g. philosophy or literature.
However, the present category considers primarily the interdisciplinary aspect of Human science, as e.g. in socio-cultural anthropology