The modern science represents extremely branched set of the different scientific industries and includes about 15,000 disciplines which are closely interacting with each other. It is divided into natural and the humanities – so what difference exists between them and what they represent?
Differences
Modern scientists clearly see the huge prospects of further development of sciences and radical change of human ideas of the world with their help. Natural sciences study laws of the nature and also ways of its transformation and development whereas the humanities study the person and laws of his evolutionary development. Natural sciences study structure of objectively existing world and the nature of all its elements, appealing to experience as criterion of the truth and the basis of knowledge.
Researchers consider sciences still quite young analytical phenomenon which did not comprehend all mysteries and secrets of the universe yet.
The humanities, unlike natural, study the world which is created by the person, from its cultural values and spiritual contents, relying at the same time on sense and the importance of things. Besides, the humanities work with sign systems and the attitude of these systems towards human reality.
Functions
Humanitarian and natural sciences also differ on the functions. So, natural sciences are inclined to describe, explain and predict phenomena/properties of a material world whereas the humanities seek to open and interpret any given meaning of things. There are several interpretations of understanding – one of them, purely psychological, claim that initially process of understanding is the act of a vzhivaniye in motives and the purposes of an author's plan. For example, historical events are understood by means of disclosure of political, social, economic and cultural conditions and also specific actions. Other treatment is based on the idea of an event or the work which object of understanding is the sense which is usually treated as the invariant text contents in relation to options of its retelling or its representation by means of various sign systems. For the rest borders and differences between humanitarian and natural sciences are quite conditional. At the present stage of development of scientific knowledge they are characterized by mutual enrichment with scientific methodologies and criteria for evaluation of various scientific results. At the theoretical level the separate sciences have a general-theoretical and philosophical explanation of the open laws and the principles used for formation of the methodological and world outlook parties of scientific knowledge. The essential component of general scientific knowledge represents philosophical interpretation of scientific data which forms the methodological and world outlook bases natural and the humanities.