The plural of “humanity,” used to refer to the totality of mammalian creatures gathered under the taxonomic binomial Homo sapiens. In mood, the term invokes the human collective across time and space, though the word tends to emerge in aspirational contexts, frequently inflected by ethical concern (both genuine and feigned). It might be said that Homo sapiens designates not only “human beings” but also the promise of an objective or impartial designation of membership in the human community; whereas “humanity” designates the same collective while implicitly denying the validity or adequacy of any non-normative designation of that community. Interestingly, the plural term, “humanities,” has come to have a very distinct meaning at some remove from the semantic field of the singular form. In practice, the specific locution “the humanities” (always with the definite article; “humanistic” in the adjectival form) refers to a set of academic disciplines: canonically those involving the study (though not, actually, the making) of works of art, literature, and music, together with the enterprise of historical inquiry and certain traditions of philosophy. It is difficult to account for the conceptual coherence of these domains, taken as a whole, and it is further difficult to distinguish them from the sciences (which are themselves diverse; see SCIENCE). Such parsing has become more difficult as all of the disciplinary formations of the modern university have gradually accommodated themselves to a fundamentally scientific structure (meaning that all are committed to progressive KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION under conditions of PEER REVIEW by researchers with specialized EXPERTISE in given domains, generally figured as “disciplines”; see DISCIPLINE). Nevertheless, the distinction between the humanities and the sciences has been a prominent feature of colleges and universities for at least a century, and the roots reach back quite deep in the intellectual traditions of the modern world (to such an extent that commentary on these matters is, and has been for some time, itself a significant academic enterprise—though in the humanities only; scientists seem, as a rule, without concern for the problem). It is sometimes pointed out that the older dichotomy in university life—the primary division that preceded the rise of the natural and physical sciences as university activities—was the humanities and the divinities (see THEOLOGY), and that it is only with the substantial disappearance of the latter category of learning that the humanities found themselves juxtaposed with the sciences. The rise of the social sciences out of the late-Enlightenment work of Saint-Simon and Comte has further vexed the question of what the humanities actually are and do, since substantial portions of what might have been understood as their purview (history, for instance; what comes to be thought of as anthropology; also much of the formal study of language and behavior) have come to be powerfully engaged by enterprises that eschew the language, modes, and general tenor of Humanismus. In practice, the study of human beings and their many artifacts, traditions, productions, and preoccupations has been, over the last two centuries, increasingly handled by individuals with little use for the term “humanities,” and relatively little connection to the hermeneutic traditions and classical master-texts that create the general climate of humanistic endeavor in its university form. It can be argued persuasively that the humanities amount to a thinly-veiled metaphysical enterprise (of dubious pith and integrity), resulting from a secular dilapidation of the theological programs that once gave both primary and final meaning to the category of the human (see METAPHYSICS). Strident anti-humanisms of various species (Foucauldian, Deleuzian, Kittlerian) can be understood to be decrying exactly this woozily delusional aspect of the humanities, and the virulence of some of these attacks can perhaps be seen to reflect impatience with an air of complacency (or even wounded dignity) projected by some partisans of the humanistic tradition. At the same time, it is easy to be anxious about the long-term social and political effects of abandoning any and all efforts to spangle the category Homo sapiens with metaphysical sequins of some sort. This granted, one may well ask: Who is to be trusted with such work? Out of what shall the flash be fashioned? One is, at present, without good answers to these significant questions. But it may be that the humanities are (or will be?) relevant in this regard.