Chris M. answered • 10/31/21
Former PhD. student (8.5+ years) M.B.A.
Greetings Jonai,
The borders between these sets of disciplines are somewhat porous and they overlap somewhat and one person's explanation (mine--for instance) won't please everyone. Also, the advancements of each help them encroach into the space of the others, but I will make an attempt to distinguish them, nonetheless.
In Physics, a natural science that uses empirical evidence in addition to the axioms of mathematics, we occasionally have our worlds turned upside down with new findings, but many of the findings are pretty hard and fast We have been flying airplanes for over a hundred years and we have been using fire and the wheel far longer than that. We can pretty much trust that what we have learned is true and we don't argue about it much except at the edges of our knowledge. Even then, it is only physicists who can argue intelligibly about physics though top athletes do have a certain visceral understanding of physics that even eludes physicists. Other physical sciences may depend less on math, but the findings for them do not usually lead to a lot of disagreement. Once something is seen to be proven, the book is (pretty much) closed and we accept things as facts.
Social sciences involve many things that cannot be observed directly. We can respond to questionnaires and surveys and our behavior can be observed, but there is often a great deal of argument over the causes behind behaviors and events. What some of us see as "findings", others see as "biased" opinions. because we all perceive the world through our own perspectives, believe in using different theoretical lenses (and we may shift between them ourselves), and we may argue a lot about methodology. In social science, we may come to agreements over many things, and we may learn many things, but there is a far greater tendency for arguments to continue and to gain more perspectives and opinions as they go.
Humanities tend to be more analytical and deductive than the social sciences. You may not be doing experiments to create new evidence, but you may well learn as much as you can and then try to develop rock solid deductive arguments to convince others. Of course, as with social sciences, it is often necessary to make assumptions that ultimately leave the door open for counter arguments.
History is more of an individual discipline. Yes, it overlaps with other disciplines, You could talk about the history of psychology, or the psychology of history, for instance, but it is not as large of set as are the humanities and social sciences.
All of these studies can be practiced at a very high level and the people who are experts in them are also very versed in the "philosophy of science" and are advanced at thinking about how one thinks and how one researches in their respective discipilnes and, to a significant extent, how one does research in general.
