Partant du constat que l’organisation des savoirs est, d’une part, le produit de contingences spécifiques, de projets politiques et d’agrégations d’intérêts particuliers, et, d’autre part, lourde d’effet sur les connaissances qu’elle contribue à constituer, j’examine la catégorie supra-disciplinaire « sciences humaines ». Mal connue mais efficace, elle forme une spécificité française qui naît dans son acception actuelle au cours de l’entre-deux-guerres pour devenir hégémonique dans l’après-guerre. « Sciences humaines » s’impose comme catégorie savante non pas tant en raison d’une valeur classificatoire plus élevée que ses concurrentes de l’entre-deux-guerres, mais parce que, peu marquée comme syntagme, elle est mobilisée par un groupe de scientifiques et de politiciens proéminents pour promouvoir une conception humaniste, libérale et internationale de la science, qui trouve un terreau fertile dans le paysage institutionnel et scientifique de l’après-guerre. Starting from the premise that the organisation of knowledge areas results from specific contingencies, political projects, and the convergence of particular interests, and yet has a profound impact on the knowledge constituted, I examine the supra-disciplinary category of ‘sciences humaines’ [‘humanities’]. Often overlooked, but nevertheless powerful, it is a specifically French category that arose in its present sense between the two Wars, and became hegemonic after the Second World War. It achieved this dominance not because it presented a better classificatory system than its rivals between the Wars, but because it was mobilised by a group of prominent academics and politicians, who advocated a humanist, liberal and international conception of knowledge, in a post-war institutional and political French landscape where it happened to flourish.
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