ABSTRACT
The humanities differ from the sciences in that they look to the complex wholes of what it means to be human rather than the constituent parts. Science makes maps of the world using extremely high standards for shared systems of measurement. Reductionism may work well enough as myth and method in the laboratory, but it fails to satisfy the deeper questions of what it means to be human. The maps of the world our minds assemble may be only approximations of the physical world beyond, but existentially speaking, they are the very heart of human reality. Menelaus must seize Proteus when he comes out of the sea and onto the dry land to sleep, and then hold him tight despite the frightening fact that the ancient god has the power to assume the form of any living thing—even water and fire it.
