From general education to science

The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in its current institutional form is one of the younger branches of the University of Basel. It gained its independence with the separation from the Faculty of Science, which occurred with the new University Act of 1937. Its subjects, which continued to grow in recent decades, were already laid out in their current form during the nineteenth century and have its roots in the founding period of the 1460s.

The Faculty of Liberal Arts as a preparatory program
The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences originated from the Faculty of Liberal Arts, founded in 1460. The “liberal arts” (artes liberales) which it taught were part of every medieval university and served as preparation for advanced studies in theology, law, and medicine. There was no exam or degree to complete secondary studies in the modern sense, so young students could enter the Faculty of Liberal Arts at the age of twelve, where they were taught general knowledge in the grammar of ancient languages, in addition to mathematics, natural science, and philosophy.

The mainly preparatory function of the Faculty of Liberal Arts was also reflected in the degree it conferred: after passing the examination successfully, its graduates did not receive a doctorate but only a master’s degree. This master’s of liberal arts (“magister artium liberalium”) was a prerequisite entitling students to study at one of the other three faculties. 

New self-confidence and formal equality
The Faculty of Liberal Arts continued to be mainly preparatory for quite some time. During the seventeenth century, the new designation “Faculty of Philosophy” became established, indicating a newly enhanced appreciation for the knowledge the faculty conveyed. The new self-understanding of the faculty is evident in the regulation of 1823: “The Philosophical Faculty represents general scientific education at the university, and it is the promotion of such knowledge, in contrast to one-sided vocational training, which is its task.” 

Complete equality with the other three faculties was only achieved with the University Act of 1838. For the first time, the Philosophical Faculty gained institutional heft of its own, as the general education it provided was intended to balance the more one-dimensional professional training of medical doctors or lawyers. 

However, the Faculty of Philosophy’s professors continued to fulfill a preparatory function. In addition to their university duties, they were now also required to teach at the Pädagogium, where they were to prepare the upper gymnasium classes for their studies – a double burden that resulted in many famous professors remaining only a short time in Basel.

Faculty in ancient languages were particularly burdened, spending a large part of their activity on school teaching. Moreover, it was not until the twentieth century that the two chairs for Greek and Latin studies took on separate disciplinary profiles. Not only the teaching load but also the requirements for expertise at times threatened to exceed the limits of what was possible. Otto Ribbeck, for instance, a scholar with broad academic credentials who succeeded the Basel Greek scholar and politician Wilhelm Vischer in 1861 at a young age, left the city after just one and a half years.

Urbane humanism in Basel from the Reformation ...
The overburdening of teachers in the faculty cannot be simply attributed to a limited appreciation of classical education. Within the philosophical disciplines, classical studies – and particularly national philologies – held a leading position. Since the Reformation, when the existence of the university was at risk, classical philological subjects had enjoyed particular support.

The emphasis on humanistic educational ideals in the curriculum designed or inspired by the Basel reformer and theology professor Johannes Oekolampad (1482–1531) is evident in the “Iudicium de schola.” This document, which outlined the university’s goals in both German and Latin, advocated for a curriculum deeply influenced by humanism. It called for in-depth reading of classics as a core component of education, in addition to grammatical exercises, suggesting that “those who are to read Greek should read Demosthenes or Homer, as they are then reading the best teachers. ... The reader of Hebrew should study grammar and always interpret something from the Bible, elucidating the linguistic roots along with the declensions and conjugations.” This approach aligned with the humanist spirit, which also demanded a certain level of Latin proficiency before commencing regular studies.

... into the twentieth century
Classical philology maintained its significance over the centuries. In nineteenth-century Basel, the teaching of ancient languages was a widespread concern not only among university members but also within the more established circles of the city’s citizens; urbane humanism often became a focal point of Basel’s cultural and social life. Jakob Achilles Mähly, appointed in 1875 as a professor of Latin language and literature, regularly gathered a circle of friends, including historian Jacob Burckhardt and painter Arnold Böcklin. Mähly’s broad interests led him to engage in activities beyond classical philology, including writing a comedy in verse about the proposed establishment of a federal central university. He had a knack for bridging the ancient world with his own era and conveying his discipline to a broader public.

The desire to leverage the educational values of antiquity for the benefit of the city and society was shared by politicians, as well. In 1902, the Basel government approached classical philologist Erich Bethe, asking him to hold regular lectures on classical antiquity for a wider audience. Bethe agreed in his “Report on Public Academic Lectures on Classical Antiquity,” though the plan ultimately fell through when he accepted a position in Giessen shortly thereafter.

The turn of the century also saw an increase in the importance of modern philologies. While English studies had previously been part of the compulsory curriculum of the professor for Romance linguistics and taught as an ancillary subject, in 1900, Gustav Binz was appointed as the first extraordinary (associate) professor.

Slavic studies first gained recognition in 1923 when Elsa Mahler, a Swiss-Russian educated at the University of Basel, received a teaching appointment in Slavic languages and was promoted to the university’s first woman full professor in 1938. Initially, the Slavic seminar was a subordinate department of the Seminar for Indo-European Linguistics, but it grew rapidly, moving to its own premises at 7 Stapfelberg near Münsterplatz in 1950. 

Educational policy bears fruit in the 1960s
The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences entered a phase of significant growth about a quarter-century after separating from the natural sciences. From the late 1950s, several disciplines were first endowed with full professorships, including sociology, Egyptology, Islamic studies, Italian studies, ethnology, statistics, business administration, Slavic studies, folklore, psychology, pre- and early history, Ibero-Romance philology, and Nordic philology.

At the same time, the larger language and literature disciplines, as well as history and art history, received additional professorships. This expansion primarily took place during the far-reaching changes in educational policy of the 1960s. Following this period of growth, the faculty experienced a phase of stability until the 1980s, which then saw another surge of change, partly due to continually increasing student numbers in the Division of Social Sciences.

The increase in student numbers led to the establishment of a chair in statistics in the economic sciences in 1984, while psychology received a second professorship in 1985. The further expansion of these areas and their increasing methodological independence raised questions about the possibility of separation in the following years.