Du Bois's humanistic philosophy of human sciences

One of the many challenges W.E.B. Du Bois faced in the study of African Ame ricans was the pervasive racism that affected how social scientists acquire d data on people of African descent. Moreover, the historical reality in wh ich such data were gathered was one in which there were indications of geno cidal aims on the part of the dominant population. Du Bois needed to show t hat African Americans should receive rigorous study and that rigorous study was a part of the struggle for African American upliftment. In his effort to address both challenges, Du Bois, in effect, developed several bases for rigorous human study that included the importance of recognizing the human ity of the subjects under study. He touched upon several central concerns i n the philosophy of the human sciences including the viability of studying metastable subjects; the relationship between epistemological and ontologic al categories in the cultural sphere; and the Lived reality of action in th e face of behavioral imposition.