Natural sciences: physics

Our case in point, “natural sciences”, is also known as “physics” (cf. Aristotle’s eight books from the third century BC on physics called “Fysica” (+-350 BC)), with their practitioners being called “physicists” (a lexical gap filled by William Whewell in 1840, a term derived from the French “phisicien” (since 1680, “someone who studies physical nature”, CNRTL)) in an attempt to find a better alternative for “(natural) philosopher”.

Cultural sciences: mysticism

In contrast with the natural sciences there is no officially agreed synonym for “cultural sciences” or its practitioners.
“Meta(-)physics” and “meta(-)physicist”, referring again to “Metafysica” (+-350 BC), the books Aristotle wrote about “first philosophy” after (meta-) or beyond the ones he wrote about physics. This synonym wouldn’t do as these works don’t match with the whole of cultural science.

“Kulturwissenschaft”, as promoted by Wilhelm Windelband and Heinrich Rickert, was the term preferred by Max Weber but is still very descriptive. The same goes for “culture study” and “nature study“; “Kulturkunde” and “Naturkunde” (literally meaning “study of culture” and “study of nature” in German, or their Dutch equivalents “cultuurkunde” and “natuurkunde”); “naturalism“/”culturalism” and “naturology“/”culturology“. Moreover most are having diverse (more obscure) meanings, unrelated to the definitions of either natural or cultural science.

A popular widely-used term is “humanities” (see “The Two Cultures” (1959) which elaborates on Whewell’s scientist-artist/science-art distinction*), referring to studies concerned with human culture. The term is far from satisfactory though as it is blatantly anthropocentric in its explicit focus on human refinement (i.e. excludes other non-human entities, as if science is only particular to human entities). The humanities are in this context also radically contrasted with science, as if the natural sciences are exclusively scientific.

Another contender is Wilhelm Dilthey‘s “Geisteswissenschaften” (“sciences of spirit”, with spirit referring to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel‘s Geist, a term that is not clearly defined) which does literally acknowledge the possibility scientific study of culture of persons (or just humans, depending on the definition used of “Geisteswissenschaften”), but it leaves out the “arts”.

I myself think (without using any of the “power plants” Fritjof Capra (and Carlos Castenada) took while writing “The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism” (1975)) that there’s a fundamental link between physics and mysticism and that “mysticism” and “mysticist” are in the end the best synonyms for respectively “cultural sciences” and “cultural scientist” and the proper antonyms of “physics” and “physicist”.
Mysticists are originally (since at least 1600 BC) initiates of a mystery religion: the etymology of “mysticist” refers to the secrecy of their rites which were essentially aimed at both explaining and understanding the cosmos.

Rapprochement

Mysterious secrets or secret mysteries as a starting point for designing and polishing a sacred ritual form of investigation nicely contrasts and merges with testing of hypotheses in and about labs.
The mysticist and physicist would make a great couple, wouldn’t they? A “mysticist physicist” together with a “physicist mysticist” would establish also the much needed connection and union (“Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge” (1998) by E.O. Wilson) between these two traditions. I sure look forward to these “physticists”‘s joint teachings and preachings of “physticism”..