School
Humanism
Overview
Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the agency and the individual and social potential of human beings, whom it considers the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry.
The meaning of the term "humanism" has changed according to successive intellectual movements that have identified with it. During the Italian Renaissance, Italian scholars inspired by Greek classical scholarship gave rise to the Renaissance humanism movement. During the Age of Enlightenment, humanistic values were reinforced by advances in science and technology, giving confidence to humans in their exploration of the world. By the early 20th century, organizations dedicated to humanism flourished in Europe and the United States, and have since expanded worldwide. In the early 21st century, the term generally denotes a focus on human well-being and advocates for human freedom, happiness, autonomy, and progress. It views humanity as responsible for the promotion and development of individuals, espouses the equal and inherent dignity of all human beings, and emphasizes a concern for humans in relation to the world. Humanists tend to advocate for human rights, free speech, progressive policies, and democracy.
Starting in the 20th century, organized humanist movements are mostly non-religious aligned with secularism, with some exceptions such as the Humanist Society which endorses Humanist chaplains. In contemporary usage, humanism as a philosophy refers to a non-theistic view centered on human agency, and a reliance only on science and reason rather than revelation from a divine source to understand the world. Many Humanists do not see religion as a precondition of morality, and as such humanists object to excessive religious entanglement with education and the state.
Many contemporary secular humanist organizations work under the umbrella of Humanists International. Well-known humanist associations include Humanists UK and the American Humanist Association.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Humanism is discussed.
The one condition of understanding humanism is to become inductive-minded oneself, to drop rigorous definitions, and follow lines of least resistance 'on the whole.' "In other words," Mr.
William James, Essays in Radical Empiricism
names the idea; a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; opens on it
Humanism is a ferment that has 'come to stay.' It is not a single hypothesis or theorem, and it dwells on no new facts. It is rather a slow shifting in the philosophic perspective, making things appear as from a new centre of interest or point of sight.
William James, The Meaning of Truth
a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
Antiquity, however, has been misunderstood and falsified by humanism · it must rather be considered as a testimony against humanism, against the benign nature of man, &c. The opponents of humanism are wrong to combat antiquity as well; for in antiquity they have a strong ally.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, We Philologists
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph
On the other hand, "humanism" means at bottom being imbued with an intelligent sense of human interests. The social interest, identical in its deepest meaning with a moral interest, is necessarily supreme with man.
John Dewey, Democracy and Education
a chapter is titled for it; author linked in the graph; opens on it; names the idea
oppose and repress by means of the historical reconstruction in imaginative dialectic of a world constituted by these most generalized value-forms and then to eulogize the reconstruction with the epithet "reality." When, in the course of human events, such reconstruction becomes limited to the biography of particular individuals, is an expression of their concrete and unique interest, is lived and acted on, it is…
John Dewey, Creative Intelligence
states what it is; author linked in the graph
Philosophers who discussed Humanism
- Leszek Kołakowski
- John Gray (philosopher)
- Ferdinand de Saussure
- Max Stirner
- The Ego and Its Own
- Tomáš Masaryk
- Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
- Murray Bookchin
- Stephen Toulmin
- Mircea Eliade
- Gemistos Plethon
- Jürgen Habermas
- Giambattista Vico
- Constantin Noica
- William of Conches
- Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- Maimonides
- A. J. Ayer
- Thomas Aquinas
- Aleksey Khomyakov
- Maurice Blanchot
- Jean Bodin
- Nicholas of Cusa
- Petrus Ramus
Related ideas
- Epicurus
- Erasmus
- Francisco de Vitoria
- Evangelicalism
- School of Salamanca
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Christian humanism
- Washington, D.C.
- Jesus
- Fascism
- Florence
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Anaximander
- Free market
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
- George Eliot
- Auguste Comte
- Antony Flew
- Philosophy
- Heraclitus
- Sidney Hook
- Julian Huxley
- Immanuel Kant
- George Holyoake
Place in the tradition
Part of Outline of philosophy.
Narrower topics:
- Abbasid Caliphate
- Abraham Maslow
- American Humanist Association
- Biblical criticism
- Carl Rogers
- Coluccio Salutati
- Critical philosophy
- Critical thinking
- Divine right of kings
- Francisco de Vitoria
- Human
- Jacob Burckhardt
- Julian Huxley
- Leonardo Bruni
- Liberal education
- Marx's theory of alienation
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Paul Kurtz
- Pope Nicholas V
- Religion in China
- Self-actualization
- Sidney Hook
- Unitarian Universalist Association
- Verona