Pub Date : 2021-09-09DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190921538.013.15
Y. G. Trejo
What do we know about the social and demographic characteristics of humanists? This chapter seeks to answer that question by offering a way to measure humanism via data from the 2014 Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study (RLS). In addition to the existence of various types of humanism, findings indicate the presence of gender imbalance in humanist circles and potential for growth in the number of humanists in the United States, as young people are overrepresented. However, this particular cohort also lacks racial and ethnic diversity. It is important to note that, given there is no survey specifically examining humanists, this chapter serves only as a building block for understanding the prevalence of humanism and its demographic characteristics.
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Pub Date : 2021-01-13DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190921538.013.9
Monica R. Miller
Framed in terms of the problems associated with traditional thinking on gender within humanism, this chapter sets about the task of carving out an approach to humanism that would enable flexible, fluid, and malleable understandings of social difference, such as gender, by calling for a re-orientation of humanism that can account for human variability over time, space, and place. Essentially, the chapter argues that humanism’s reliance on fixed categories of reason and human nature has reinforced a White, male logic of domination. First, it suggests a rethinking of humanism as a constructed concept, rather than an idea that somehow metaphysically emanates from some universal core of “human nature.” The chapter suggests a charting of humanism that moves beyond essences insomuch that free-floating “essences” (e.g., gender) collapse the construction (of humanism) back onto, and within, the domain of metaphysics. Next, it looks at origins, attempting to disrupt the science-based situativity in Enlightenment notions of (white, male, objective) “rationality” that were constructed over and against “irrational” categories of difference, such as gender.
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Pub Date : 2021-01-13DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190921538.013.35
K. Hussain
This chapter is an exploration of the concept and practice of humanism in the Muslim Middle East, from the seventh-century Prophetic dispensation to the present times. Humanism has often been described as the peculiar fruit of the European Renaissance. The chapter challenges this claim by investigating the incidence of humanism in the Middle East around a three-tiered axis. First, humanism as a focus on this-worldly rather than other-worldly matters is not only compatible with the “worldliness” of an Islamic ethos but was historically encouraged by it. Second, modernist reformers portray humanism as an earlier “modern” age in the history of the Middle East that they now seek to renew. Finally, inasmuch as humanism is a form of anthropocentrism, theological ideas like al-insān al-kāmil, the perfect man, allow for such humanism to be embedded within a broader Islamic theocentrism. The chapter concludes with possible humanistic futures in the Middle East.
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Pub Date : 2020-12-15DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190921538.013.17
C. Walker
The story of humanism in the modern age is not a simple, linear narrative that begins in classical antiquity and continues to the contemporary moment. Rather, humanism represents a complex contestation of ideas and ideologies born out of the intercourse of the contact of cultures that mark the modern European encounter with the world. Humanism in the modern world is thus critically understood in the reflexive contact between peoples, cultures, and ideas and the processes of making sense of being human in the world. The contests and conquests for power, legitimacy, and authority shape and inform the discourse of humanism in ways that often elide this dense and diverse experience. Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, and Edward Said provide critical resources to interrogate the discourse of humanism and the emergence of the human that comes to dominate the narrative and render humanism as an unique idea and event of European modernity.
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Pub Date : 2020-12-15DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190921538.013.28
D. Masolo
This chapter shows that the idea of humanism in contemporary African thought takes as its backdrop the historical interaction between Africa and foreign cultural and political invasions of the continent since the Middle Ages. Christianity and Islam, before European political invasion, introduced novel concepts and values of the human person and human life, introducing with them new political and social concepts and structures. The emerging synchrony and sometimes tensions between these and indigenous African worldviews have seen African philosophers and political visionaries reaching out to indigenous African modes of thought, whether secular or with some supernatural inclinations, as reservoirs of better concepts of human nature that will heal a world broken by unsound concepts of human nature that not only resulted in unsound epistemological and other philosophical theories, but also produced the injustices of domination, racism, and inequality across the globe. Grounded in the idea of the relational nature of humans among themselves and with nature, African philosophers and thinkers have argued that the well-being of human and non-human reality depends on developing and defending the values of mutual dependency.
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Pub Date : 2020-06-08DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190921538.013.6
James Croft
What does it mean to “practice Humanism”? This chapter argues that Humanism is best understood as a “life stance” constituting six core value-commitments: an “epistemic commitment” representing pursuit of the truth through rational analysis; a “naturalist commitment” representing Humanists’ belief that human beings are part of nature, related to all life on earth; an “ethical commitment,” representing a concern for the dignity of all people; a “self-actualization commitment,” a belief in the development of all human capacities; a “social commitment,” stressing the importance of relationships and responsibilities towards others; and a “justice commitment,” expressing Humanists’ belief in the responsibility of all people to work for a just society. To “practice Humanism” is defined as “self-consciously acting in such a way as to realize one of these six commitments.” Examples of each commitment in practice are given, and through these examples the nature of each commitment is clarified.
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Pub Date : 2019-10-04DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190921538.013.30
John Monfasani
Both the Renaissance and humanism have anachronistically taken on meanings today that betray their historical reality. Emerging from the peculiar lay professional culture of medieval Italy, humanism joined in the Renaissance with other elements of medieval Italian culture to dominate the educated world of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. The Renaissance humanists constituted, in the words of Paul Oskar Kristeller, “a characteristic phase in what may be called the rhetorical tradition in Western culture.” Renaissance humanism created not an ideology or philosophy, but a dynamic set of educated interests and methods dominated by rhetorical and literary interests and focused on imitation of classical eloquence and literature. The humanists would in time powerfully reshape European learning, education, and, ultimately, self-conception. A non-trivial residue of Renaissance humanism is our understanding of the disciplines that make up the humanities and that we view as essential to educated culture.
文艺复兴和人文主义在今天都不合时宜地赋予了违背其历史现实的意义。人文主义源于中世纪意大利独特的非专业文化，在文艺复兴时期与中世纪意大利文化的其他元素结合在一起，主宰了16世纪和17世纪欧洲的教育世界。用Paul Oskar Kristeller的话来说，文艺复兴时期的人文主义者构成了“西方文化中一个可以称为修辞传统的典型阶段”。文艺复兴时期的人文主义创造的不是一种意识形态或哲学，而是一套充满活力的教育兴趣和方法，由修辞和文学兴趣主导，专注于模仿古典口才和文学。随着时间的推移，人文主义者将有力地重塑欧洲的学习、教育，并最终重塑自我概念。文艺复兴人文主义的一个重要残余是我们对构成人文学科的学科的理解，我们认为这些学科对受过教育的文化至关重要。
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Pub Date : 2019-10-04DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190921538.013.31
Chun-Chieh Huang
This chapter discusses types of Confucian humanism in East Asia, their manifestations, functions, and shared core value. First of all, it differentiates two types of Confucian humanism: (a) ethno-historical humanism, and (b) culturo-philosophical humanism. The former was baptized in the spirit of temporality while the latter stressed a return to the spontaneity of one’s mind-heart, which was considered to be supra-temporal and supra-spatial. Both types of Confucian humanism took humanity or ren (仁) as their core value. Throughout the history of Confucian humanism, the meaning of ren fell into four categories, namely: (a) ren as the locale of physical and mental relief; (b) ren as the inner awareness of value judgment: (c) ren as social ethics; and (d) ren as political career. Confucius and Zhu Xi were the two major architects of Confucian humanistic thinking. The spirit of Confucian humanism manifested itself in beliefs in a (a) mind-body continuum, (b) self-other harmony, (c) homo-cosmic resonation, and (d) past-present fusion. Moreover, Confucian humanism functioned as (a) socio-cultural nostalgia, (b) political counter-factuality, and (c) day-to-day “practical learning.”
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Pub Date : 2019-10-04DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190921538.013.4
C. Cameron
Academic studies of humanism often ignore questions of race and both the existence and significance of non-white humanists. At the same time, scholarship on race and religion fails to consider humanist traditions. Through an analysis of work by literary critics, intellectual historians/philosophers, scholars of religious studies, and theologians this chapter calls for a greater attention to the intersection of race and humanism and posits three key points: scholars working in these fields must make greater use of archival sources and periodicals; explore the ideas and activism of white, black, Native American, and Latinx humanists; and carefully consider the influence of humanism throughout the African Diaspora on black humanism in the United States.
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Pub Date : 2019-10-04DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190921538.013.7
Joseph O. Baker
While the varieties of humanist expression vary across cultural and historical contexts, all forms of humanism are necessarily related to politics by virtue of outlining ethical positions on matters of social relations. Tracing the history of humanism broadly, as well as secular humanism specifically, this chapter identifies recurring continua of conflict about the politics of humanism. There is a general, inherent tension between individualist and collectivist dimensions of humanism, which is manifest in specific disputes about orientations toward society (philosophical vs. applied humanism), religion (exclusivist vs. ecumenical humanism), ethics (scientistic vs. humanitarian humanism), and politics (libertarian vs. socialist humanism). There are also disputes within humanism that arise around the preferred strategy for managing the stigma of secularity between those who favor separatist subcultures and those who favor normalization through social reform. Ultimately a broad-based conception of humanism offers the greatest possibilities for political efficacy. In conclusion, the article outlines some of the important aspects of humanism and politics in need of further research.
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