56. Humanism

One definition of humanism is that it takes principles for human action and life not from nature nor from the supernatural but from humanity itself.

There are varieties of humanism. The term was applied to a stream of intellectual activity in the Renaissance. The term ‘rebirth’ refers to a renewed inspiration from especially the Greek classics. Earlier, classical thought had already had a large influence. First that of Plato, especially in neoplatonism that was a major source of inspiration in Christian thought. Later, in the 13th century, Aristotelian thought, which had reached Western Europe via the moors in Spain, gave a new impulse to Christian thought, e.g. in the work of Thomas Aquinas. From the 14th century philosophy was no longer only a handmaiden to theology. Earlier, in the 11th and 12th centuries, there was a development of cities, emergence of commerce and free professions, and a beginning of capitalism. That yielded a need for knowledge and contributed to the development of individualism and of science. In the 14^th and 15^th century disastrous failures, moral, political and military, notably in the 100 years war between England and France, of the church and the nobility, contributed to the long-term demise of those old authorities.

The early humanism of the 16^th century, with Montaigne, Erasmus, Shakespeare and Francis Bacon, had two characteristic features. First, and above all, it was oriented towards the individual and its flourishing and freedom. It was not antireligious. Second, it had an Aristotelian appreciation of diversity, tolerance, change, intellectual modesty, individuality and context-dependence of judgement, with the intuition that human life does not lend itself to abstract generalization.

In the Enlightenment, the drive towards the freedom and flourishing of the individual, and criticism of suppressive authorities of state and church, acquired a new dynamic. Humanism acquired the connotation of a rejection of divine and other supernatural powers. The humanism of the Renaissance was criticized for its distortion of classical texts in subordination to convention and maintenance of Christian faith. In what some have called a Counter-Renaissance much of classical thought was rejected, such as the Aristotelian idea that processes in nature strive towards a goal (the final cause). There was a development of abstract thought, and especially English philosophers turned to empirical foundations of knowledge. The Aristotelian perspective of practical philosophy was replaced by a more Platonic one, in a striving for universal, immutable, context-independent truths, in clear and distinct ideas (Descartes) or adequate ideas (Spinoza). The Enlightenment was not, however, platonic in seeking the source of the true, the good and the beautiful outside the subject but sought it inside, and that became part of humanism.  

Nowadays the most current meaning of ‘humanism’ is an attitude to life based on reason, autonomy and self-knowledge of the human individual, and belief in the betterment of the human being, mostly on the basis of its own efforts. Also, everyone has the right to be treated with dignity and to have the opportunity for the flourishing and authenticity of the human being.