okamido

All over the board lately, I am hearing about humanism, secular humanism, and athiest humanism.

Somebody break this down for me because I wondering if everyone means the same thing.

Master Chief

Perhaps this can help

I have never come across atheist humanism. Humanism is usually secular.

okamido

I know that I could look it up on Wikipedia, but since I am seeing it pop up so much on historum, I was curious what the members think it is.

Von Ranke

It is a Renaissance idea where man and his activities become central to existence rather than religion.

Star

Is ‘atheist humanism’ an actual term for a worldview or just a description of the individual humanist, as opposed to some who were often deeply religious men?

Petrarch gave the impression that the goals of this ‘new learning’ ought to incline towards virtue and moral goodness, more so than, but not excluding, gaining knowledge only for the sake of knowing. Yet, 15th century humanism, like Lorenzo Valla’s work have demonstrated the opposite.

I don't think I can explain what other members think it means, but I can only quote Lauro Martines, who called Humanism a 'Program for Ruling Classes'. He also supplies a list of humanism’s contribution to scholarship and historical method:

- Lauro Martines

At its most basic, the word humanism is simply the description of university subjects that required the competency of late 13th and 14th century lawyers, notaries, and curial officials. Those subjects of humanity included history, languages, poetry, grammar, rhetoric, and logic. In the early 15th century there began a marked increase in demand to fill positions where these types of learning were desired. Some positions were filled by humanist educators, humanist orators, humanist poets, humanist lawyers, and humanist bishops and cardinals, etc etc. For early modern statesmen, humanism was cutting edge and reflected new ideas in policy-making decisions and was used as a propaganda tool to export influence and increase prestige as rulers. It is best seen as an intellectual ideal of a social group (the elite) that really had no other major unifying factors. At least that is how I have come to understand humanism.

Fireatwill

"What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals..." - Shakespeare (from Hamlet)


That pretty much sums up humanism.

Frossard

When I hear this I think Carl Rogers and his theories of Humanistic Psychology.