What is Humanism?
jeff_klenner
descriptions of "humanist" philosophy and have reason to believe that it may be the general
outlook that I could identify with most closely. I don't have much, if any, faith in the traditional
christians teachings I was brought up with, so I'm hoping to learn more about humanism so
that I can determine whether it's actually a philosophy which I can readily embrace.
Question: How do I learn more about the humanist movement, both in historic perspective
and in modern practice? Can anybody provide a succinct explanation? Are there any highly
recommended books or authors I might read?
Please help me out here if you have any words of wisdom to offer. I would like to learn more
and only need to be pointed in the right direction. I sincerely appreciate any help you folks out
there are able to provide me. In the meantime, I will continue eavesdropping (lurking) in this
group to see if I can pick up anything here and there.
Thanks in advance for your help...
/=======================================================\
| Jeff Klenner "A life is not important |
| hype...@swcp.com except in the impact it has |
| Southwest Cyberport on other lives." |
| Albuquerque, New Mexico (Jackie Robinson) |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| See my web site at http://www.swcp.com/~hyperion/ |
\=======================================================/
Matt Beckwith
A long time ago in Europe, when the Catholic Church was big, it was
unfashionable to give man the credit for being able to figure things out. We
had, instead, to use the word of God as our sole source of truth. My
understanding is that the people who disagreed with this, who spoke up for the
ability of man to figure things out (even if they disagreed with what the bible
said), were called humanists. Today we call these people scientists.
Later on, when existentialism was big, some asserted that man is the center of
the universe. This was in contradistinction to the scientific viewpoint that
man is just a collection of atoms that evolved randomly, and is on a little
planet off to the edge of the universe, a universe full of planets many of whom
probably have intelligent life also. The scientist could speak of truth
(meaning provable truth), but this seemed "inhuman". Thus evolved another kind
of "humanist", who considered man to be the measure of all things, and who spoke
of truth being "relative". "Hey, what's true for you is true for you, what's
true for me is true for me." The "absolute truth" of the scientists was
distasteful to these humanists, cold and relentless, not considering the
feelings of people. And what could be more important than people? Certainly
not "truth". Today, we call these people "liberals".
Finally, we have the humanists of today, who are simply people who do not
subscribe to any particular religion's ethics. Today's humanists assert that
ethics can be logically inferred. It makes sense to treat people fairly. The
world works better that way. We don't have to have some parental god up in the
sky dictating our behavior.
This is my historical understanding of humanism. Is it correct? Humanists
number two, above, are much different from number one or number three. But
perhaps the term has been used differently in different times.
Matt Beckwith
Jacksonville, Florida
www.geopages.com/Athens/2371
Paul Pfalzner
>
> Thanks in advance for your help...
>
> /=======================================================\
> | Jeff Klenner "A life is not important |
I recommend The Philosophy of Humanism by Corliss Lamont
Paul P.
kaman
: Question: How do I learn more about the humanist movement, both in historic perspective
: and in modern practice? Can anybody provide a succinct explanation? Are there any highly
: recommended books or authors I might read?
: Please help me out here if you have any words of wisdom to offer. I would like to learn more
: and only need to be pointed in the right direction. I sincerely appreciate any help you folks out
: there are able to provide me. In the meantime, I will continue eavesdropping (lurking) in this
: group to see if I can pick up anything here and there.
: Thanks in advance for your help...
Jeff,
You may want to read "The Humanist Way" by Edward Ericson (ISBN
0-8044-2176-5). It is brief (196 pages), but a good summary of and
history of humanism, particularly for Ethical Humanism, a branch of the
humanist movement.
--
Chris Kaman
ka...@nando.net
---------------------------------------------------------------
Norm Hall
> ... I don't have much, if any, faith in the traditional
> christians teachings I was brought up with, so I'm hoping to learn more
> about humanism...
> How do I learn more about the humanist movement, both in historic perspective
> and in modern practice? Can anybody provide a succinct explanation?
> Are there any highly recommended books or authors I might read?
Paul Pfalzner, in a post, recommended _The Philosophy of Humanism_ by
Corliss Lamont -- probably a good place to start. I have not read his
longer work, but Lamont's chapter on "Naturalistic Humanism" in _The
Humanist Alternative_, a collection of essays edited by Paul Kurtz, is
pretty good (though I prefer "scientific humanism").
Matt Beckwith's post, giving a three-part "history" of humanism is
amusing, and may have some truth to it. But unfortunately, it greatly
distorts the role of science in modern humanism:
> I too wonder what humanism is.
> A long time ago in Europe... people ...who spoke up for the
> ability of man to figure things out (even if they disagreed with what
> the bible said), were called humanists. Today we call these
> people scientists.
> Later on, when existentialism was big, some asserted that man is the
> center of the universe... in contradistinction to the scientific viewpoint
> that man is just a collection of atoms that evolved randomly, and is on
> a little planet off to the edge of the universe, a universe full of planets
> many of whom probably have intelligent life also.
> The scientist could speak of truth
> (meaning provable truth), but this seemed "inhuman". Thus evolved
> another kind of "humanist", who considered man to be the measure of
> all things, and who spoke of truth being "relative". "Hey, what's true
> for you is true for you, what's true for me is true for me." The "absolute
> truth" of the scientists was distasteful to these humanists, cold and
>relentless, not considering the feelings of people. And what could be
> more important than people? Certainly not "truth". Today, we call these
> people "liberals".
To the extent that this is a true story, it misses the fact that these
"existential humanists" seem to have lost track of the progress of
science. What is described here as "scientific truth," that is,
"provable truth," was the truth of the logical positivists,
philosophers who (at the end of the 19th century) made the mistake of
taking an absolute notion of truth from the religious culture
surrounding them, and then tried to make it fit all human knowledge.
As a result, they tried to find ways to "prove" scientific findings to
be truths in some absolute sense. They failed.
Then, at the end of the 19th century, and the beginning of the 20th,
science began to discover how to remedy some of its mistakes. It
learned to be satisfied with mathematical systems that were incomplete
(Godel), and with space and time measurements that were relative
rather than absolute (Einstein), and with a reality that is best
understood as being partly "uncaused," or truely random (quantum
mechanics.) The "absolute truth" of science has become the "probable
truth." that has yet to be falsified (Popper). Now, near the end of
the 20th century, some of the "existential humanists" have
rediscovered this 50 to 80 year old modification in the nature of
truth, have stripped it of its scientific foundations, re-named it
"post-modernism," and try to use it in a Quixotic attempt to discredit
science.
Another sad part of the tale is what happened to that word "relative."
It was quite useful to Einstein to describe how it didn't make sense
to try to measure space and time on any absolute scale. But if you
picked one object as a starting point, any starting point, you could
measure the movement of one object "relative" to another. When the
non-scientific "humanists" got hold of the term, and applied it to
ethics, it turned into, as you have seen, "what's good for you is good
for you, what's good for me is good for me," and all attempt to
measure one notion of "good" *relative* to another came to a halt.
The confusion comes from humanists unfamiliar with science trying to
make use of the language of modern science, which embraces the
"relative" and the "approximate," while ignoring the lessons of
science and going on to invent a new "absolute" that forbids any
comparisons at all. It's sad, but the word has become so polluted
that it it impossible to use it anymore, although, in its original
sense, it describes the ethical landscape quite well.
> Finally ... Today's humanists assert that ethics can be logically inferred.
> It makes sense to treat people fairly. The world works
> better that way. We don't have to have some parental god up in the
> sky dictating our behavior.
The take home lesson for today's humanists is that ethics, like all
the rest of human culture, has been invented by human beings. The
reason we have, in many different places and different times, decided
that it might be a good idea to treat people decently (if not fairly),
is because we have found that, willy-nilly, the world *does* work
better that way.
Since our ethics are of human origin, they are no more eternal truths
than are the "truths" of science. We don't fear to challange supposed
scientific truth claims, since we know they are approximate, and are
open to correction. Neither do we fear to question supposed ethical
and moral truths, nor to suggest new ones, which may be judged
"relative" to the success or failure of the old ones.
We find that our ethics make better sense, and, indeed, work better,
if we occasionally take a look at those ethics, and recognize that, in
spite of the ancient roots some of them claim for themselves in
mythical fiery fingers writing on tablets of stone, they are *all*
just human ideas that got themselves a good press agent, and can *all*
benefit from being rethought occasionally. While"Thou shalt not kill"
may still serve as a pretty good rule of thumb, "Thou shalt not make
graven images" may not be much help to anyone anymore.
What I want to make clear is that there is a "scientific" humanism,
probably held by only a minority, which lives in constant tension with
the majority of humanism. It recognizes that science's built-in ethic
of truth-telling (DON'T let anyone tell you that science is value-free
-- it is not!) and its unfolding (most probably) true story of the
origins and ascent of man are essential and central to the
construction of any humanist world-view that is to ever hope be
capable of competing with the old religious myths, and winning the
allegiance of a wider population of rational human beings.
I recommend two books: _Chance and Necessity_, by Jaques Monod, and
_The Ascent of Man_ by Jacob Bronowski.
Jaques Monod, a French Nobel-prize-winning biochemist, describes the
endeavor of science as dependent upon the "postulate of objectivity."
That is, science is possible only because we *assume* that the
universe will not lie to us -- indeed, is incapable of lying to us.
Therefore, it will treat our attempts to ask it questions (our
scientific experiments) with _objectivity_. If we don't make this
assumption, then science is just a game in which we try to guess how
much of what we think we know from our science is just the universe
(or God) playing tricks on us. The book explains a good chunk of what
is known as "molecular biology," as it was unfolding at the time (the
mid to late 1960's), and some of it may be tough going for those with
no background in biology, but it is well worth it. (Also, I would
hope that by now most of it is included in high-school biology.)
Most reviewers over the years have misunderstood and/or misrepresented
the "postulate of objectivity," imagining that it is an attempt to
claim an "objectivity" for scientists unavailable to others. Please
note that it is *the universe*, not the scientist, that is
*postulated* to be objective. No, it can't be proved to be absolutely
true (any more than it can be proved that continents move and life
evolved.) But it makes a great working hypothesis, and no experiment
yet has been found to falsify it.
What I consider to be the greatest weakness of the book is that Monod
has inherited the angst of the French Existentialists. He recognizes
that his veiw of science implies that "there is no God to save us,"
and is frightened of the prospect. Personally, I find the prospect of
having no God to either save me, or to interfere with my own and all
humanity's attempts to save themselves, to be a refreshing and
liberating relief from the mumbo-jumbo of religion, mysticism, and
spiritualism.
Jacob Bronowski's book is much more easily read, being mostly a
compilation of the material from a television series first broadcast
about 20 years ago. If you can find tapes of the BBC series, "The
Ascent of Man," by all means watch it. One episode (and book chapter)
especially, "Knowledge or Certainty," is, IMHO, one of the most
profound pieces of television ever broadcast. In it, Bronowski
describes the process by which the scientists who discovered quantum
mechanics were outlining the limits to the certainty of human
knowledge, and the "tolerance" which must be a part of any honest
communication of knowledge, while all around them tolerance was being
destroyed by the monsterous certainty of the Nazi state.
It ends with Bronowski, an old man just months from his own death,
standing beside a pond into which were flushed the ashes from the
crematorium at Auschwitz, where some of his own family died. "This,"
he tells us, "was not done by science, but by dogma." It's not the
scientific quest for the best probabilities, but the itch for absolute
knowledge, "the knowledge of gods," that fuels genocide. Finally,
Jacob Bronowski, mathematician, scientist, and concerned human being,
demonstrates his own recommended solution for the ever recurring
problem of deadly authority which pretends to know everything, but
knows nothing of the humanity it tramples: To the astonishment of his
own camera crew, he wades into the pond, crouches, grasps a handful of
algae, mud, and ashes, and says "We have to touch people."
*That* is humanism.
-- Norm Hall
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