Humanism

views updated

Humanism

Humanism is a philosophy of life without God. It maintains that reason is the best method for the discovery of truth, that the natural world of space-time is the only world that exists, and that the power to solve human problems lies mainly within human beings.

The first articulation of humanist principles comes from ancient Greece. Three Greek philosophers—Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus—proposed an atomic and materialistic view of reality that excluded the existence of supernatural power and supernatural gods. Epicurus founded a school in Athens that preserved this teaching. In the philosophy of Epicurus pleasure and happiness replaced both tradition and the will of the gods as the criteria for goodness and right behavior.

The triumph of Christianity in the Roman world led to the suppression of Greek philosophy, and especially Epicureanism. The victory of Islam in the East only aggravated this hostility. Humanism remained an "underground" philosophy in a triumphant Christian and Muslim world.

In the European Renaissance the word "humanist" appears. A "humanist" was a master of the secular texts of ancient Greece and Rome. These texts became an alternative to pious literature for European liberals who were weary of clerical dogmatism and intolerance.

By the eighteenth century the Renaissance had turned into the Enlightenment. Western Christianity had been weakened by division. Philosophers felt free to challenge the premises and institutions of religion. The rise of the scientific experimental approach to truth, reinforced by British philosophers such as Bacon, Locke, and Hume, undermined the authority of religious dogma and opened the educated public to the possibility of living without God.

In the nineteenth century, English philosopher John Stuart Mill and French philosopher August Comte defined classical humanism. Five principles were articulated:

The scientific and experimental method is the most reliable path to truth.
Reality and the natural world are one and the same.
The human struggle for survival takes place in the context of an indifferent universe.
Moral behavior leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
Individuals have the right to be the masters of their lives.

Comte saw humanism as the religion of humanity. Mill saw humanism as a "natural religion." But their disciples generally viewed themselves as nonreligious.

Humanism in North America was identified with people who called themselves freethinkers. At the end of the nineteenth century dozens of freethinking and rationalist societies emerged in the major cities of the United States. Their agenda was to promote rational thinking and to oppose dogmatic religion. The charismatic spokesman of freethinking was Robert Ingersoll, a successful lawyer from Illinois who was viewed by many as the greatest orator in America. But Ingersoll directed his energies to personal enlightenment and not to the organization of a humanist movement.

In time there appeared two kinds of humanism: one religious and one secular. Religious humanists found their home in liberal religions. Many liberal Christians and Jews, who were either deists or pantheists or who no longer believed in a God who responded to prayer, saw themselves as humanists. Many members and leaders of the Unitarian movement openly promoted a nontheistic humanism, especially in the Midwest. John Dietrich of Minneapolis was their most prominent leader. In 1876 Felix Adler, the son of a distinguished Reform rabbi, established the New York Society for Ethical Culture, which taught ethics without God. Over the next fifty years a dozen similar societies were created all over America. In 1963 Sherwin Wine, a dissident Reform rabbi, founded the Birmingham Temple, which became the first congregation of humanistic Judaism. The new movement sought to blend humanism with secular Jewish culture.

Secular humanists avoided religious formats. While most of them joined no humanist organization, some of them organized local and national societies to provide humanist education through literature and lectures. Both the American Humanist Association and the Council for a Democratic and Secular Humanism were created for this purpose. Both secular and religious humanists cooperated in the issuance of two humanist manifestos and in the creation of a school for training humanist leaders, the Humanist Institute, in New York.

American humanism has been reinforced by the support of prominent American philosophers. Both the critical realism of Roy Wood Sellars and the pragmatism of John Dewey became important themes in American humanist thought.

In recent years political fundamentalists of the religious right have assaulted "secular humanism" as their chief enemy. Although exaggerating the power of humanism, the leaders of the assault have paid an unwilling tribute to the importance of humanism in America.