Abstract

As an American philosophical tradition, Humanism is a phenomenon of the 20th century. While it was introduced in the American context as a pragmatist philosophical program by the European philosopher F.C.S. Schiller at the onset of the 20th century, it became a popular stance only with the publication of the Humanist Manifesto in 1933. In this document, a number of American intellectuals, among them philosopher and pedagogue John Dewey and biologist Julian Huxley, presented “an effort to replace traditional religious beliefs with a stalwart confidence in our capability to achieve moral perfection and happiness along the lines and within the limits of our earthly nature”.