In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Humanist History of Mathematics?Regiomontanus's Padua Oration in ContextJames Steven ByrneIn the spring of 1464, the German astronomer, astrologer, and mathematician Johannes Müller (1436–76), known as Regiomontanus (a Latinization of the name of his hometown, Königsberg in Franconia), offered a course of lectures on the Arabic astronomer al-Farghani at the University of Padua. The only one of these to survive is his inaugural oration on the history (...) and utility of the mathematical arts.1 Regiomontanus tells his audience that the purpose of the oration is torelate first the origin of our arts, and among which nations they first began to be cultivated, in what way they were at last translated from various foreign tongues into Latin, which of our ancestors were famed in these disciplines, and to whom in our lifetimes recognition should be granted.2To this end, he offers a history of the quadrivial arts (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy) and other important mathematical disciplines from [End Page 41] antiquity to his own time, praises their utility, and exhorts his audience to revive the languishing study of mathematics at Padua. Astrology, a discipline with which Regiomontanus himself was closely associated, is singled out for particular praise.Traditionally, Regiomontanus's Padua oration has been seen through the lens of its rather obvious humanism. In particular, the Padua oration has come to be understood as the rhetorical embodiment of the fifteenth-and-sixteenth-century revival of ancient (Greek) mathematics. Just as this revival is inextricable from the rise of humanism, so Regiomontanus has come to be seen as an exemplar of humanist mathematics.3 It is the aim of this paper to examine the Padua oration in the context both of contemporary humanist rhetoric and of Regiomontanus's own intellectual background in order to argue that, while the oration is stylistically consistent with humanist norms, the vision of mathematics presented in it is also deeply grounded in the university mathematical curriculum and in Regiomontanus's own reading of mathematical texts.Regiomontanus was educated primarily at the University of Vienna (he was also briefly at the University of Leipzig), where he enrolled in 1450, completed his baccalaureate in 1452 and became a master in 1457.4 He remained at Vienna until 1461, when the death of his friend and teacher Georg Peurbach prompted him to travel to Italy with his patron, Cardinal Bessarion.5 In Regiomontanus's day Vienna was probably the most important of the German universities, rivaled only by Prague, whose prestige had declined after it was stripped of its theology faculty in the aftermath of the Hussite Wars.6 The curriculum at the University of Vienna was modeled [End Page 42] after that of Paris, and Parisian scholars played a major role both in its founding in 1365 and in its re-establishment (this time with a theology faculty) in 1384.7Most importantly for the purposes of this paper, the Viennese mathematical curriculum of Regiomontanus's day included all of the traditional authorities taught at Paris in the fourteenth century. For arithmetic and algebra, various "algorisms" (prose or poetry instructions for carrying out arithmetical operations that often also included a small amount of number theory) were the basic texts, supplemented in the fourteenth century by the Quadripartitum numerorum of Jean de Murs. Jordanus de Nemorare's De numeris datis and al-Khwarizmi's Algebra were common sources for those engaged in more advanced studies (i.e., they were not normally the subject of ordinary lectures, but were readily available to interested students, and would perhaps have been the subject of occasional extraordinary lectures). Euclid's Elements, supplemented by the commentaries of Pappus and Campanus, was the central text for geometry, and a number of medieval texts on practical and speculative geometry were in circulation as well. For astronomy, the Sphere of Sacrobosco and the Theorica planetarum were the most commonly used teaching texts, sometimes supplemented by al-Farghani's Elements of Astronomy (the subject of Regiomontanus's Padua lectures). Advanced students could read numerous more specific treatises by Arabic and Latin authors. For optics, the Perspectiva communis of John Peckham was the most common basic text, with texts... (shrink)

Culture After Humanism asks what happens to the authority of traditional Western modes of thought in the wake of postcolonial theory. Iain Chambers investigates moments of tension, interruptions which transform our perception of the world and test the limits of language, art and technology. In a series of interlinked discussions, ranging in focus from Susan Sontag's novel The Volcano Lover to the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, Jimi Hendrix and Baroque architecture and music, Chambers weaves together a critique of Western (...) humanism, exploring issues of colonization and migration, language and identity. Culture After Humanism offers a new approach to cultural history, a 'post-humanist' perspective which challenges our sense of a world in which the subject is sovereign language, the transparent medium of its agency, and truth, the product of reason. (shrink)

Building on a theory of human intelligence, this book explores the importance of - and limits of - cost/benefit calculus (safety first in hostile environment), on the evolution of economic activity and political discourse. Arguing that intelligence consists of wisdom, cost/benefit reasoning, and creative genius, the book explores the history of the world from hunting and gathering to modern times, drawing on art, literature and invention. It emphasizes ethics, expectations and the importance of historical experience in shaping the humanist (...) economics story. (shrink)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Exploring Renaissance humanists’ debates on matter, life and the soul, this volume addresses the contribution of humanist culture to the evolution of early modern natural philosophy so as to shed light on the medical context of the ...

Heidegger's attacks against humanism have come under renewed scrutiny, especially in France, as the latest wave of polemics over his political engagement has metamorphosed into a debate over the nature of humanism itself. Yet these recent discussions give rise to a number of perplexities. Firstly, for all their differences, it is remarkable how Heidegger's critics and defenders alike distort his position. On the one side, his French defenders hold that humanism is the attribution of a fixed essence (...) to man, according to which definition "even Nazism is a humanism." The fact that the early Heidegger was still enmeshed in the snares of humanism is then invoked to explain his political views in the thirties. (shrink)

Volume Three, “The Crisis of Humanism,” commences with an important essay on the challenge to the humanist tradition posed in the late 19th century by historical materialism, existentialism and positivism. These Jewish thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th century addressed the general European value crisis while laying foundations for Jewish renewal: Hess, Lazarus, Cohen, Ahad Ha-Am, Dubnow, Berdiczewski, and the theorists of Yiddishism and Labor Zionism.

Clendinnen, Inga I want to begin with the question 'what is a humanist?' largely because you answered that question superbly and succinctly with your Australian Humanist of the Year choice last year.

There is a story about how the humanities were marginalized in postwar Sweden: in the land of engineers, technocrats and social scientists, there was supposedly no room for education, philosophy and history. This book challenges such a notion and shows how palpably present the humanities were in the public eye of the time. Through a knowledge-historical perspective and international comparisons, the authors illustrate how humanists found themselves in the middle of the welfare society's culture and politics, media and book (...) market, idea debate and education system. At the center of the book is the public of the 1960s and 1970s. In the first part, the decisive role that humanists played in the public education programs of early television as well as in the popular science paperback publishing of the time and on the essay pages of the daily newspapers is discussed. In the second part, attention is directed to the place of the humanities in the Christian cultural sphere, the labor movement's public education work and the book cafés of the new left. We get to meet cultural personalities such as Per I. Gedin, Gunnel Vallquist and Jan-Öjvind Swahn, but also television producers, study circle organizers, translators of radical non-fiction and many others. All of them contributed to setting humanistic knowledge in motion in the postwar decades. (shrink)

Resumen El artículo aborda el vínculo que se establece entre Humanismo e historia en el pensamiento del humanista luterano F. Melanchthon. Su formación académica, previa a su llegada a Wittenberg, y su trabajo como renovador del sistema educativo reformador, lo vinculan con la tradición del humanismo histórico-filológico, que aúna este doble aspecto: humanismo filológico y humanismo histórico, que recíprocamente impulsan la búsqueda de una humanidad terrena. La historia para la Reforma, en convergencia con el Humanismo, es una tarea ética que (...) concierne a la vida del hombre en esta tierra, y teológica, que conduce a interpretar el acontecer histórico como designio trascendente. El salto cualitativo respecto a la época precedente radica en que la idea de humanidad aparece ligada a la historia, a la vida civilizada, a la educación según ciertos modelos clásicos, etc. Desde el Humanismo como humanismo histórico-filológico el descubrimiento del hombre sería el descubrimiento de su realidad histórica, que retrocede hasta la Antigüedad clásica. La idea de hombre interpretada de este modo se muestra como una filosofía del hombre que permite vislumbrar una filosofía de la historia. Abstract This paper is focused on the connection between Humanism and history within the thought of the Lutheran humanist P. Melanchthon. His education, undertaken before his arrival to Wittenberg, and his work as the designer of the reformist educative system, link him with the historical and philological humanist tradition, which synthesises this dual aspect: the philological humanism and the historical humanism, both reciprocally boosting the quest of an earthly humanity. From the point of view of Reform, along with Humanism, history is an ethical task that concerns the earthly human life and a theological task that leads to understanding the historical facts as transcendent commands. The qualitative break-up with the previous era relies upon linking humanhood with history, with civilised life, with education following some classical scheme, etc. According to Humanism as historic-philological humanism, the discovery of the human being would be the discovery of his historical reality, backing until Classical Antiquity. This conception of the human being shows itself as a philosophy of the human being that lets us glimpse a Philosophy of History. (shrink)

Summary Historians of science have neglected early modern natural philosophers' varied attitudes to the history of philosophy, often preferring to use loose labels such as ?Epicureanism? to describe the survival of ancient doctrines. This is methodologically inappropriate: reifying such philosophical movements tells us little about the complex ways in which early modern natural philosophers approached the history of their own discipline. As this article shows, a central figure of early modern natural philosophy, Robert Boyle, invested great intellectual energy (...) into his depiction of the history of philosophy. Boyle's historical worldview was mediated through an array of textual traditions: classical, patristic, humanist and contemporary. Drawing extensively on his manuscript notes, this is examined for three topics. First, from his turn to natural philosophy in the late 1640s, Boyle combined a sceptical attitude towards philosophy's potential ? stemming from humanist historicisations of the ?speculative? heritage of Greek philosophy ? with a belief in natural philosophy's efficacy as a spiritual exercise, as performed by ancient ?priests of nature?. Second, Boyle's attitude to the history of matter theory was far more complex than any simple comparison with ?ancient atomism? can convey. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Boyle held Epicurus to be a speculative and reductionist philosopher, leading him to posit a different lineage for a non-reductionist corpuscularianism which depended on exploitation of non-standard historiographical traditions. Appreciating this allows us to make an intervention in the ongoing debate about the relationship between corpuscularianism, chymistry and experiment in Boyle's philosophy. Third, Boyle's historicisation of supposedly anthropomorphic philosophies in his famous Free Enquiry (1686) exploited recent theological historiography, most importantly Samuel Parker's combination of the history of idolatry with the history of Greek philosophy, which itself relied on developments in continental sacred history. It was this historicisation, rather than any philosophical realities, which led to the positing of the mechanical philosophy as more compatible than Aristotelianism with Christian doctrine. (shrink)

For more than a century, scholars have believed that Italian humanism was predominantly civic in outlook. Often serving in communal government, fourteenth-century humanists like Albertino Mussato and Coluccio Saltuati are said to have derived from their reading of the Latin classics a rhetoric of republican liberty that was opposed to the "tyranny" of neighbouring signori and of the German emperors. In this ground-breaking study, Alexander Lee challenges this long-held belief. From the death of Frederick II in 1250 to the (...) failure of Rupert of the Palatinate's ill-fated expedition in 1402, Lee argues, the humanists nurtured a consistent and powerful affection for the Holy Roman Empire. Though this was articulated in a variety of different ways, it was nevertheless driven more by political conviction than by cultural concerns. Surrounded by endless conflict--both within and between city-states--the humanists eagerly embraced the Empire as the surest guarantee of peace and liberty, and lost no opportunity to invoke its protection. Indeed, as Lee shows, the most ardent appeals to imperial authority were made not by "signorial" humanists, but by humanists in the service of communal regimes. The first comprehensive, synoptic study of humanistic ideas of Empire in the period c.1250-1402, this volume offers a radically new interpretation of fourteenth-century political thought, and raises wide-ranging questions about the foundations of modern constitutional ideas. As such, it is essential reading not just for students of Renaissance Italy and the history of political thought, but for all those interested in understanding the origins of liberty. (shrink)

Late nineteenth-century German anthropology had to compete for intellectual legitimacy with the established academic humanities (Geisteswissenschaften), above all history. Whereas humanists interpreted literary documents to create narratives about great civilizations, anthropologists represented and viewed objects, such as skulls or artifacts, to create what they regarded as natural scientific knowledge about so-called 'natural peoples'-colonized societies of Africa, the Pacific, and the Americas. Anthropologists thus invoked a venerable tradition that presented looking at objects as a more certain source of knowledge than (...) reading texts. Visual representations, especially of the colonized, not only allowed anthropologists allegedly objective insight into humanity but also put them in direct contact with popular audiences of ethnographic spectacles, exotic photography, and even pornographic images. Anthropologists thus sought to create a peculiar kind of anthropological vision that both differentiated them from humanists as 'objective' natural scientists but also distinguished them from the leering 'Schaulust' that they believed characterized popular consumption of exotic images. To do so they invented technologies of visual representation that eschewed the subject position figured by linear perspective. These novel optics dispensed with the leering subject posited by popular spectacles and the knowing subject posited by humanism and created an anti-humanist form of knowledge. (shrink)

SummaryHistorians of science have neglected early modern natural philosophers' varied attitudes to the history of philosophy, often preferring to use loose labels such as ‘Epicureanism’ to describe the survival of ancient doctrines. This is methodologically inappropriate: reifying such philosophical movements tells us little about the complex ways in which early modern natural philosophers approached the history of their own discipline. As this article shows, a central figure of early modern natural philosophy, Robert Boyle, invested great intellectual energy into (...) his depiction of the history of philosophy. Boyle's historical worldview was mediated through an array of textual traditions: classical, patristic, humanist and contemporary. Drawing extensively on his manuscript notes, this is examined for three topics. First, from his turn to natural philosophy in the late 1640s, Boyle combined a sceptical attitude towards philosophy's potential – stemming from humanist historicisations of the ‘speculative’ heritage of Greek philosophy – with a belief in natural philosophy's efficacy as a spiritual exercise, as performed by ancient ‘priests of nature’. Second, Boyle's attitude to the history of matter theory was far more complex than any simple comparison with ‘ancient atomism’ can convey. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Boyle held Epicurus to be a speculative and reductionist philosopher, leading him to posit a different lineage for a non-reductionist corpuscularianism which depended on exploitation of non-standard historiographical traditions. Appreciating this allows us to make an intervention in the ongoing debate about the relationship between corpuscularianism, chymistry and experiment in Boyle's philosophy. Third, Boyle's historicisation of supposedly anthropomorphic philosophies in his famous Free Enquiry exploited recent theological historiography, most importantly Samuel Parker's combination of the history of idolatry with the history of Greek philosophy, which itself relied on developments in continental sacred history. It was this historicisation, rather than any philosophical realities, which led to the positing of the mechanical philosophy as more compatible than Aristotelianism with Christian doctrine. (shrink)

En el marco del debate humanista del siglo XX, el pensamiento político de Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) se constituye como una de las voces críticas y testimoniales que buscaron reflexionar sobre lo acontecido en la Segunda Guerra Mundial. A partir de su propia experiencia como judía en la Alemania de las primeras décadas de su siglo y como intelectual exiliada, concentró sus esfuerzos en comprender el significado filosófico y político de lo ocurrido. Sin pretender afirmar o definir la naturaleza humana sin (...) más, de forma deshistorizada y significada desde una filosofía omnisciente de la historia, orientó su responsabilidad a soportar la carga del siglo, enfrentar los hechos y habilitar otros vínculos con el pasado, con la herencia, con las tradiciones, con lo aún no del futuro y los múltiples modos de proyectarlo en espacios políticos (nacionales e internacionales) cruzados por conflictos y contradicciones. En la lucha entre la omnipotencia y la impotencia humanas como experiencias vitales, la acción aparece como constitutiva de la condición humana y se inscribe en el tiempo como iniciativa, como posibilidad de un futuro diferente. El trabajo explora dimensiones éticas, políticas e históricas de un humanismo que pretende dialogar con su presente. In the debate of the twentieth century humanist, the political thought of Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was established as one of the critics and testimony that sought to reflect on what happened in the Second World War. From his own experience as a Jew in Germany in the early decades of the century and as an intellectual in exile, she concentrated his efforts on understanding the philosophical and political significance of what happened. Without attempting to confirm and to define the human nature without so dehistoricized and meaning from an omniscient philosophy of history, turned her responsibility to bear the burden of the century, face the facts and enable other links with the past, the inheritance, traditions, yet with the future and project it into multiple modes of political space (national and international) crossed by conflicts and contradictions. In the struggle between the omnipotence and the human powerlessness and life experiences, the action appears to constitute the human condition and fits the time and initiative, as the possibility of a different future. The paper explores ethical, political and historical humanism that seeks dialogue with its present. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the on-going debate about self-redescription in the history of African philosophy using the method and theory of redescription. This method and theory of redescription has become the deep concern of not only Western philosophers but of many African philosophers which is markedly present in their agitated pursuits of wisdom. This self-redescription is always resiliently presented in the works of Kwasi Wiredu, Kwame Appiah, Gyekye Kwame, Olusegun Oladipo, Wole Soyinka, Sophie Oluwole, (...) Jim Unah, Martin Heidegger and Maduabuchi Duko;r who is the most recent emergence of the problem of theory and method in African philosophy. So, the general purpose of this paperis to enact the intellectual concern of these self-redescription in the history of African philosophy while the specific purpose is to determine the adequacy of humanism and hermeneutics as concepts covering the self-image of African philosophy. This paper will further show the incoherence and incongruence of humanism and hermeneutics with the concrete self-image of African philosophy by redescribing them in the mould of emerging concepts such as the humanness of Orisa intellectual culture, in particular; and orunmineutics as a general philosophical theory. (shrink)

In this dissertation I claim that Michel Foucault is a pro-enlightenment philosopher. I argue that his critical history of thought cultivates a state of being autonomous in thought and action which is indicative of a kantian notion of maturity. In addition, I contend that, because he follows a nietzschean path to enlightenment, Foucault’s elaboration of freedom proceeds from his critique of who we are, which includes a rejection of humanism’s experiential limits. At the same time, and perhaps most (...) importantly, I also suggest that Foucault articulates a posthumanist conception of finitude and being. To begin with, I show that on humanism’s path to edghtenment, which is established by Rousseau, Kant and Hegel and currently advocated by Rawls and Taylor, a philosophy of the autonomous subject who desires self-actualisation through recogrution precedes the epistemologcal and political critiques which generate humanism’s objective, normative and subjective axes of experience. On the basis of Foucault’s archzological, genealogical and, when they operate together, critical historical critiques of these conditions of possibility for autonomy and recogrution, I maintain that humanism fails to teach us how to think or act freelythat is, as critical thought that delivers enhghtenment-and that humanism’s knowledge of the world and its justice in politics necessitate the confined exclusion of those who are different and the submission of subjectivity of those who are normal. In response to the immaturity that is at the heart of humanism, I illustrate that Foucault deploys archeology, genealogy and critical history to excavate his posthumanist, enlightenment alternatives of savoir, pouvoir and ethico-morality. After he relocates an explanation of cause and effect in the human sciences from savioir to the relations between savoir and pouvoir, I explicate how Foucault reconceives, firstly, the way pouvoir is exercised by productive mechanisms, which discipline the body and regulate the citizen, and, secondly, the nature of pouvoir, which he characterises as governmentality, or one’s action upon the actions of others. He then retlunks freedom as the vis-a-vis of pouvoir/savoir, and I demonstrate how critical history reveals that, prior to the hermeneutic relation to self wluch is at the centre of humanism’s conception of moral identity, ethical subjectivity in antiquity is formed through an ascetic, agonistic freedom that is based on a practical relation to self. Foucault uses this as a blueprint for the present, in which an ethico-political state of being autonomous in thought and action is constituted over against our limits of pouvoir/savoir. I thus claim that Foucault’s portrayal as an anti-enlightenment philosopher, who proffers nothing but anormative critique and amoral freedom, represents the perspective of those for whom to be anti-humanism is akin to being antienlightenment. These criticisms are exposed as misguided by the thesis that I verify in this dissertation, which is that critical history qua critique, thence an ontology, namely, Foucault’s critical ontology, brings about maturity and endorses an ehghtenment that is both contra- and post-humanism. (shrink)

The first of a series of volumes containing Albright's shorter writings, some never before published, and the rest revised. In this volume Albright develops his philosophy of history more explicitly than elsewhere, elaborating his distinction between proto-logical, empirico-logical and logical levels of thought. He is very critical of philosophical system-building, especially of the idealistic type, and he sharply contrasts post-Kantian developments in epistemology with what he regards to be the correct epistemology of history. In addition to these broad (...) considerations, there are more technical discussions of Near Eastern religions, review articles of philosophical historians, and an autobiographical sketch. This volume reflects the great range and quality of scholarship which have made its author one of America's most famous scholars.—R. J. W. (shrink)

By far the best collection of sources to introduce readers to Renaissance humanism in all its many guises. What distinguishes this stimulating and useful anthology is the vision behind it: King shows that Renaissance thinkers had a lot to say, not only about the ancient world--one of their habitual passions--but also about the self, how civic experience was configured, the arts, the roles and contributions of women, the new science, the 'new' world, and so much more. --Christopher S. Celenza, (...) Johns Hopkins University. (shrink)

Rethinking philosophy of history we see that the main concepts must be revised or specified especially and. It’s very important to use adequate notions. The world history is an integral process having dialectically contradictory tendencies. Humanism is an objective tendency of the world history but the alienated tendency prevails in the epoch of globalization. Collisions between civilizations are outcomes of the alienated capitalist world system. Many problems both in practice and in theory are connected with a (...) fortune of humanism and a problem of mutual understanding between representatives of different cultures is among them. So philosophy of history must be revised in humanistic way and we must do our best to put the humanistic tendency into practice. (shrink)

pt. 1. Reflections on humanism -- pt. 2. Reflections on history.

pt. 1. Reflections on humanism -- pt. 2. Reflections on history.

Sommes-nous au seuil d'une éclipse de l'humanisme? Le choc des civilisations, la mondialisation anarchique, le capitalisme débridé, le fondamentalisme religieux, le dérèglement étique et la perte de confiance en soi vont-ils faire reculer la civilisation de plusieurs siècles? Un peu à l'instar de l'Occident au tournant des Ve et VIe siècles après que de vastes mouvements de populations eurent raison de l'empire romain? Ou encore, à l'image des peurs délirantes qui hantèrent l'Europe entre les XIVe et XVIIe siècles des suites (...) de la grande peste? Bien malin qui pourrait prévoir l'avenir. Le propos de ce livre est d'appeler le lecteur à la lucidité et à la vigilance. Au cours de son histoire récente, notre humanité s'est retrouvée plus d'une fois au bord de l'abîme. Le fait que nous y ayons globalement échappé doit nous inviter à la confiance en la capacité humaine à ne pas s'autodétruire. Cependant, pareille sérénité ne peut faire perdre de vue qu'il n'existe aucune assurance tous risques contre la folie suicidaire qui, par moment, se saisit des civilisations. L'urgence humaniste est notre défi à tous. (shrink)

v. 1. From the Italian Renaissance to the French Revolution.--v. 2. Since the French Revolution.

"Why, in present-day French writing, are we most likely to encounter the word "humanist" only as a term of glib dismissal? In this introduction to the controversy over "humanism", Kate Soper explains how the argument (developed by existentialists and Marxist humanists), that human experience and action play a fundamental role in "making history", has fallen into disrepute. 'Humanism and anti-humanism' shows how the "humanist" standpoint emerged in the post-war period, out of a convergence of arguments derived (...) from Hegel, Marx, Husserl, and Heidegger, then traces its elaboration within existentialism and Marxism, and finally examines the "anti-humanist" reaction in the works of Lèvi-Strauss, Foucault, Althusser, Lacan, and Derrida. Soper clearly explains what is at stake in the debate between "humanists" and "anti-humanists", and contends that this can be understood only in the context of Cold War politics and the crisis for Marxism presented by Stalinism. 'Humanism and anti-humanism' is written from a position of critical sympathy with "humanism" and is aimed chiefly at readers with no previous knowledge of Continental philosophy." -- book cover. (shrink)

This is the second of the three volumes comprising, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe. Focussing on the period from c.1090-1212, the volume explores the lives, scholarly resources, and contributions of a wide sample of people who either took part in the creation of the scholastic system of thought or gave practical effect to it in public life. The second volume of a compelling, original work which will redefine our perceptions of medieval civilization, the renaissance and the evolution (...) of modern Europe. Written by a man who was widely regarded as the greatest medieval historian. (shrink)

"Oser examines the twentieth-century literary clash between a dogmatically relativist modernism and a robust revival of Christian humanism.

This paper summarizes the author’s view and research on the concept of ‘Spiritual Humanism’ as a cross-cultural, historical heritage and theoretical framework for contemporary research in philosophy. It builds on comprehensive scholarship conducted over the last decades within a plurality of leading academic communities. It reflects the author’s commitment to include Chinese Philosophy and intellectual history within the international scholarly canon.

Un humaniste indépendant: W.C. Brownell et le rôle de la critique.--La doctrine de l'humanisme: l'œuvre d'Irving Babbit.--L'humanisme et la religion: lœuvre de Paul Elmer More.--Conclusion: L'utilisation de l'humanisme--Traductions: "Emerson", par W.C. Brownell. "L'humanisme et l'imagination", par Irving Babbitt. "La littérature victorienne et la philosophie du changement", par Paul Elmer More.

Kant, Goethe, Schiller and other eighteenth-century German intellectuals loom large in the history of the humanities—both in terms of their individual achievements and their collective embodiment of the values that inform modern humanistic inquiry. Taking full account of the manifold challenges that the humanities face today, this volume recasts the question of their viability by tracing their long-disputed premises in German literature and philosophy. Through insightful analyses of key texts, Alexander Mathäs mounts a broad defense of the humanistic tradition, (...) emphasizing its pursuit of a universal ethics and ability to render human experiences comprehensible through literary imagination. (shrink)