Humanism - A Brief Study

HUMANISM-A BRIEF STUDY

A. S. RAMA RAJU

It is an almost established fact that with the shrinking of the world, Man is gradually becoming a world-citizen. He is in continuous shaping. The religions of the world are in the process ofa great alchemisation to serve this new citizen. This becoming religion has the mission of man-making but not god-creating. The potentialities that lie latent in man and the efficacy of his reason are to become the material in building a new humanity where tradition-bound religion is no more a separate force to reckon with. Since the basic element taken is human being, the Philosophy becomes man-centered: Humanism.

Humanism emerges as a monumental testimony to the man’s innate drive to survive the threat to his existence. The moment of existence is not to be mortgaged at the altar of empty promises. The subject matter of Humanism is a long story of rebellion with man as the hero. The rebellion, against scholasticism, religious fanaticism, narrow nationalism and alienation speaks of the essence and scope of Humanism. Man addresses himself to live with human dignity and solidarity.

Robert G. Ingersoll says, “Man must be the providence of man.”¹ This revolt against the loss of solid individuality is not the speculative effervescence of human imagination, but a truth, a truth of positive bent for reverence for life.

The soul of Humanism is Man in toto. It can be dated to the auspicious moment when Man is made the measure of all things by Protagoras. In his own words “Man is the measure of all things, of those that are that they are, of those that are not that they are not.” ² This practical statement of man-measure principle rejects all abstract hypothesizing. Whatever be the criticism of Bertrand Russel as to its rejection of objective judgment and to the extreme scepticism, a profound down-to-earth approach is seen in Protagoras when he is convinced of relativism. His sane analysis of man’s condition seems surprisingly realistic as it is evident in his words, “Concerning the gods I cannot know either that they are or that they are not; for there are many obstacles to knowledge; the obscurity of the subject and the shortness of man’s life.” ³ This man-centred approach had impressed F. C. S. Schiller to say, “Modern Humanism is so largely and avowedly a conscious revival of the critical relativism of Protagoras.”⁴

So the Greek enlightenment is, in a way responsible for the initiation of Individualism and Humanism, as it reflects in Sophists. On the principles of subjectivism and relativism they propound ethics and theory of knowledge. By doing so, Sophists failed to do justice to the objective truths which are accepted by all.

Socrates who continued the intellectual movement of Greece of fifth century B. C. had gone beyond Sophists “by directing his attention to the highest intellectual functions which stand in essential relation to the sphere of objective reality, namely to knowledge and virtue.” ⁵ But the movement of emancipation of the individual was being continued.

Though Humanism was in eclipse during the Middle Ages, it had a rebirth in the Renaissance Movement of the 15th century, with some exceptions. The Italian Humanist, Petrarch, the first great representative of Renaissance Humanism asserted “that man and his problems should be the main object and concern of thought and philosophy.” ⁶

Erasmus, Desiderius (1466-1536) of Rotterdam was the great Renaissance humanist, and he was the banner-bearer for an anti-barbarous movement which had to fight against the traditionalism and the inhuman living. To him, Humanism can never be revolutionary but a doctrine ofUniversal Understanding. “The entire world is one common fatherland” declared Erasmus in his Querela Pacis (Complaint of Peace). ⁷ The unity of mankind is not a geographical invocation but a spiritual demand according to Erasmus. He believed in man’s capacity to perfect himself by his own efforts.

This movement of Renaissance Humanism, which liberated education from Scholastic limits and clerical monopoly, and declared that “Culture was for the citizen as well as for the clerk” had a broad sweeping over the minds of people of Italy, France, Germany and England.

The 18th century French Encyclopediasts, too, worked for the task of self-preservation by empirical approach to our problems. They had championed the cause of free enquiry in religion. Reason was recognised as the pilot of human destiny. Morality was to be based not on theology but on sociology; the changing needs of society, and not revelation should determine the good. Diderot and d’Alembert, two of the great Encyclopediasts of the age of reason, established the intellect as the ultimate test of all truth and all good. Voltaire joined them and raised his voice for the freedom of reason. Jean Jacques Rousseau carried with him a revolution against all efforts that tried to enthrone reason.

Terence, the Roman Poet, wrote, “I am a man, nothing human is alien to me.”⁸ The same Humanistic spirit in Goethe had inspired him to state that “Man carries within himself not only his individuality, but all of humanity with all its potentialities.”⁹ Man is the centre and the circumference of Humanism.

It is but true that “the proper study of man is man” as was sung by Alexander Pope. Man became an indispensable unit of study for the political and scientific philosophers of nineteenth century. Their ultimate concern was man’s psycho-socio-economic salvation. So Humanism was also being used to designate the doctrines such as Communism, Pragmatism, Existentialism, Spiritualism, etc.

Karl Marx, the Pioneer of Socialist Humanism makes it fundamental that “Man is the root of all mankind.”¹⁰ In this the essential “inner unity of mankind” is emphasised. His programme practical disalienation. Distinctions between theory and practice, knowledge and action, and spiritual aims and social system are to be annulled. Dehumanising factors of capitalistic socio-economic order are to be eliminated in order to establish a classless society free from exploitation in which a free and independent man could exist. But it is also alleged by Erich Fromm that Marx is not aware of “that affluent alienation which can be as dehumanising as impoverished alienation.” Pure Humanism remains mere verbal declaration if it is not realised that without radical change of the whole social structure there would be no true individual emancipation.

Schiller equates Humanism with Pragmatism when he says “non-anthropomorphic thought is sheer absurdity.”¹¹ He believes that human experience is the clue to the world of human experience. William James calls Humanism “a ferment that had come to stay” and a “shifting in the philosophic perspective, making things appear as from a new centre of interest.”¹² This anthropocentric view has brought Pragmatism nearer to Humanism. Man is honoured as the maker of his truths. Logic we use is not eternally fixed and absolute but dynamic and changing. Axioms are not god-given, but man-made, they are not a priori verities, but postulates whose truth varies according to the change in our experience. Schiller seems to adopt the humanistic view when he says that Pragmatism is the application of Humanism to the theory of knowledge. And he further says, “Humanism will pursue the middle-path, it will neither reject ideals because they are not realised, nor yet despise the actual because it can conceive ideals.” ¹³

Existentialism is Humanism, in the sense that it affirms that “there is no other universe than the human universe, the universe of human subjectivity.”¹⁴ It is man’s existence that precedes essence. He exists first and defines himself later. “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.”¹⁵ Sartre believes that the seeds of Humanism lie in Cartesian principle Cogito ergo sum. It obviously leads not to exclusive subjectivity but to intersubjectivity. Humanism depends upon the realisation of Universal Man. In Sartre’s words “in discovering my inner being, I discover the other person at the same time” the foundation of Existentialism appears basically identical to that of Humanism. In this respect all existentialists have no difference of opinion. “They never consider man as an end because he is always in the making.”¹⁶ To quote Sartre further, “The connection between transcendency, as a constituent element of man–not in the sense that God is transcendent, but in the sense of passing beyond–and subjectivity, in the sense that man is not closed in himself but is always present in a human universe, is what is called existentialism humanism.” ¹⁷

In his awareness of transcendental reality, the individual realises the basic identity of the whole human race. It assures bliss and escape from forlornness and desperation. Spiritualism starts from the assumption that “Man, as he is, is incomplete” ¹⁸ and has to grow beyond himself. Again the inner discipline of Spiritualism is in no way different from the shifting of control from supernatural power into Man.

Elements of Humanism are also to be found in schools like Rationalism, Realism and Liberalism. Though all these schools are different from each other they cannot contradict the significance of man as indivisible and indispensable unit of society. It seems that at various levels of human experience all these approaches and viewpoints are correct and survive the contradictions.

Besides these variations, there is one fundamental issue on which Humanists have been differing and by which all other branches of knowledge are differentiated and determined. The bone of contention is over the centre of orientation of Humanism. Consequently, we have Theocentric Humanism and Anthropocentric Humanism, irrespective of their deep common concern for “the human reality behind the concepts.” The radical difference between the two approaches mentioned above is best illustrated from a conversation between Socrates and an Indian Philosopher. “Socrates told the Indian stranger that his work consisted in enquiring about the life of man, and the Indian smiled and said that none could understand things human who did not understand things divine.”¹⁹ This difference of opinion is being perpetuated through Ethics, Epistemology and Psychology and they are also influencing social systems and political patterns.

If Theistic Humanism promises salvation to man by transcending himself, Atheistic Humanism requires man to be himself. If revelation is also a vehicle for knowledge according to Jacques Maritan, an integral humanist, it is reason alone that can be dependable for valid knowledge for others. Sir Julian Huxley says that Humanism is a religion without revelation. Theism maintains that God is the author of morals and values which are eternal and unchanging, whereas others including atheistic existentialists say that it is man who writes his own values which are grounded in earthly experiences. Margaret Knight has stated “Humanism is morals without religion.”²⁰ Theists believe that the cosmos cannot exist independently of supernatural mind or consciousness, while the Atheistic Humanists differ and uphold naturalistic Cosmology as Corliss Lament did. If a Theist is inspired by unknown and unknowable, the Atheist’s source of inspiration lies in known and knowable.

But both versions of humanism considered so far–Theistic and Atheistic–are pretentious in the sense that they failed to achieve the purpose for which Humanism emerged. It would be easier to neglect the conflict, if it had no affect on man’s condition and his programme. But the crisis in Philosophy has an indirect bearing upon socio-political set-up. The incomplete understanding of man, it seems, is responsible for this dilemma. About the phenomenon of man A. J. Heschel says, “As a natural being he is determined by natural laws. As a human being he must frequently choose, confined in his existence; he is unrestrained in his will.” ²¹

If the purpose of Humanism is “to do justice to the incompleteness of man”²² as viewed by Sir Julian Huxley, it would be apt to come to conclusion that the role of Humanism has not come to an end. It’s message is still unheard of. Teilhard de Chardian says that psychologically man has not yet said his final word. There are many latent dimensions yet to blossom out. Radhakamal Mukerjee believes that Man lives in several dimensions or orders of environment: biological, social and ideal or transcendent. Humanism is neither deterministic nor indeterministic, but is supremely critical.

The adequacy of Humanism depends onman’s increasing awareness regarding the importance of development of inner personality as it was contended by Philosophers like Gurdjieff. Without acquiring subjective qualitative experience man cannot flourish into total personality. Here the growth of the inner man means the attainment of perfection and the realisation of inner unity of mankind which are nothing but the objectives of Humanism.

If Humanism fails in its purpose of “Man-making”, it withers away into history in the way the once-praised-isms did. If it is tired of its mission, its reflections–social and political–die pre-mature. But man has no reason to go against the Law of Life. “Psychological evolution is irreversible in its main tendency.” ²³

¹ Quoted in the Radical Humanist 14-2-’65, p. 79. by Eva Ingersoll Wakefield.
² Quoted in A History of Philosophy (1872), by Dr. F. Ueberweg. p. 74; vol. 1.
³ Quoted in Socratic Humanism (1963) by Laszlo Versenvi. p. 13.
⁴ F. C. S. Schiller’s article on ‘Humanism’ in Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. (1959)
⁵ A History of Philosophy (1872) by Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg. P.80.
⁶ Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1967) p. 127. Vol. 6.
⁷ Erasmus of Rotterdam (1964) by Stefan Zweig. p. 107.
⁸ Quoted in The Radical Humanist, 14-2-1965, p. 79.
⁹ Socialist Humanism (1966) Edited by Erich Fromm. p. VII.
¹⁰ Socialist Humanism, page 3.
¹¹ Quoted in the Pragmatic Humanism of F. C. S. Schiller (1955) by Reuben Abel. p. 8.
¹² The Meaning of Truth (1914) by William James. p. 211.
¹³ Humanism (1912) by Schiller. p. XXVIII.
¹⁴ Existentialism and Human Emotions (1957) by J. P. Satre, Translated by Bernard Frechtman. p. 50.
¹⁵ Ibid.,p. 15.
¹⁶ Ibid.,p.50.
¹⁷ Ibid.,p. 50.
¹⁸ Religion in a Changing World (1967) by S. Radhakrishnan p. 60.
¹⁹ S. Radhakrishnan writes in his book East and West in Religion (1967) on the basis of a story from Aristoxenes of the third century. p. 133.
²⁰ Quoted in The Radical Humanist by Hector Hawton. p. 461, 26-9-1965.
²¹ The Concept of Man. Edited by S. Radhakrishnan and P. T. Raju
²² What date I think? by Julian Huxley. p. 161.
²³ Recovery of Faith (1955) by S. Radhakrishnan. p. 43.