Intercultural Humanism Conference Series
HUMANITY AND INHUMANITY
Topics, Theories and Discourses on Humankind and Humanism in
Humanities and Social Sciences
Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences
National Taiwan University
Taipei, March 8-9, 2012
Organized by: Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences,
National Taiwan University (NTU)
Dates: March 8-9 (Thu-Fri), 2012
Venue: Conference Room I, 7th Floor, Tsai Lecture Hall, The College of Law, NTU
The history of the humanities and of the social sciences is a vast repertoire of topics,
visions, ideas, concepts, figures, theories and discourses related to the cardinal notions of
humanity and inhumanity. In connection with the Taiwan launching of the new book series,
Reflections on (In)Humanity, published jointly by V&R Unipress and National Taiwan
University Press, a conference is organized to explore these issues in an intercultural,
interdisciplinary way.
Participants are expected to speak for 25-30 minutes, and provide a critical synthesis of
their topics, rooted in both the literature on the subject and in each participant’s reflection and
self-reflection based on intellectual, academic, and existential experience. Starting from the
proceedings of the conference, a collective book is planned for our book series.
March 8 (Thursday)
08:30-09:00 Registration
09:00-09:15 Welcoming Remarks
09:15-09:25 Photo
09:25-10:45
Meanings
Panel 1: Humanity and Humanism: European Sources, Universal
Chair: Wei-ying Ku (Professor of History, NTU)
Jörn Rüsen, “Humanity as a Historical Category”
Hubert Cancik, “Humanitas/Inhumanitas. A Basic Term of European Humanism and
Its Roman Background”
10:45-11:00 Tea Break
11:00-12:20 Panel 2: Oriental Sources and Universal Forms of Humanism
Chair: Kirill O. Thompson (Professor of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Associate
Dean of Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social
Sciences, NTU)
Aziz Al-Azmeh, “Ex Oriente lux: Universal Pathways to Humanism”
Sorin Antohi, “Ahistorical Humanism: Eliade’s Oriental Model for the Occident and
Its Contexts”
12:20-14:00 Lunch
14:00-15:20 Panel 3: Eastern Ambivalence and Vision
Chair: Chih-yu Shih (Chair Professor of Political Sciences, NTU)
Jutta Scherrer, “A Forgotten Humanism? The Soviet Ambivalence”
Kirill O. Thompson, “Humanity and Inhumanity: Confucian, Mohist, and Daoist
Reflections”
15:20-15:35 Tea Break
15:35-16:55 Panel 4: Probing the Limits of Humanism: Eugenics and Human
Perfectibility
Chair: Chao-ying Chen (Professor of Chinese Literature, NTU)
Marius Turda, “Eugenics and the Grand Tradition of Humanism”
Stephen Byrne, “A ‘Modern’ Binary, or the Basis for Human Perfectibility? Defining
the ‘Normal’ in Late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain.
16:55-17:10 Break
17:10-17:40 Public launching of the book series, “Reflections on (In)Humanity,” co-edited
by Sorin Antohi, Chun-chieh Huang, and Jörn Rüsen, co-published by V&R
unipress and National Taiwan University Press.
17:40-18:10 The Sounds of Intercultural Humanism. Presentation of an Ottoman-era music
performance (on DVD) based on a musical treatise by Romanian humanist
prince Demetrius Cantemir (1673-1723). Comments by Sorin Antohi.
18:10 Reception.
March 9 (Friday)
09:30-10:55 Panel 5: Humanism and Inhumanity: Creative Response of Tradition and
Vision
Chair: Jieh Hsiang (Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Information
Engineering, Director of National Taiwan University Press)
Chun-chieh Huang, “The Reception and Reinterpretation of Zhu Xi’s Discourse on
Humanity in Tokugawa Japan”
Longxi Zhang, “Inhumanity, Religion, Utopia, and the Vision of Humanism”
10:55-11:10 Tea Break
11:10-12:30 Panel 6: Intercultural Humanism: From Critiques to Lexicons
Chair: Kwang-Kuo Hwang (Chair Professor of Psychology, NTU)
Oliver Kozlarek, “The Humanist Turn: Towards an Intercultural Critique of
Dehumanization”
Stefan Jordan, “Making a Dictionary of Intercultural Humanism. Lexicographical
Principles and Practices”
Participants:
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Aziz Al-Azmeh (Budapest)
Sorin Antohi (Bucharest/London)
Stephen Byrne (Oxford)
Hubert Cancik (Berlin)
Chun-chieh Huang (Taipei)
Stefan Jordan (Munich)
Oliver Kozlarek (Morelia)
Jörn Rüsen (Bochum)
Jutta Scherrer (Paris/Berlin)
Kirill O. Thompson (Taipei)
Marius Turda (Oxford)
Longxi Zhang (Hong Kong)
Wei-ying Ku (Taipei)
Chih-yu Shih (Taipei)
Chao-ying Chen (Taipei)
Jieh Hsiang (Taipei)
Kwang-Kuo Hwang (Taipei)
Abstracts
Aziz Al-Azmeh, Ex Oriente lux: Universal Pathways of Humanism
This paper will propose that, among the various allowable definitions of humanism, one is
related to the critique of religious representations and of organised religion, especially in
situations, societies and milieus where religion is institutionalised, and where it and its
personnel seek to exercise pressure and to achieve hegemony in fields social, cultural and
cognitive.
In this context, and with knowledge available, it is possible to construct universal pathways
of freethinking humanism in Europe and western Asia from antiquity until the present.
Scepticism, Sophism, and Euhemerism are well known. Less well known, despite
considerable research, is what I consider to be a crucial moment along this pathway, namely
that of Freethinking in the Abbasid era.
This was a time when the cognitive, political and social critique of religion was very much in
evidence. This paper will outline the main motifs and consider the social locations of this
criticism. Highlighted will be the critique of prophecy, and the proposition that it is not only
an unnecessary assumption and an irrational belief held by the multitude, and a motif
according to which the multitude is manipulated by vested political and social interests, but
that prophets were, ultimately, to be seen as charlatans. This idea eventually found its
pathways to the Age of Antiquarianism and the Age of Reason, ultimately to the radical
Enlightenment, emblematised by De tribus impostoribus, which has an interesting history of
composition.
Also highlighted will be medieval Muslim Bible criticism which, according to recent
scholarship, ultimately found its way to Spinoza’s Tractatus. Finally, like Deists and other
critics of organised Christianity who saw Islam as a foil against the Church and its Mysteries,
Arab Freethinkers used the figure of the Orient as a figure counter-posed to the irrationalism
which they discerned in their own time with appeal to the Wisdom of the Brahmins, and
medieval Arab ethnologists spoke with wonder about the Justice of the Chinese.
Sorin Antohi, “Ahistorical Humanism: Eliade's Oriental Model for the Occident and Its
Contexts”
Mircea Eliade's time in India (mainly in Kolkata, 1928-1931), a polemical choice running
counter to the overwhelming Eastern European Occidental tropism, and his lifelong interest
in Oriental cultures (ironically, an Occidental influence itself, although the Romanian lands
had had a deep connection to the Orient through the Hellenic/Hellenistic civilization, the
Great Migrations, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Byzantium and later through the Ottoman
Empire), especially in their symbolic and (perceived) ‘metahistorical’ dimensions, are
indicative of a wider – (anti)modern and (anti)modernist -- European/Occidental crisis of
self-identity and self-confidence. Under the circumstances, the ‘nostalgia of origins’ was seen
as a way out of the crisis, and – in spite of some inevitable regressive undertones -- as a
principle of renewal or rebirth. Thus, India/the Orient came to be construed by many
Europeans as the pristine model for a decadent Occident, as a source of a new humanism.
Eliade's fiction, starting with his 1933 novel Maitreyi (translated into English as Bengal
Nights. A Novel) and including a number of other books in his native Romanian; Eliade's
journalism, especially travelogues and attempts at cultural mediation; Eliade's diaries and
memoirs; Eliade's scholarship, starting with his 1936 Romanian book on Yoga (based on his
doctoral dissertation, defended in 1933) – all bear the imprint of his encounter with India (as
the epitome of the Orient) and of his quest for what I would call ahistorical humanism: an
ideal(ized), immemorial, pre-metaphysical, ‘cosmic’, ‘metahistorical’ (going beyond and
even ‘boycotting’ history), liberating, authentic, open Weltanschauung. According to Eliade,
the contrast between Europe/Occident and India/Orient could not be more striking: European
culture is all about 'conditioning' humans (as temporal and historical beings), while Indian
culture is about 'de-conditioning' them.
This quest, both existential and intellectual, both rational and irrational (to the extent such
distinctions make sense in this case), is perfectly captured by the August 27, 1951 entry in
Eliade's Fragments d'un journal. The author reports a dream he had had the night before, in
which he had seen himself as Narada, an Indian Yogi, incapable of speaking any language
but Sanskrit. In the dream, Jung, Italian Indianist Tucci, and Surendranath Dasgupta
(Maitreyi's father and Eliade's Indian mentor) were standing by. In reality (Eliade was
attending at the time one of the Eranos meetings in Ascona), Jung was asked to provide an
interpretation of the dream...
Starting from this episode and reflecting on Eliade's work in a wider Occidental context, the
paper discusses Europe's (anti)modern (1870s-1900s) and (anti)modernist (1910s-1940s) turn
towards its (mainly imaginary) Indian/Oriental roots, ranging from (mainly right-wing)
interwar ideologies to more recent New Age 'spiritualities'. At the core of all these
phenomena, the paper argues, one finds the fantasy of ahistorical humanism, which is seen in
connection with concepts such as native humanism, non-Occidental humanism, and with the
frequently problematic distinction between humanity and inhumanity.
Stephen Byrne, “A ‘Modern’ Binary, or the Basis for Human Perfectibility? Defining
the ‘Normal’ in Late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain.
Derived from the Latin normalis, meaning ‘perpendicular to’, the normal, or norm, held, for
many centuries, a distinct technical meaning in Geometry and Architecture, and, through
metaphor, an equation with the rule of law. However, in much of Western Europe, over the
course of the nineteenth century, this classical definition of the term was supplemented by a
range of popular understandings, and a concurrent proliferation in technical applications, in
subjects as varied as Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Meteorology, Mathematics and Biology.
Most importantly, in terms of this paper, by the end of the century the term had become a
signifier for a wealth of, often contradictory, statistical and qualitative judgements relating to,
and indicative of, human populations.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, when one considers the formative influence of his doctoral
supervisor, Georges Canguilhem, in much of Michel Foucault’s work the development of
ideas surrounding the “normal” is closely allied with the emergence of European modernity.
In Discipline and Punish, Foucault suggests that, ‘like surveillance and with it, normalization
becomes one of the great instruments of power at the end of the classical age’. Thus, unlike
the juridical society of the Ancien Regime, which he contends was characterized by ‘the
binary opposition of the forbidden and the permitted’, the modern disciplinary society is, for
Foucault, exemplified in the self-referential hierarchy of the normal.
Foucault’s vision of the “normal”, as a unifying factor in the many different facets of
modernity that he charted, is an alluring one. However, it does little to explain the complexity
and confusion that still surrounded the use of the term at the end of the nineteenth century:
especially in relation to the description of human populations. Indeed, when one looks at the
British context, Foucault’s contention, that the “normal” supplanted the binaries of premodern society with a more complex self-referential hierarchy, becomes decidedly
problematic. While this was almost undoubtedly the case in certain instances, and among
certain groups – particularly for those involved in the Eugenics movement. Among the
emergent “expert” professional groupings of the late-nineteenth century it is possible to
elucidate many other examples where the “normal” itself became the basis for reified binary
divisions; defined in opposition to the abnormal, the subnormal, or the pathological. Thus, in
spite of its apparently unifying characteristics, the attempts to measure, define and
communicate the parameters of the “normal” became, in and of themselves, sites of
contention.
Elaborating upon these issues, this paper will examine some of the debates which
attended the multiple attempts to consolidate an image of the “normal” in relation to one
particular sub-section of the British population; the “normal child”. Furthermore, it will ask
how these, often incredibly specific, debates reflected upon, and related to, broader questions
regarding the twin issues of variation and perfectibility in humans: issues which, in Europe at
least, dominated much of the discourse surrounding the nature of humanity over the period in
question.
Hubert Cancik, Humanitas/ inhumanitas. A Basic Term of European Humanism and its
Roman Background
1. European Humanism
European humanism is an open cultural system, centred upon education and philanthropy,
enlightenment and human rights. It is a pan-European tradition based on the achievements of
ancient Greece and Rome (800 BCE – 800 CE). Their weapons and arts conquered and
colonized by force and persuasion what now is Spain, France, Britain in the West, Germany,
Bohemia, and Romania in the East. The classical tradition and the humanistic movement are
embedded in a cultural field consisting of manifold national traditions, Jewish and Christian
religions, and the scientific and political innovations of modern times.
The basic term of this tradition (movement, system) is ‘humanity’.
2. The Background – Rome
The key-concept of European humanism is based on the Latin word humanitas. It means (a)
humankind, all human beings, the human family, (b) the nature (essence) of the human being,
what is common to all (reason; mortality), (c) philanthropy, helpfulness, compassion, (d)
civilized manners, gentleness, education, appropriate, elegant, urban behaviour.
The subject of all these features is called by a humble and sober name: homo, literally
“earthling”, belonging to humus – earth. The fundamental, pre-philosophical concept of man
in Roman culture sets homo against the beast, the wild, untamed, ferocious, cruel animal (lat.:
bestia, ferox, crudelis). Accordingly humanitas is set against inhumanitas meaning wildness,
cruelty, the uncivilized. Roman lawyers, philosophers, historians, poets, and artists tried hard
to shape and illustrate these concepts (Cicero, Seneca; Horace, Stace). For this endeavour the
Romans had to pick up the main tools from the Greeks.
3. Behind the Background – Athens
3.1 Greek philosophy, educational and political theory shaped the elementary Roman
concept. A human being is born helpless, weak and fragile, without shell and claws.
Therefore, by necessity, it needs society. Man, says the Stoic philosopher, is born in and for
society, he is sociable: homo socialis. He is born with reduced instincts; therefore, he needs
education, he can and he must learn and organize the transmission of experience and insight.
So the Greeks invented pedagogy, the gymnasium, the schools for grammar, poetry, rhetoric
and for philosophy (academy, lyceum): all these are Greek names of institutions meant to
educate and form the homo civilis (Quintilian, I). These institutions, as well as museums or
theatres, are the Greek heritage in Roman culture and, mediated by the latter, in the humanist
tradition of Europe.
3.2 Poets, philosophers, historians and political theory tackled from the very beginning of
Greek and Roman history with the problem of taming the beast in man. Tyrannical rule was
defined as dissolution of human society; consequently, the tyrant stood outside of the human
community and could be treated as a wild beast – a dangerous discourse. The Athenians
developed the rule of the poor and of the many, based on equality (isótes) and liberty
(eleuthería), called democracy; nevertheless, they built an empire, thrusting in the right of the
stronger, an empire based on inequality, force and brutality (Thucydides, V). The treatment
of the enemy is a test case. From Homer (8th century BCE) to Sophocles’ Antigone (5th
century BCE) to Stace( 1st century CE) savaging against the dead foe and refusing an
elementary human right, the burial (humare), are described in detail and duly condemned by
“the unwritten law of Nature” (ágraphoinómoi), by the women at the altar of Mercy in
Athens, and in the name of humanity (Stace, Thebaid XII).
4. Conclusion
This rough and incomplete sketch of humanitas – inhumanitas as basic terms of European
humanism uncovers severe gaps and urgent tasks of research. Suffice it here to mention only
one: the task to collect other basic terms of European humanism, to constitute them by history
and theory in their semantic field, to compare them with analogous concepts in extraEuropean traditions, beginning, for instance, with the concepts of history, tolerance, and
friendship.
Chun-chieh Huang, “The Reception and Reinterpretation of Zhu Xi’s Discourse on
Humanity in Tokugawa Japan”
Ren”（仁, humanity ,humaneness, benevolence） is the most important core value of
Confucianism. This term is so important that there are 106 occurrences in 58 chapters of
Confucius’(551-479 B.C.E.) Analects. The great Confucian master of the Southern Song
dynasty, Zhu Xi (Huian, 1130-1200), compiled and wrote “Treatise on Ren.” In this essay, he
conceived humanity against the backdrop of his metaphysics of li（principle）and qi (élan,
cosmic vapor). On this basis, he gave a new account of the ethics and moral psychology of
humanity, which greatly enriched the loftiness and depth of the philosophy of human life in
his thought. Zhu Xi expressed this new account of humanity in his famous essay titles
“Treatise on Humanity,” and in his Four Books in chapter and verse with collected
commentaries (Sishuzhangjujizhu) as “the virtue of mind and the principle of love.”
Zhu Xi’s new account of humanity was highly innovative although it was constructed
on earlier views. He followed the original path of self-cultivation laid down by Confucius
and Mencius 1,500 years ago, and emulated the Cheng brothers’ metaphysical theory put
forth just 50 years earlier in the Northern Song dynasty—“the person of humanity mixedly
forms a single body with others.” Zhu thus formulated a paradigmatic account of humanity
that would dominate the Confucianisms in East Asia from the 13th until the 20th century.
However, Zhu Xi’s account of humanity in his “Treatise on Ren” and other works was based
on his li（principle）-centered metaphysic, which at the same time provoked the
Tokugawa (1603-1868) Japanese Confucians from the 17th century to forcefully dispute his
view and to formulate new accounts of ren.
At the height of Tokugawa Confucianism, each school had many schisms and sects, and
each sect had many voices. Despite this diversity of views, the main trend in Tokugawa
Confucianism from the 17th century was in opposition to Zhu Xi’s thought. While the
Tokagawa Japanese Confucians in their early age of the early phase had been stimulated by
the paradigm of Zhu Xi’s thought, his “Treatise on Ren” stirred up a fierce response among
Tokugawa Confucians. The Japanese Confucians, while commenting on the Four Books in
their collected writings and commentaries, were provoked by the “Treatise on Ren” to
reflect, draw inferences and bring new ideas into play about humanity. In the 17th century,
Yamazaki Ansai (1618-1682）compiled Zhu Xi’s “Treatise on Ren” and “Dialogues of
Masters Zhu Xi, Zhang Shi and Lu Zuqian”。ItōJinsai (1627-1705）essayed on “Treatise on
Ren” Gomō Jigi (Words and Meanings in the Analects and Mencius) and Dōshimon (Inguries
of A Child). And, in Dōshimon, Jinsai expressed some criticisms of “Treatise on Ren.” In the
18th century, Ogyū Sorai (1666-1728）redefined the term Ren following along Zhu Xi’s lines.
At the end of the 18th century, Toshima Hōshū (1737-1814）compiled “Treatise on Ren”
and “Further Records on Treatise on Ren” in which he offered some criticisms of Zhu Xi’s
account.
The Tokugawa Japanese Confucian responses to Zhu Xi’s “Treatise on Ren” tended to fall
into two intellectual tracks: the first track was the deconstruction of metaphysics which
disavowed the metaphysics of principle that grounded Zhu Xi’s account of humanity. For
example, Hayashi Razan (1583-1657) said：”It could be said that the virtue of the original
mind is the substance while filial piety and fraternity are the function. Being of ren is the
substance of filial piety and fraternity while treating the people with ren and others with
love is the function.” Kaibara Ekken (1603-1714) said: “The way of being ren lies in being
generous in ethical human relationships.” At the age of 32, when Itō Jinsai compiled his
commentary on “Treatise on Ren”, he still followed Zhu Xi’s paradigm, but by the time he
reached middle age and compiled Gomō Jigi and Doshimon he had completely shed Zhu
Xi’s influence and taken the path of explaining “ren” directly as love and emphasizing that
ren was a core value for concrete daily practice in actual human life. Ogyū Sorai interpreted
ren as “the virtue of making the people secure” in his Benmei (Distinguishing terms). No
matter whether they supported or opposed Zhu Xi’s account of ren, the Tokugawa Japanese
Confucians could not accept the idea of grounding concrete virtuous practice on
metaphysical principle. Thus, they all sought to deconstruct Zhu Xi’s metaphysical
foundation. In traditional terms, we could say that the Tokugawa Confucians postulated a
more concrete qi（élan） foundation in opposing Zhu Xi’s use of li (principle) in discoursing
on humanity.
The second which the Japanese Confucians followed is to redefine humanity in term
of political and social life. While opposing Zhu Xi’s use of principle in explaining humanity,
the Japanese Confucians also opposed using “feeling” or “intuition” to interpret humanity.
They advocated that humanity could be observed only in concrete expressions of love and
caring. For example, Itō Jinsai said, “People of humanity are of the mind to carry out the
rites as expressions of love.” He also said, “In the final analysis, humanity is nothing more
than love. Love is the concretion of virtue. One who does not feel love will be unable to
exhibit virtue […].”Humanity is thus to be exhibited concretely in interpersonal relations and
interactions. Ogyū Sorai interpreted humanity in political context, saying that “humanity is
the virtue of bringing peace to the people.”
In summary, in their new interpretations and criticisms of Zhu Xi’s “Treatise on
Humanity,” the Tokugawa Confucians exhibited the concrete, practical trend of Japanese
thought. However, when they deconstructed the metaphysical foundation of Zhu Xi’s
account of humanity, they lost the lofty and deep philosophy of human in Zhu Xi’s thought.
In this way, the Japanese Confucians really lost sight of the transcendental dimension of the
Song-Ming Neo-Confucian “quest to verify the great self”(to use the expression coined by
the late senior Confucian scholar Qian Mu).
Stefan Jordan, “Making a Dictionary
Lexicographical Principles and Practices”
of
Intercultural
Humanism.
The preparations for an encyclopaedia begin with considerations about its form or
framework. That does not only mean that a list of entries must be arranged, which – taken as
a whole – results in a summary definition of the topic the dictionary is dealing with. Also the
form of publication (print or digital) has crucial influence on the contents of the dictionary:
Producing a print version, for instance, one has to decide if the dictionary shall have an
alphabetical order or a systematic one. In both cases, you have to have a complete list of
entries before starting. You cannot add things later if you do not want to produce
supplements. The correction of mistakes or the adding of missing ideas are not possible. This
does not apply to digital publications: Here you can use different orders simultaneously, you
can add and correct things, show the same thing under different key words etc.
For a dictionary of Intercultural Humanism, considerations about the framework are
particularly important because it is a comparative dictionary. One idea that is central for one
culture, might be less or not important for the other. If you have a print version with an
alphabetical order, you must have an elaborated index for instance that visualizes intertextual
relations and makes intertextual reading possible. Some of the aspects mentioned in the
Western key word „individuality“ are possibly close to aspects that are mentioned in a key
word dealing with specific Asian ideas. The crucial question we can discuss when reflecting
on the form of our dictionary is: How can we bring together different ideas, different key
words from different cultures in one dictionary, where they are a closely linked to each other
on the one hand, but not forced into one leading, amalgamating ‚key word language’ on the
other hand.
Oliver Kozlarek, “The Humanist Turn: Towards an Intercultural Critique of
Dehumanization”
In the 1960s social movements all around the globe started to modify their agendas. Instead
of looking for universal solutions — which were increasingly identified with totalitarian
ambitions — they began to pay more attention to the recognition of cultural, ethnic and
sexual differences and identities. Simultaneously, intellectual and academic debates began to
be interested more in culture and initiated what today is widely recognized as a ‘cultural turn’
in the social sciences and humanities. The ‘cultural turn’ strengthened and propagated a
number of values, including cultural pluralism and an awareness that, in our modern world, it
is important to reflect upon the coexistence of distinct cultures and forms of life, while at the
same time resisting the temptation to reduce this plurality once more to an artificial, abstract
unity dominated by one set of interests. And this provides us with a glimpse of the critical
potential of the ‘cultural turn’. In contrast to the idea that all human cultures are being
propelled towards the same evolutional telos — an idea that was promulgated by the
influential 'modernization theories' in the first decades after World War II — the cultural turn
rescues the idea that processes of civilization and culture – and their results – do not follow a
logical, predetermined path.
But, however important the cultural turn may have been, there are signs that
culturalism has given rise to a climate of cultural relativism that is not only dangerous but
also incorrect. The errors in these positions, though evident, have been ignored for a long
time. One of the most obvious is that different cultures are incommensurable and cannot be
reconciled, while in fact they share many affinities and similarities. The question then is: with
what can we identify, as human beings, beyond the cultural and national differences that
separate us?
In response to this sort of questions in the academic discourse a new kind of
Humanism emerges. Its focus is not anymore on a supposingly unchangeable essensce of the
human condition, but rather on transcultural values that find their expression and realization
in thought and action and that are mediated through the different cultural traditions. Instead
of the logics of conceptual speculation this new Humanism champions a methodology of an
intercultural hermeneutics that enables an understanding of the 'other' in terms of his or her
own culture.
This new academic humanism seems to find a counterpart in breathtaking social
mobilizations around the globe (the Arab Spring, the Indignants Movement in Spain and
other parts of the Western World, the more recent mobilizations in Israel and in Chile). What
these new forms of social protest seem to share with the new academic Humanism is not so
much a clear definition of what it means to be human, but rather the conviction that our
contemporary societies for many different reasons corrupt the chances of living an humanely
dignified life.
In this paper I would like to propose a methodology in which the above mentioned
academic and non-academic manifestations of a new Humanism can be articulated. I will
suggest that this is possible in transdiciplinary and intercultural research programs in which
the multiple experiences of dehumanization are reconstructed and put into a comparative
perspective. A question that this paper wants to pay special attention to is on how different
experiences can be put into a dialogue. For this purpose I will explore escpecially the
possiblities of Maurico Beuchot´s proposal for an 'analogic hermeneutics'.
JörnRüsen,“Humanity as a Historical Category”
The paper has three parts. In its first one it characterizes the structure and function of
philosophy of history in historical thinking today. Three dimensions of this philosophy were
distinguished: a material, a formal, and a functional one. In the second part the features of the
material dimension will be presented. It starts from anthropological universals, and proceeds
to the moving forces of history, and ends with its temporal dynamics as development,
combining past, present and future. In the third part inhumanity is addressed as an integral
part of this development. At the end history will be conceptualized as a universal process of
humanizing man.
JuttaScherrer, “A Forgotten Humanism? The Soviet Ambivalence”
Renaissance and Humanism did not characterize the evolution of autocratic
Russia’s society and culture. The « New Man » whom the Communist leaders
proclaimed after 1917 was opposed to values of the bourgeoisie such as
humanism. The first labour camps had educational purposes which were praised
by writers such as Gorky and educators such as Makarenko as breeding places
of the new Soviet man. New « human material » (Bukharin) should be formed
for the communist society wherever possible.
The paper will show how after the first decade of Soviet power and beginning
with Stalin, references to a particular kind of proletarian or Soviet humanism
begin to be used as instruments of propaganda against fascism and nationalsocialism, but also for the Stalinist constitution and Soviet socialist justice.
Soviet humanism becomes by now synonymous with class struggle. After the
official « discovery » of the economic-philosophical manuscripts of the young
Marx (allowed only after Stalin’s death) « real humanism » becomes identical
with Communism to be realised only in the Soviet Union. By now humanism
gets integrated into the newly-established academic discipline of « ethics ».
Humanism also becomes part of the vocabulary of the Russian Orthodox
Church (whose tradition ignores this term) when its hierarchy has to present the
Soviet state at international ecumenical meetings.
The semantic transformation of the term « humanism » until the last years of
Brezhnev’s reign shows that in Soviet use humanism is not a concept, but a
slogan and an indicator-topic which not only describes contents, but as a term
undergoes a discursive restructuration. The history of the use and abuse of the
term humanism proves once again that ideology is in a continuous process of
adaptation.
The abundant post-Soviet references to the values of humanism--Putin declared
2006 as « year of humanism in Russia» --are not free from the Soviet
ambivalences of the term, an evolution which deserves to be followed.
Kirill O. Thompson, “Humanity and Inhumanity: Confucian, Mohist and Daoist
Reflections”
•
Early Chinese masters proposed, in turn, positions on “Humanity and Inhumanity” in
response to the rising tide of forces and acts of Inhumanity in the land. Confucius
(479-551 B.B.C.)witnessed the decline of civilized practices and breakdown of feudal
relations in hand with the rise of self-assertive rulers and independent, competing, if
not warring, states. Peering into this cauldron, Confucius sought to restore Humanity,
not by positing rigid ideals and abstract principles, but by reminding people of their
basic relationality and mutual dependence and leaders of their guiding and nurturing
roles, then by reminding people of the concomitant virtues and ethics constitutive of
the relational person. Noting that Confucius’ ideas did little to ameliorate the
conflicts between states and between clans, which wreaked damage, harm and death,
however, Mozi (fl. 479-438 B.C.E.) argued for treating others outside one’s relations
as basically like oneself and deserving of impartial regard-- resulting in a life stance
of openness to new relationships (and thus implicitly resulting in a life of tolerance
and diversity). Moreover, condemning overt conflict and war, Mozi provided
expertise on diplomacy and defensive war to states under threat. Though he identified
and fended off roots of Inhumanity and advanced Humanity and the common good,
Mozi’s devotion to utility and deafness to music, in particular, made his Humanity
lack of charm and edification
•
A limitation of both the Confucians and Mohists was their trading in narrowly humancentered ethics and approaches, which involved viewing humanity solely through
humanity, thus making them rigid, artificial and alienated from the Way. The Daoists
Laozi (5th century B.C.E.) and Zhuangzi (fl. 370-301 B.C.E.) argued that Humanity
would be sustainable only through world (Way)-centered values and approaches,
which involved viewing Humanity through the Way. To their way of thinking, when
people had ceased imposing their ideals and paradigms and conceptions of how things
should be on other, and had begun to 1) embrace world-centered values, 2) hold the
attitude of letting be and 3) practice non-interference (non-intentional action), every
one, every creature, every being, would begin to have free scope to unfold and be
itself, releasing a vibrant, peaceful, fruitful diversity in society-- and the world.
•
Ultimately, Daoist world-centered values involved one’s gradually achieving oneness
with others, the environment, the world, so as to achieve wholeness and peace; for
only then could one genuinely resonate with the pulse of events-- and be attuned to
the humanity in the nonhuman (Other) and the inhuman in the human (Self). In this
manner, Humanity would realized in what Zhuangzi called “the great Self,” as the
utmost person, the authentic person, the spiritual person, who forms, “a universe
hidden in a universe.” The forces of Inhumanity would subside in such a universe,
since the emotional, psychological, familial, etc., roots of inhumane drives and
impulses would no longer be in play and everyone would develop freely together.
•
As Albert Camus intimated in The Plague, rising forces and acts of Inhumanity
reappear at odd times; and the old absolutist political, religious and ideological
panaceas at best have failed-- and at worst have spawned ever new horrors.
However, the dialectic of these and other early East Asian positions offers a palate of
diagnoses and prescriptions for responding to the forces of Inhumanity in curative,
ameliorative ways, rather than foist absolutist, zero-sum solutions. These positions
all recognize the shades of gray in the pulse of world and human affairs, and seek to
cleanse and reclaim the darker areas without inflicting equal Inhumanity and horrors
in the process. Indeed, this is the only way to avoid being caught in the rotor of
Humanity and Humanity and fully realize the potential of Humanity/World/Way.
Marius
Turda,
“Eugenics
and
the
Grand
Tradition
of
Humanism”
It was Kant who explicitly introduced the anthropological question, 'what is man?',
into Western philosophy thus echoing other Enlightened attempts to build a new
humanism. During the nineteenth century, the metaphysical privilege that the
Enlightenment philosophers gave to man -- seen as the expression of a 'universal
essence’ -- was corroborated with the belief that science progresses, that there was a
cumulative growth of knowledge; in other words, there was a belief both in
humanity's epistemological and social-historical progress. Earlier in the twentieth
century, eugenic theories of human improvement were formulated, wedded to
positivist and empiricist theories aiming at a reduction of all human and social
understanding to a model of explanation drawn from the natural sciences. At the heart
of eugenics lies the conviction that there is a human subject in history and that there
must be accordingly a valid philosophical anthropology that can identify a coherent
and constant human condition or 'nature'.
Zhang Longxi, “Inhumanity, Religion, Utopia, and the Vision of Humanism”
In the modern times with devastating World Wars, genocide, and countless other atrocities,
we have witnessed the monstrous capabilities of “man’s inhumanity to man.” Traditionally,
religion and moral philosophy proposed ways to control or reduce inhumanity, while
secularized social ideals put forward a different set of moral principles, but neither religion
nor the utopian ideal of a good society have proved effective in preventing cruelties and
tyrannies in the world. What would be an alternative to these attempts? Can there be a new
and realistic vision of humanism? Is it possible to recuperate anything useful from both
religious and secular visions? What is the likelihood of such a humanistic vision to be
accepted in humanity’s future? These are important and hard questions to be explored if as
human beings we want to build a better future for ourselves and for the future of humankind.