THE BRIEF HISTORY OF

HUMANISM
SYBA- LANDMARKS IN WORLD HISTORY
PAPER 1 : GROUP ASSIGNMENT
❖ Amit Maccha – Div A , Roll no. 2160
❖ Lokesh Mishra – Div A , Roll no.
❖ Madhura Sawant – Div A , Roll no. 2184

❖ Ritikesh Pabarekar – Div A , Roll no.

❖ Saurabh Mulik – Div A , Roll no. 2168
❖ Vibhu Ghuge – Div A Roll no.
 WHAT IS HUMANISM ?
➢ Humanism is a democratic and ethical life stance, which affirms that human being have the right and
responsibility to give meaning and shape to their own lives.
➢ Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and
collectively. The meaning of the term humanism has fluctuated according to the successive intellectual
movements which have identified with it. Generally, however, humanism refers to a perspective that affirms
some notion of human freedom and progress.
➢ 0rigin- The word "humanism" is ultimately derived from the Latin concept humanitas. It entered English in
the nineteenth century. However, historians agree that the concept predates the label invented to describe it,
encompassing the various meanings ascribed to humanitas, which included both benevolence toward one's
fellow humans and the values imparted by bonae litterae or humane learning.
 WHAT ARE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF
HUMANISM ?
➢ Classicism- Early humanists returned to the classics less with nostalgia or awe than with a sense of deep
familiarity, an impression of having been brought newly into contact with expressions of an intrinsic and
permanent human reality.

➢ Realism- Early humanists shared in large part a realism that rejected traditional assumptions and aimed
instead at the objective analysis of perceived experience. To humanism is owed the rise of modern social
science, which emerged not as an academic discipline but rather as a practical instrument of social self-
inquiry.

➢ Critical scrutiny and concern with detail- Humanistic realism bespoke a comprehensively critical
attitude. Indeed, the productions of early humanism constituted a manifesto of independence, at least
in the secular world, from all preconceptions and all inherited programs.
 THE EMERGENCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND
THE IDEA OF HUMAN DIGNITY
• These attitudes took shape in concord with a sense of personal autonomy that first was evident in Petrarch and later came to characterize
humanism as a whole. An intelligence capable of critical scrutiny and self-inquiry was by definition a free intelligence; the intellectual
virtue that could analyze experience was an integral part of that more extensive virtue that could, according to many humanists, go far in
conquering fortune. The emergence of Renaissance individualism was not without its darker aspects. Petrarch and Alberti were alert to the
sense of estrangement that accompanies intellectual and moral autonomy, while Machiavelli would depict, in The Prince (1513), a grim
world in which the individual must exploit the weakness of the crowd or fall victim to its indignities. But happy or sad, the experience of
the individual had taken on a heroic tone. Parallel with individualism arose, as a favourite humanistic theme, the idea of human dignity.
Backed by medieval sources but more sweeping and insistent in their approach, spokesmen such as Petrarch, Manetti, Lorenzo Valla, and
Marsilio Ficino asserted humanity’s earthly preeminence and unique potentialities. In his noted De hominis dignitate oratio (1486; “Oration
on the Dignity of Man”), Giovanni Pico della Mirandola conveyed this notion with unprecedented vigour. Humanity, Pico asserted, had
been assigned no fixed character or limit by God but instead was free to seek its own level and create its own future. No dignity, not even
divinity itself, was forbidden to human aspiration. Pico’s radical affirmation of human capacity shows the influence of Ficino’s
contemporary translations of the Hermetic writings—the purported works of the Egyptian god Hermes Trismegistos. Together with the
even bolder 16th-century formulations of this position by Paracelsus and Giordano Bruno, the Oratio betrays a rejection of the early
humanists’ emphasis on balance and moderation. It rather suggests the straining toward absolutes that would characterize major elements
of later humanism.
 ACTIVE VIRTUE

• The emphasis on virtuous action as the goal of learning was a founding principle of humanism
and (though sometimes sharply challenged) continued to exert a strong influence throughout the
course of the movement. Salutati, the learned chancellor of Florence whose words could batter
cities, represented in word and deed the humanistic ideal of an armed wisdom, that combination
of philosophical understanding and powerful rhetoric that alone could effect virtuous policy and
reconcile the rival claims of action and contemplation. In De ingenuis moribus et liberalibus
studiis (1402–03; “On the Manners of a Gentleman and Liberal Studies”), a treatise that
influenced Guarino Veronese (Guarino da Verona) and Vittorino da Feltre, Pietro Paolo Vergerio
maintained that just and beneficent action was the purpose of humanistic education. His words
were echoed by Alberti in Della famiglia (1435–44; “On the Family”):
 14TH CENTURY HUMANISM AND HUMANISTS :
During the 14th century, humanism strengthened, diversified, and spread, with florence remaining
at its epicentre. The three figures who were most critical to the rise of the humanist movement
during this period were Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Salutati.
 THE HUMANISTS OF 14TH CENTURY
PETRARCH
• The influence of Petrarch was
profound and multifaceted.
• He promoted the recovery and
transcription of Classical texts,
providing the impetus for the
important Classical researches.
• He threw himself into controversies in
which he defined a new humanism.
• His view of Classical culture, not as
an isolated element of the past but as
an authentic alternative to his own
medieval society, was of equal
historical importance.
• Though stylistically brilliant, his work
is ultimately limited by conflicting
commitments to faith and to reason, to
autocracy and to liberty.
GIOVANNI BOCCASSIO
• Petrarch’s friend Giovanni Boccaccio
created an opus that was even more
revolutionary.
• His most memorable contribution to
humanism, however, is probably the
famous Decameron.
• His Teseida was the first classical epic to
have been written in the vernacular, and it
influenced the Italian epicS.
• His De genealogia deorum gentilium , a
scholarly interpretive compendium of
Classical myth, was the first in a long line
of Renaissance mythographies.
• Boccaccio’s great work rings with a tone
that was even more basic to the
humanistic movement: an emphasis on
the human capacity for self-knowledge
and willed renewal.
COLUCCIO SALUTATI
• Coluccio Salutati was an aggressive
and scientific philologist, instrumental
in establishing principles of textual
criticism that would become key
elements of the humanistic method.
• He was a forceful apologist for the
active life, and his theories bore fruit in
his own career as chancellor of the
Florentine republic.
• His theory of education stressed the
importance of practical experienc and
put heavy emphasis on historical
studies.
• Moreover, his leadership strongly
influenced the cultural developments
that would make 15th-century Florence
the most active intellectual and artistic
centre in Europe.
 15TH CENTURY HUMANISM AND HUMANISTS
By the turn of the 15th century, all of the key elements that came to define humanism were in
place except for two: its detailed educational system and what might be called its greek dimension.
But before considering these developments, one might do well to appreciate the works of Leon
Battista Alberti, Medici and Federico da Montefeltro
 THE HUMANISTS OF 15TH CENTURY
LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI
• The achievement of Leon Battista Alberti
testifies to the formative power and
exhaustive scope of earlier Italian
humanism.
• He was an expert in law and mathematics
and so adept at humanistic literary skills.
• His three studies—De pictura , De statua ,
and De re aedificatoria- were landmarks in
art theory, powerful in developing the
theory of perspective and the idea of
“human” space.
• His theoretical and practical reliance on
mathematics was an important step in the
early development of modern scientific
method.
• Alberti uniquely fulfilled the humanistic
aspiration for a learning that would
comprehend all experience and for a
philosophical heroism that would renew
society.
MEDICI FAMILY
• The Medici family was equally notable
in its patronage of the arts, supporting
projects by a list of masters that
included Filippo Brunelleschi,
Michelangelo, and Benvenuto Cellini.
• Cosimo de’ Medici, who had
personally lured the great council of
churches from Ferrara to Florence in
1439, decided to found a Platonic
academy of his own.
• He amassed a great collection of
books, which would form the nucleus
of the Laurentian Library.
• Lorenzo de’ Medici’s versatile and
energetic nature lent itself equally to
politics and philosophy, to martial arts
and music.
FEDERICO DA MONTEFELTRO
• Federico was enthusiastically devoted to
the collection and preservation of books.
His library, was even more complete than
that of the Medici.
• He commissioned paintings by Piero della
Francesca and was the object of
humanistic dedications by Poggio,
Landino, and Ficino.
• Federico’s balance and versatility made
him, even more than Lorenzo, an example
of the humanistic program in action.
• Castiglione, perhaps the most thoughtful
of the later Italian humanists, would speak
of him as “the light of Italy; there is no
lack of living witnesses to his prudence,
humanity [umanità], justice, intrepid
spirit, [and] military discipline.”
 LATER ITALIAN HUMANISM
The achievements of alberti, federico, and the medici up to lorenzo may be seen as the effective
culmination of italian humanism—the ultimate realization of its motives and principles. At the same
time that these goals were being achieved, however, the movement was beginning to suffer bifurcation
and dilution. Even the enthusiastic platonism of the florentine academy was, in its idealism and
emphasis on contemplation, a significant digression from the crucial humanistic doctrine of active
virtue; pico della mirandola himself was politely admonished by a friend to forsake the ivory tower and
accept his civic responsibilities.
 .
THINGS AND WORDS
• Simply put, the res-verbum controversy was an extended
argument between humanists who believed that language
constituted the ultimate human reality and those who believed
that language, though an important subject for study, was the
medium for understanding an even more basic reality that lay
beyond it.
• The origin of the controversy lay in the debate in the 5th–4th
century BCE between the Socratic school, and the Sophistic-
rhetorical school.
• The enthronement of language as both subject and object of
humanistic inquiry is evident in the important work of Lorenzo
Valla and Politian.
• Valla spoke of language as a “sacrament” and urged that it be
studied scientifically and historically as the synthesis of all
human thought.
• Philosophical humanism declined because, though rich in
conviction, it had failed to establish a systematic relationship
between philosophy and rhetoric, between words and things.
IDEALISM
• The idealism so prominent in the Florentine academy is called
Platonic because of its debt to Plato’s theory of forms (or ideas)
and to the epistemological doctrine established in his Symposium
and Republic.
• The major Platonists of the mid-15th century-Plethon, Bessarion,
and Nicholas of Cusa—had all concentrated their attention on the
religious implications of Platonic thought; following them, Ficino
sought to reconcile Plato with Christ in a pia philosophia (pious
philosophy).
• The result of many factors was a Platonism sans Platonic method,
a philosophy that, straining for absolutes, had little interest in
establishing its own basis in reality.
• In supplying a quasi-religious endorsement of reason and nature,
it provided an alternative for those who had been unable to
reconcile Christian doctrine with life as lived.
• In authorizing the unhindered exercise of the human intellect,
Hermeticism also fed into the scientific revolution, earning praise
from Francis Bacon. Lines of hermetic influence would extend to
later developments, including Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, and
the Enlightenment itself.
 MACHIAVELLI’S REALISM
• Niccolò Machiavelli, whose work derived from sources as authentically humanistic
as those of Ficino, proceeded along a wholly opposite course.
• Like Vittorino and other early humanists, he believed in the centrality of historical
studies, and he performed a signally humanistic function by creating, in La
mandragola (1518; The Mandrake), the first vernacular imitation of Roman
comedy.
• In one way at least, Machiavelli is more humanistic than the other humanists, for
while Vittorino and his school ransacked history for examples of virtue,
Machiavelli embraced all of history—good, evil, and indifferent—as his school of
reality.
• By laying the foundations of modern social science, he created a discipline that,
though true to humanistic methodology, had not the slightest regard for humanistic
morality.
• In so doing, he brought to the surface a contradiction that had been implicit in
humanism all along: the dichotomy between critical objectivity and moral
evangelism.
20TH CENTURY HUMANISM

• The twentieth century saw a revulsion against war, partly because of the horrors of the first and second
World Wars, and partly because the mass media make us aware of atrocities and suffering all over the
world. Both world wars and especially the Nazi genocide against the Jews, made many question their
faith in a loving god. We still have wars and the threats of war, but the United Nations exists to
encourage negotiation and resolution of conflict by other means, and to police international law on the
conduct of war and on human rights. Generally, there has been greater awareness and spread of human
rights and democracy in the twentieth century.
• The twentieth century saw a decline in religious belief and an increase in secularisation in the
developed world. Fewer people in Europe are actively religious and people are free to declare
their disbelief in gods with little fear of reprisal or social disadvantage. Mobile populations and
the mass media have made most parts of the world aware of a range of belief systems, and more
liberal attitudes mean that people often feel free to choose a philosophy for themselves. The
growth of studies such as anthropology, pioneered in Sir James Frazer’s exhaustive collection of
myths and customs, showed religions as natural human creations, and encouraged a more tolerant
attitude towards other cultures.
• Most twentieth century philosophers have worked on the assumption that morality is independent of
religious faith e.g Sir Karl Popper, A J Ayer, G E Moore, Mary Warnock, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de
Beauvoir, Wallace Matson, Antony Flew, Peter Singer, though it was still possible to cause a scandal in
Britain by suggesting, as did Margaret Knight in a radio talk in the late 1950s, that morality and religion
could usefully be separated.
 HUMANISM- ARTS
• THE ART : Despite continued laws against blasphemy, artists and intellectuals have increasingly challenged religious
privilege and conventions. In the first half of this century, the Bloomsbury Group (which included J M Keynes, Virginia
Woolf (1882-1941), Leonard Woolf, E M Forster, Betrand Russell) were an influential group of writers, academics and
artists, who were heavily influenced by the ethical theories of G E Moore, which stressed the values of friendship and
aesthetic experience. Writers such as Thomas Hardy, George Bernard Shaw, H G Wells, and Joseph Conrad, were well-
known free-thinkers and the novelist Arnold Bennett (1867-1931) was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press
Association from 1916.
 HUMANISM- SCIENCE

. There have been huge developments in science and medicine which have
affected people’s lives and the way they think. As more and more people around
the word acquire education, understanding of science has become much more
widespread, and once controversial ideas such as Darwin’s theories about
evolution are generally accepted. Thanks to the relatively new sciences of
sociology, anthropology and psychology, our understanding of human nature
and society has developed rapidly. Many scientists were and are humanists.
Some, such as Sir Arthur Keith (1866-1955), Scottish scientist and
anthropologist J B S Haldane, Sigmund Freud, Sir Julian Huxley and John
Maynard Smith did much in the 20th century to spread understanding of science,
of human nature and of evolution. Albert Einstein, who worked out the theory of
relativity, one of the greatest achievements of the human intellect, was
essentially a humanist and was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press
Association. Scientific and medical progress has produced new ethical
dilemmas, and traditional religious teachings have not always been able to rise
to the challenge.
 CONCLUSION

• Though lacking permanence itself, humanism in large measure established the climate and provided the
medium for the rise of modern thought. An impressive variety of major developments in literature,
philosophy, art, religion, social science, and even natural science had their basis in humanism or were
significantly nourished by it. Important spokesmen in all fields regularly made use of humanistic
eloquence to further their causes. More generally, the so-called modern awareness—that sense of
alienation and freedom applied both to the individual and to the human race—derives ultimately, for better
or worse, from humanistic sources. But with humanism, as with every other historical subject, one should
beware, lest valid concern about changes, crises, sources, and influences obscure the even more important
issues of human continuity and human value. Whatever its weaknesses and inner conflicts, the humanistic
movement was heroic in its breadth and energy, remarkable in its aspirations. For human development in
all fields, it created a context of seldom-equaled fertility. Its characteristic modalities of thought, speech,
and image lent themselves to the promptings of genius and became the media for enduring achievement.
Its moral program formed the basis for lives that are remembered with admiration.