Humanism Lecture One

Lecture One: Humanism 27/10/05

Humanism is an active ethical and philosophical approach to life, focusing on human solutions to human issues through rational ("reasonable") arguments, without recourse to a god, gods, sacred texts or religious creeds. Humanism, born in European Renaissance universities, originally referred to a student or teacher of Greco-Roman literature.

Humanism - a group of beliefs that concentrates on common human needs and seeks rational (rather than divine) ways of solving human problems.

Ancient: 500 BCE – 500 CE
Middle Ages: 500 CE – 1400 CE
Renaissance to the Enlightenment: 1350 CE – 1789 CE

The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three 'ages': the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times. The Middle Ages of Western Europe are commonly dated from the end of the Western Roman Empire (5th century) until the rise of national monarchies, the start of European overseas exploration, the humanist revival, and the Protestant Reformation starting in 1517. These various changes all mark the beginning of the Early Modern period that preceded the Industrial Revolution.

Middle Ages began to decline in the 1300s. This decline opened up the possibility of the Modern Age.

Question: What do you know about Christianity? Be good in this life and be saved in the next.

Philosophers of the Middle Ages were called scholastics and the philosophy of the Middle Ages was called scholasticism. Scholasticism was based on reason, but that reason had to agree with the Scriptures, such as the Bible.

Give example: creationism vs evolution

Society: Scholastic believed that society and nature were a hierarchy with God at the top – then the church – then Kings

Knowledge: Knowledge from God (as in the Bible) was the highest. Knowledge from the senses was less than revealed knowledge.

Nature: the sun goes around the Earth: Ptolemy.
Galileo: Earth goes around the Sun.

Knowledge coming from the senses or from the observation was seen as being weak. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) showed the value of reason – to love the intellect was to honor God and not to weaken faith in God – and said that in those questions not involving belief in God – like things in nature – people should only trust reason and experience.

In the modern world, our relationship to society, knowledge, and the universe has change enormously.

We trust our senses even if they contradict the Bible or other scriptures.


There is an understanding that people are equal and that no one is necessarily better or closer to God than anyone else.

This modern view is based on the idea that mankind – Man – can reason and find out things – gain knowledge by himself – that truth about the universe, nature, and society is best worked out by Man and his ability to reason – and is not found in the Bible or from the Christian Church.

This view begins to develop during the period from the Renaissance (about 1350) to the Enlightenment (1543: Copernicus’ On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres to 1789: French Revolution begins)

The philosophers of the Enlightenment wanted to free people from tradition which couldn’t face the test of reason.

The modern age begins with the Renaissance.

Famous artists:

Michealangelo
Bottitticelli
Leonardo Da Vinci


A secular outlook develops during the Renaissance.

Secular - not concerned with spiritual or religious affairs; worldly.

The city-states of Northern Italy become wealthy. People become more concerned with enjoying this life than with salvation in the next life.

Florence became the centre of the Renaissance.

The pleasure of living well in this world seemed more exciting than the promise of heaven in the next world.


Individualism was another mark of the Renaissance.

The individual should be freed from concern about God and the otherworld so that they can excel in this life.

Humanism – during the Renaissance meant the study of ancient Greek and Roman literature. The classics of the Greeks and Romans did not have to fit to the Christian world view – as in the Middle Ages, ie. Aristotle.

To speak well, to write well, and to live well it was necessary to know the classics: Homer, Iliad, Odyssey, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero.

In fact, the person who has been called the father of humanism, Petrarch (1304-1374) was drawn particularly to Cicero – the Roman stoic philosopher –who thought that it was not only necessary to be well educated but also to be able to speak well. wisdom combined with eloquence.

Petrarch and his followers set up schools which taught this Ciceronian idea.

Like the Greeks, the people of the Renaissance thought that humans were capable of excellence in all fields – different than the Christian idea of Original Sin.

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) he wrote the first in the West on political philosophy – The Prince – in it he wrote of a new political theory with no Christian ethics or morality – a political theory where the main aim was the survival of the state by any means. Successful Princes have not worried about religious or moral ideas or considerations. Machiavelli gave no divine purpose to the state – it only aim was to survive. He secularized and rationalized political philosophy – a trend in thought that we can see today as modern.