Celebrating World Humanist Day, 21st June 2022

Happy World Humanism Day! 🎉🎊🎉🎊🥳🥂🍾🥧🍰🧁🍨☕☕ Sadly, there's no emoji for Humanism, although there is a logo: the happy human. 

Humanism is a branch of philosophy. The types of Humanism commonly listed (not an exhaustive list) within the history of philosophy include:

Secular Humanism: 

non-religious approach prioritised, naturalistic, cosmic, consequentialist ethics

Religious Humanism: 

either refers to humanists who consider humanism to be a type of religion or it refers to freethinkers who have humanists principles, ethics and politics but hold some religious beliefs while rejecting institutional religion. Perhaps a good example is the freethinking deist Thomas Paine, but he deconstructed his religious beliefs and practices.

Some try to stretch this category, and humanism in general, to include liberal denominational Christians (eg some Lutherans) but I think that's going too far because, unlike Judaism, Christianity is only a religion, it doesn't have a cultural dimension and is very institution-focused. Hence, you can be a Humanist Jew without holding religious beliefs whereas it doesn't make sense to be a Humanist Christian. 

Moreover, Luther was in complete opposition to humanistic skepticism, so I'm struggling to see how any Lutheran can call themselves an Humanist these days. 🤷🤔 This can be seen by his head-to-head collision with Erasmus, who was a 15-16th century Dutch, Renaissance Religious (Catholic) Humanist (and friend of the Humanists Colet and Tomas More). Luther wrote an aggressive response to Erasmus's humanistic skepticism in his De Servo Arbitrio, where he argues vehemently that Christianity is all about certainty, not probability. Salvation and doubt don't go together, for Luther. But this didn't silence the moderate-leaning Erasmus. Undeterred, Erasmus answered Luther by writing a further work. Despite Erasmus's huge popularity and influential, undogmatic religious humanistic scholarship in Europe, the Spanish Inquisition persecuted his followers and he was nevertheless labelled an heretic. 

I've expanded on this point by relating it to Spinoza on my Spinoza blog here. 

Renaissance Humanism: 

15th-16th century movement contra Scholasticism hence, we are so over scholastics (medieval Christian theology) ever since the Early Modern era. Therefore, Spinoza would not be interested in the Scholastics (eg Aquinas) or mixing Christianity with Philosophy. Scholasticism was derived from the writings of the Church Fathers and Aristotle. It was taught in Christian schools and universities, propogating traditionalism, orthodoxy and virtues such as fortitude, prudence, justice and temperance. 

Posthumanism: 

tries to update Renaissance Humanism by being more clearly against speciesism and anthropocentrism. Hence emphasises respecting all sentient beings, not just exalting the human as religions are want to do. 

Educational Humanism: 

17th century pedagogical approach to developing the intellect. This one is important for Spinoza, not because he was a non-religious Humanist but because he focused, somewhat educationally, on developing the intellect as part of human flourishing.

Marxist Humanism: 

an offshoot strand of Marxism which draws inspiration from his earlier writings and thoughts on alienation. Unlike other branches of Marxism, it relates Marx's thought to Enlightenment Humanism. 

Enlightenment Humanism:

not to be confused with Renaissance Humanism, it is secular and emphasises autonomy, rationality, reason, objectivity and social progress. 

Integral Humanism: 

an Indian political and social movement which was against Western materialism, capitalism, and exploitation, prioritising instead the social needs of the individual. 

Humanism is a philosophical way of life as opposed to a dogma. It is an optimistic stance and altruistic attitude which emphasises: 

✅ freedom;

✅ autonomy; 

✅ human rights; 

✅ LGBT inclusive;

✅ empathy; 

✅ living well and flourishing in this (democratic) world;

✅ secular ethics, politics, justice, reason and critical thinking including scientific method and scientific skepticism 

✅ a deep appreciation of the value of art, music, dance, theatre and literature because creativity and imagination have always been a key feature of Humanism. 

For a more detailed, excellent discussion on Humanism as a branch of philosophy with its own stance on metaphysics, epistemology, and practical philosophy, see: 

https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_humanism.html

Out of the list above, humanism as a movement has especially built on the framework of Secular Humanism and, after dropping the label Religious Humanists, started calling themselves Secular Humanists until the global community decided to narrow this down to simply Humanism. So now, if someone is a Humanist then they simply identify as such. Whereas if you hear someone referring to themselves as a Secular Humanist, it means they are a Humanist who also happens to be a Secularist. I'm one such. This influences how I approach Philosophy.

Humanism, therefore, is a broad umbrella. It doesn't think science knows it all but uses it to gain knowledge of this world, nevertheless, it's the arts that are important to human flourishing. Humanism has a broad base but one thing that does stand out is that Humanism tends towards naturalistic explanations not spiritual or supernatural ones. 

To be continued....📝