Humanism 101 – Adam Arivdsson

studi umanistic – Florentine humanism – re-reading greek classic.

Philosophy of humanism -

belief in the capacity of human reason as against divine will and predetermination

Emergent political theory: studi umanistici should educate competent citizens to be able to engage with the res publica

Protestant reformation – individualized relation to a distant God who operated through human reason and industry.

Enlightenment Humanism

• Philosphy of history – “human beings shape the world”
• Epistemology – “human consciousness shapes the world” (Kant: the apriori – we cannot see the thing itself, only the way it appears to us through our a priori assumptions (primarily: causality and temporality))
• Politics – human beings are equal. Human development is the goal of any civilisation.
• Ethics – relate to human beings subjects (Kant: treat other people as ends, not as means)

Kant

sapere aude! the philopshy of a rising, self confident cilization based on a ‘republic of letters’

Modern hunamism

Sartre -

existence comes before essence!

human beings shape themselves through the choices made in condition of absolute freedom.

Anti-humanism

• Human concept of human nature is misguided
• Freud: human beings are guided by systems they can not control – the ego is not the master of his own house
• Social development is guided by large scale structures that human beings can not control (“man makes histroy but not according to his own plans” – Marx)
• Or cannot even know.

There is no such thing as human nature.

• ‘man’ is a metaphysical mystification of the deeper truth of being (Heidegger)
• ‘man’ is the contingent result of social forces.

Foucault – ‘man is a recent invention of recent dates’

Moral anti-humanism

humanism is btu another expression of the christian slave-morality which denies a truer humanism, based on each man’s ability to create his own values. (Nietzsche)

Post-modern anti-humanism

the humanism we know is that of a particular white male bourgeois literary subject

Ecological anti-humanism

• Humanism is a residue of creed inherent to the Abrahamic religions that human beings are separate from and superior to other species (Peter Singer)
• Acting with human interest in mind has only ended in disaster

Technological post-humanism

Infotech and biotech have altered/will alter the reality of human life to the point that it is no longer feasible to speak of human nautre or humanism.

How do we reconstruct humanism

“all human beings qua human beings have something in common”

Religious humanism

• Christian roots
• Christ: all who believe in me can be saved
• First truly universality humanism
• Traditional humanism based on a belief in a fundamental essence (soul, human nature)

What is human?

• technology is the way in which “being comes to langauge” (Heidegger) as “humanity”
• it determines the way we appear to others and to ourselves as authentic selves

(Heidegger’s essay on Van Gogh’s clogs)

• Englightenment humanism based on the written word
• Based on circulation of written word – printing press huge in this
• Literary technology has bias to produce a particular kind of humanism – rational, indvidualized and endowed with innter compass made of authentic feelings

Today’s technology

• participatory culture, general intellect
• everyone is a prodcuer
• fluid networked forms – dividuals rather than individuals

SL as “wooden clogs of today” – the authentic manifestation of humanity

Humanity is not construed of a pre-given essence, but must be understood as a project.

Magic

Our humanity is a kind of magic, really. These are very similar to the way we operate networked social forces.

• deployment of immanent forces in a pragmatic way
• acting in a condition of fundamental insecurity
• manipulating forces that are not entirely known – synergies

Magical humanism

• faith without an overall view

Questions

Matt Jones points out that ubicomp – internet of things – might be a closer idea of what humanity is than, say, Second Life.