Humanism

Humanism is the body of philosophies and ethical perspectives that emphasize the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers individual thought and evidence (rationalism, empiricism), over established doctrine or faith (fideism). During the Renaissance period in Western Europe humanist movements attempted to demonstrate the benefit of gaining learning from classical, pre-Christian sources in and of themselves or for secular ends such as political science and rhetoric. It should not be said that the Renaissance humanists were not religious; rather, they simply sought secular activities and thought in addition to religious ones. Nor should it be that they accepted classical thought where the Medieval scholastics did not, given that that many scholastics, for example, Dante, deeply valued Greco-Roman influences. In modern times, many humanist movements have become strongly aligned with atheism, with the term Humanism often used as a byword for non-theistic beliefs about otherwise theistic or spiritual ideas such as meaning and purpose. The term humanism can be ambiguously diverse, and there has been a persistent confusion between the several, related uses of the term because different intellectual movements have identified with it over time.

In philosophy and social science, humanism refers to a perspective that affirms some notion of a "human nature" (contrasted with anti-humanism). The word "humanist" derives from the 15th-century Italian term umanista describing a teacher or scholar of classical Greek and Latin literature and the ethical philosophy behind it (including the approach to the humanities). In 1856, still before the word was associated with secularism, German historian and philologist Georg Voigt used humanism to describe Renaissance humanism, the movement that flourished in the Italian Renaissance to revive classical learning (this definition won wide acceptance among historians in many nations). During the French Revolution, and soon after in Germany (by the Left Hegelians), humanism began to refer to philosophies and morality centred on human kind, without attention to any notions of the divine.

Religious humanism developed as more liberal religious organizations evolved in more humanistic directions. Religious humanism is a unique integration of humanist ethical philosophy with the rituals and beliefs of some religion, although religious humanism still centers on human needs, interests, and abilities. However, as the Ethical movement began using the word in the 1930s, the term "humanism" became increasingly associated with philosophical naturalism (against the existence of supernatural or divine influence in the universe), and with secularism and the secularization of society. Hence a new movement was formalized at the University of Chicago with the Humanist Manifesto I (1933). The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) founded in 1952 would carry this usage forward, and later statements such as Humanist Manifesto II (1973) would move away from the word 'religious', with the term secular humanism becoming more widely employed.

Today IHEU uses 'Humanism' capitalized and without qualification. Formal positions adopted by Humanist organizations from around the world in the form of the Amsterdam Declaration 2002 would assert the integrally non-theistic nature of Humanism, and IHEU's Minimum Statement (1996) and current bylaws (adopted 2009) both assert a Humanism which is "not theistic, and it does not accept supernatural views of reality."

When the first letter is capitalized, "Humanism" describes the secular ideology that espouses reason, ethics, and justice, while specifically rejecting supernatural and religious ideas as a basis of morality and decision-making.