Misplaced Pages

Talk:Humanism

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lowercase sigmabot III (talk | contribs) at 01:33, 14 August 2023 (Archiving 1 discussion(s) to Talk:Humanism/Archive 9) (bot). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 01:33, 14 August 2023 by Lowercase sigmabot III (talk | contribs) (Archiving 1 discussion(s) to Talk:Humanism/Archive 9) (bot)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Humanism is currently a Philosophy and religion good article nominee. Nominated by Cinadon36 at 10:30, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

An editor has indicated a willingness to review the article in accordance with the good article criteria and will decide whether or not to list it as a good article. Comments are welcome from any editor who has not nominated or contributed significantly to this article. This review will be closed by the first reviewer. To add comments to this review, click discuss review and edit the page.

Short description: Philosophical school of thought

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Humanism article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
Article policies
Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10Auto-archiving period: 6 months 

Template:Vital article

This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconReligion Top‑importance
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Misplaced Pages's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.ReligionWikipedia:WikiProject ReligionTemplate:WikiProject ReligionReligion
TopThis article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconAtheism Mid‑importance
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Atheism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of atheism on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AtheismWikipedia:WikiProject AtheismTemplate:WikiProject AtheismAtheism
MidThis article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
For more information and how you can help, click the link opposite:

If you would like to participate, you can edit this article and visit the project page.

Quick help

Recent activity

To do

Join WikiProject atheism and be bold.

Be consistent

  • Use a "standard" layout for atheism-related articles (see layout style, "The perfect article" and Featured articles).
  • Add Atheism info box to all atheism related talk pages (use {{WikiProject Atheism}} or see info box)
  • Ensure atheism-related articles are members of Atheism by checking whether ] has been added to atheism-related articles – and, where it hasn't, adding it.

Maintenance, etc.

Articles to improve

Create

  • Articles on notable atheists


Expand

Immediate attention

  • State atheism needs a reassessment of its Importance level, as it has little to do with atheism and is instead an article about anti-theist/anti-religious actions of governments.
  • False choice into False dilemma: discuss whether you are for or against this merge here
  • Clarify references in Atheism using footnotes.
  • Secular movement defines it as a being restricted to America in the 21st century.
Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details.
WikiProject iconPhilosophy: Epistemology Mid‑importance
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Misplaced Pages.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy
MidThis article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
Associated task forces:
/ 
Taskforce icon
Epistemology
Template:WP1.0

Semi-protected edit request on 22 February 2023

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Under the Morality heading, second paragraph, second to last sentence should read, "Shook..." rather than "Spook..." Thing69 (talk) 22:06, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

 Done. Next time, WP:FIXIT. Zefr (talk) 23:08, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Article issues and classification

Article fails B-class criteria #1 and #4. Reassess article.
  • A February 2023 inline "citation needed" tag,
  • A January 2023 inline "ambiguous" tag.
  • Two inline 2023 "clarification needed" tags.
  • An October 2022 article "essay-like" tag and January 2023 "essay-like" section tag is a style issue.
  • A January 2023 "Dates and numbers#Chronological items" tag. -- Otr500 (talk) 23:43, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
    @Otr500 most issues have been resolved. Can you help me with the dates and numbers tag? You mean the "Use dmy dates" I thought that was just an advice. Cinadon36 09:52, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
I will take a look later today/ -- Otr500 (talk) 13:43, 14 March 2023 (UTC)
A tag at the top of the article is so all the date formats will be consistent. A "Dates and numbers#Chronological items" would be a timeline. It makes an article hard to read if the timeline (series of events) is not in some order. I didn't look at it but will. -- Otr500 (talk) 14:57, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

A couple more comments

The article has improved dramatically from when I first saw it, and I think the essay tag can come off with the resolution of these two issues:

  • One of the main issues that I still have is the use of quotes and excerpts to make a point that may or not be made by other reliable sources. For example, in the Enlightenment section, we have this: Previous appeals to "men" now shifted toward "man"; this is evident in political documents like The Social Contract (1762) of Rousseau, in which he says "Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains". Is there a source that says that Rousseau's comments reflect a development in humanism, or are we just saying that? If the former, it needs a source. If the latter, it needs to be replaced by a different example that is sourced. Same for the Brothers Karamazov quote in Themes: Morality and the Confucius quotes later (and was also true for the Camus quote).
  • The Geographies of humanism section is a little confusing, in that the individual sections don't seem to thematically hold together. Some are about an entire continental history, others about a single religion or religious figure, and then the Americas section just includes a very broad, sweeping statement about humanism in a single document (the US Constitution) with an inference made about the rest of US history. It feels...a little thrown together? I'm not sure that this section is really needed, as a lot of this could be merged into the history section (the Europe stuff already is) and the rest cut.

Let me know what you think. Alyo (chat·edits) 15:14, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

I am glad @Alyo: you feel the article has improved. I share the same view.Cinadon36 18:55, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

  • Quotes on the enlightenment section. Source (Davies, p 25), notices a shift during that era, he says the abstract notion of humanity was formed. He uses Rousseau's quote (and others) as example. He dedicates a section at his book on this shift. I think if we try, we could tell the same story without the quotation. Give me a couple of days and I will think of something. If you have something to suggest, please go ahead. Cinadon36 18:55, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
    Well to be clear, if the source uses that quote, then it's fine. We can just say "Davies points to Rousseau..." etc etc. Alyo (chat·edits) 13:28, 16 March 2023 (UTC)
    Ok, so I have made this edit . Cinadon36 11:07, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
    I do not have time for the rest, I will have a look on Monday. Cinadon36 11:09, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
    No rush :) Alyo (chat·edits) 14:13, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Quoting Fyodor Dostoevsky (The Karamazov Brothers). This is a much quoted argument. Most books discussing humanism and morality of humanism, discuss this argument. The relation to humanistic morality is obvious. Richand Norman uses the quatation, as cited, but I am not sure that it would be an improvement if we write "Scholar Richard Norman points..." since many authors also pointed to the exact same issue. Cinadon36 16:58, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Quotes from Camus and Confucius. Yes, we could trim these quotes. The problem with Confucius, is that we will be trimming text from East Asia section which maybe is under-covered. I am not sure...I will think of something. Cinadon36 16:58, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
    Regarding Camus, I removed the last sentence of the paragraph. It seem not necessary or redundant or "not necessary". Cinadon36 08:59, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
    Regarding Confucius, I also removed a sentence I feel the relevance to humanism is apparent with the rest of the text. I remember the source relies heavily on quotes from Analects. Anyway, tell me what you think, before we move forward. Cinadon36 09:05, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

I've re-added the Camus line as I actually think it's still helpful? Unless you still want to remove that, I was talking more about the previous version of the paragraph. I think it looks good now. Re: Dostoevsky, can you just add a citation to Norman to the end of the sentence with the quotation, just so that it's clear that Norman also uses that specific quotation? You don't have to add "As scholar Richard Norman points out..." Alyo (chat·edits) 15:23, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Geographies of humanism

I see the problem you @Alyo: are pointing to. I followed the paradigm of Oxford Handbook of Humanism (2019) where, as you can see if you follow the external link, the first section is dedicated to "Geographies of Humanism". There are 5 chapters. I thought something had to be told. I do not know what is the best solution now. Maybe removing the whole chapter? What would you suggest? Cinadon36 08:07, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a bit odd. I think we would need to have a clear plan for that section, and right now it seems like it's just us trying to copy a textbook. Perhaps we could aim, in the future, to have some content about the different expressions of humanism in different parts of the world? Or the different religious traditions that have simultaneously developed humanistic ideals? Maybe remove it for now, but in the future if you wanted to expand the article that might be a good place to start. Alyo (chat·edits) 15:23, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Here is the text I removed. I am not sure how to fix the issue. We have to mention ancient China and other parts of the world. But history of humanism in China is not part of the history of the contemporary humanist movement. I shouldnt agree moving the text into the section of history of humanism. Cinadon36 10:08, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Geographies of humanism

This section is written like a personal reflection, personal essay, or argumentative essay that states a Misplaced Pages editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic. Please help improve it by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style. (January 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Africa

In Africa, contemporary humanism has been shaped by the continent's colonial history, and the introduction of Christianity and Islam. African philosophers focused on inter-dependency among humans, and between humans and nature. Pre-colonial oral traditions reflecting African views on humanity and human good were eliminated by the entrance of European powers. Christianity and Islam advanced, and many intra-African atrocities took place. Africans never abandoned the ideas of human value and the mutual interdependence of humans, which are core features of African humanism. This idea was advanced by philosophers such as Kwasi Wiredu and Jean-Godefroy Bidima. Wiredu emphasized the need of human interaction for humans to become what they are, and projected his thought to the need for democracy. Bidima added, the interaction should be enduringly, not an one time event. According to socialist philosopher Léopold Sédar Senghor, Africans were naturally leaning towards humanism and socialism, not because of its scientific or epistemological basis, but because of their intuition.

Middle East

It is a widely held view among scholars that due to the dominance of Islam, humanistic values found a hostile environment in the Middle East and were unable to flourish there. According to scholar Khurram Hussain, however, some traits of the early Islamic world resemble humanism. He notes Islam unified a diverse population and provided political, epistemological, and social solutions to the then-fragmented Arab world. Also according to Hussain, there is a form of humanism within the Islamic anthropology. To support his argument, he notes examples such as the lack of "original sin", indicating in Islamic theology the human is a free, moral agent. He also said Islamic scholars such as Ibn al-‛Arabī and al-Jīlī placed humans at the center of the universe, a place occupied by God in Christian traditions. Khurram Hussain also notes the Arab Spring of 2011 revived certain humanistic values—including democracy, freedom, and fairness—in the Middle East, and argues they are not incompatible with Islam.

East Asia

In East Asia, Confucianism's core ideas are humanistic. The philosophy of Confucius (551–479 BCE), which became the basis of the state ideology of successive Chinese dynasties and nearby polities in East Asia, has several humanistic traits, placing a high value on human life, and discounting mysticism and superstition—including speculations on ghosts and an afterlife. Confucianism is considered a religious form of humanism because supernatural phenomena such as Heaven (天; Tian)—which supposedly guides the world—have a place in it. According to sinologist Theodore de Bary, in the Analects, humanist ideals include respectfulness, reasonableness, kindness, and enthusiasm for learning. A fundamental teaching of Confucius is a person can become a junzi (someone who is noble, just, or kind) through education. After Confucius' death, his disciple Mencius (371–289 BCE) centered his philosophies on secular, humanistic concerns like the nature of good governance and the role of education rather than on ideas founded on the state or folk religions. Societies in China, Japan, and Korea were shaped by the prevalence of humanistic Confucianism.

Early Taoism also had some humanistic tenets. Taoism initially developed as a naturalistic philosophy, aiming for the harmony of self, society, and the universe. Naturalness is achieved by wu wei (non‐action); philosopher Michael LaFargue said the philosophy's fundamental book, the Tao Te Ching, is based on humanistic thought. Buddhism has also been noted to include elements of humanistic thought because Buddhism aims to the salvage humans from the sorrows of life, after abandoning egoistic tendencies, and coming in peace with society and universe.

America

The United States Constitution was shaped by humanistic ideas originating from the Enlightenment but did not go far enough to tackle gender-and-race-inequality issues. According to Carol Wayne White, Black communities experiencing injustice moved toward atheism in the 20th century. Later, many Black organizations loosely connected within the Black Lives Matter movement rejected theism or embraced a humanistic agenda. Black literature reveals the quest for freedom and justice in a community often subordinated to white dominance.

Humanism in Latin America is hard to detect, mainly because of the dominance of Catholicism and Protestantism. European positivism had influenced the thought of scholars and political leaders in Latin America during the 19th century but its influences wavered in the next century. Since 2017, the number of Latin America's humanist organizations registered in the International Humanist Association has increased.

Europe

In Europe, various currents of 19th century thought, such as freethinkers, ethicists, atheists and rationalists have merged to form the contemporary humanist movement. Various national organizations founded the European Humanist Federation (EHF) in 1991, affirming their support for secularism. All humanistic organizations promote a naturalistic worldview, scientific approach, individualism, and solidarity but they vary in terms of their practice. One view is that they should focus on meeting the needs of non-religious peoples and their members; the other is pursuing activism to bring about social change. These two main patterns in European humanism that coexist within humanist organizations often collude with each other.

References

  1. Masolo 2020, p. 1. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMasolo2020 (help)
  2. Masolo 2020, pp. 23–25. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMasolo2020 (help)
  3. Masolo 2020, p. 3. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMasolo2020 (help)
  4. Hussain 2020, pp. 1–2. sfn error: no target: CITEREFHussain2020 (help)
  5. Hussain 2020, pp. 4–5. sfn error: no target: CITEREFHussain2020 (help)
  6. Hussain 2020, pp. 8–12. sfn error: no target: CITEREFHussain2020 (help)
  7. Hussain 2020, pp. 12. sfn error: no target: CITEREFHussain2020 (help)
  8. ^ Huang 2020, pp. 1–2. sfn error: no target: CITEREFHuang2020 (help)
  9. Law 2011, chapter History of Humanism, #Confucius. sfn error: no target: CITEREFLaw2011 (help)
  10. Heavens 2013, pp. 31–35 sfnm error: no target: CITEREFHeavens2013 (help); Yao 2000, pp. 44–45 sfnm error: no target: CITEREFYao2000 (help).
  11. Fowler 2015, pp. 133–37. sfn error: no target: CITEREFFowler2015 (help)
  12. Fowler 2015, pp. 139-141 & 147. sfn error: no target: CITEREFFowler2015 (help)
  13. Fowler 2015, p. 147. sfn error: no target: CITEREFFowler2015 (help)
  14. White 2020, p. 20. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWhite2020 (help)
  15. White 2020, pp. 20–21. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWhite2020 (help)
  16. White 2020, pp. 19–20. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWhite2020 (help)
  17. White 2020, p. 19. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWhite2020 (help)
  18. White 2020, pp. 17–18. sfn error: no target: CITEREFWhite2020 (help)
  19. White 2020, p. 19:In just 12 months the IHEU has doubled its membership in Latin America, rising from 7 to 14 Member Organizations, in 9 countries or territories: Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Suriname harvnb error: no target: CITEREFWhite2020 (help)
  20. Schröder 2020, p. 1. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSchröder2020 (help)
  21. Schröder 2020, pp. 13–14. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSchröder2020 (help)

Typo

In the "Renaissance" section, there is the sentence: "Petrarch'ims enthusiasm for ancient texts led him to discover manuscripts such as ..." "Petrarch'ims" is likely a typo, but I'm not going to create an account just to fix it. Somebody fix it, please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.216.2.184 (talk) 20:33 3 April 2023 (UTC)

 Done. A. Randomdude0000 (talk) 21:19, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
Thank-you. 98.216.2.184 (talk) 00:52, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Alan Haworth

Link to Haworth is pointing to the Hockey player not the philosopher. Paul Fabrizio (talk) 11:52, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Done, thank you. Alyo (chat·edits) 15:55, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

A few issues/suggestions

I don't think I have sufficient time or knowledge of Misplaced Pages to serve as GA reviewer, but I saw the nomination and gave the article a read-through. Mostly it looks very good. Here, however, are a few points for possible improvements:

  1. The History section seems quite admirably to cover a lot of ground in a relatively small amount of space. But I was surprised to see Erasmus get only one sentence. The article Wikilinks out, but isn't there something more to say in the main article about the "Prince of the Humanists"? He is usually the first figure I think of when I see a reference to humanism.
  2. Is there some non-obnoxious way to more often remind the reader that the humanism under discussion for most of the article is that of the 20th century on? (Or else change the title of the article, which I do not imagine editors want to do.)
  3. The section on the meaning of life implies Nietzsche is a humanist, but then he is discussed as an antihumanist (which I think is correct). This apparent contradiction should be addressed.
  4. The discussion of the Euthyphro does not make sense to me. The conclusion that "relativism is invited if God creates goodness" seems exactly the opposite of what would follow. I'm sure the dialogue is relevant to humanistic concerns, but the discussion here is not clear.
  5. The Antihumanism section could be much stronger without being much longer. My own sympathies are with humanism, but it would be worth clarifying that plenty of people reject humanism on admirably moral grounds. Just off-hand, I could direct editors to Michael E. Zimmerman's contribution to the Camb. Comp. to Heidegger, in which he links H.'s antihumanism to deep ecology. The argument might be lousy, but the intention is admirable. There are also other, less radical arguments for rejecting humanism in view of, for instance, findings about animal sentience.
  6. This might be overly specific to my own interests, but I would have liked even just a few more sentences explaining the way that Kant "provided the modern philosophical basis of the humanist narrative." Kant explicitly refuses to ground rationality, autonomy, etc. in human nature. It's not hard to see the appeal many of his ideas would have to humanists, but he himself would have rejected such an appropriation. So I'm just curious about how that played out.

Best wishes with the GA nomination —

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 21:59, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Categories: