[Download] "Humanism and the Classical Tradition (Essay)" by Annali d'Italianistica ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Humanism and the Classical Tradition (Essay)
- Author : Annali d'Italianistica
- Release Date : January 01, 2008
- Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 228 KB
Description
Two approaches can be employed and synthesized to understand the problem of humanism and its complex origins in the ancient western world. The first approach is source-based: through etymology and history one can come to an understanding of what western thinkers have believed about terms like "humanity," "human," and so on. The second approach is more explicit about the commitments of the present-day interpreter but necessarily less precise when it comes to sources. (2) If one believes in the existence of something we can locate as "human" (beyond biological differentiation); that this human factor is a motivating force for action in the world; and that this conception of what is "human" is something worth defending, then it makes sense to look retrospectively and find earlier adumbrations, even implicit ones, of what one currently takes to be characteristic and defensible about humanity. Until recently, one would not have needed to state the seemingly self-evident proposition that something called "human" exists. Now, however, one is presented with a world in which the use of psychotropic drugs to manipulate serotonin levels in the brain is a widely accepted practice, and the increasingly frequent de facto genetic selection occurring among certain segments of the population is carried out through artificial fertilization. In short, the existence of a stable human "self has been called into question by an ethically neutral, evolving natural science, to such a point that some current thinkers are speaking of "our post-human future" (Fukuyama) and others can find no clear dividing line between human beings and animals (Singer). (3) It may be the case that reaching back into the classical past can help us discover some of the roots of a much later tradition that proclaims, unashamedly, the existence of and respect for the human.