Humanism

New Critical Idiom

by Tony Davies

Definitions of humanism as educational movement, philosophical concept or existential ‘life stance’ have evolved over the centuries as the term has been adopted for a variety of cultural and political purposes and contexts, and reactions against humanism have contributed to movements such as structuralism, postmodernism and postcolonialism. Tony Davies offers a clear introduction to the many uses of this influential yet complex concept, and this second edition extends his discussion to

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Criticism, Literary Criticism

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[عبـد الرَّحْمَٰن فَتْحــي · Rating 2 out of 5]

الحمد لله.
كتاب جيّد، إلا أن الكاتب ثقيل الظل، وأكثر -بإفراط- من الإحالة على المتون الروائية والأشعار لشرح بعض التشكلات الفكرية أو بعض الانقلابات في رؤى الغرب للعالم والإنسان وصلتهما بالمتجاوز.
كان بالإمكان أفضل مما كان؛ لا بأس بالانسيابية والسرد التاريخي غير المتصل لهدف معين، ولكن بئس ألف بئس التوهان والسيولة المزعجة في الأفكار هذه!
ولم أتعجب لأن الكاتب أستاذ أدب مقارن، ولكن مايضايقك فعلا هو أن يتحول النص لاستعراض عضلات معرفية.
-تعقيب جانبي: استعمل الكاتب جمل ساذجة مثل "هؤلاء يعادون السامية" على ما أذكر.

أما مقدمة المترجم كانت ممتازة؛ والترجمة كانت جيدة؛ إلا أن السيد المترجم تكاسل عن تحقيق النصوص في الهوامش فتركها بين الأقواس (إخراج قبيح) مكتفيًا بذكر المؤلف وسنة النشر، هذا غير الكتب المترجمة المعروفة كان يترجمها حرفيًا دون إحالة أو إشارة إلى الترجمات العربية المتاحة.
مثل كتاب نيتشه " إنسان مفرط في إنسانيته" أتذكر أنه ترجمها " إنسان..إنسان جدا".
إنسان جدا؟ :""D

فعانيت الأمرّين للوصول إلى الكتب والمصادر التي أعجبتني مقتبساتها، وهذا وحده عكر صفوي جدًا لدرجة أنني كنت سأمنح الكتاب نجمة واحدة لهذا السبب وحده.

كان الفصلان الثاني والأخير ممتازين
.. ويلّا مش مهم.. نجمتين.

[Kaan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciate the effort that went into this book, but as someone who is learning philosophy casually, this book is just too academic for me. If you are someone who's studying philosophy at university, I'm sure you can make more use of this book than I could.

One thing that's interesting is that this book doesn't follow a sequence, it's divided into five parts but the first two chapters talk about 18-20th-century humanism, the next two chapters talk about the origins of it, and the last chapter is about modern humanism. The author mentions at the beginning that you can read in any order you want, but it just seems... unnecessary.


Not a bad book by any means (it simply means that I'm the stupid one), but if you're a casual like me, you'd probably be better off reading the original works of humanist writers such as Erasmus and Moore than starting with this book straight away.

[Rana Rafeh · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Scott Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

An Unexpectedly Tedious Book

The subject matter of this book was unexpected. I wanted to read something along the lines of an historical examination of the modern humanism movement. Instead I waded through a linguistic analysis of the word itself.
In addition, the book is a tedious compilation of the author's rambling thoughts on the subject. His vocabulary and linguistic style obfuscate rather than clarify.

[Nabeel Hasan · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting topic rendered tedious and opaque by the author's verbosity.

[Gary Oak · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very erudite overview of Humanism as a concept in education, philosophy and politics. Davies shows that the very idea of Human nature is always suspect, since it has historically always been formulated around a pecuculiar and egocentric subject (the educated and conventional Western man). Also humanists have a bad track record in relation to inhuman evils like slavery and autocratic regimes.

I would echo a lot of the ciriticisms levelled against this work. The structure is somewhat confusing. The book starts out by talking about humanism as it was invented in the 18th century, later however this is called neo-humanism when Davies starts talking about the umanisti of the Italian city-states. The Latin origin of the term, which apperantly even back in Cicero's time had both ethical and educational connotations is only touched upon very briefly in the third chapter. I was actually very curious about the classical meaning of the term.

I was also confused by the fact that Davies brings up his (admittetly) interesting examples sometimes without any introduction or explanation. It feels like he can just start of with any random author out of nowehere. I did find that this added to the erudite and syntopical charm of the work however, once I got used to it.

Would recommend this work if your interested in Humanism, it's a short read.

[Scott Bielinski · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book with a very weird structure and an unfortunately prejudicial reading of the development of theological/philosophical thought. Thus, the book fails to adequately capture the beginnings of humanism and its development.

[Nik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poorly laid out in order to portray a history of humanism

[Smiley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Focusing on literary studies/cultural studies, this book should be “essential for anyone approaching the study of humanism, post-modernism or cultural theory” (back cover). From its five chapters, the author has told us not to read them respectively, rather he said, “The sequence of the chapters that follow - … - may look eccentric; and it might seem that a reader hoping for a straight-forward chronological narrative would do better to start at the end, then read chapter 3 and 4, before turning back finally to the first two.” (pp. 6-7) However, I found reading them as advised still tough due to ‘humanism’ itself but kept going because “the term has been adopted for a variety of cultural and political purposes and contexts. Reactions against humanism have contributed to movements such as structuralism, postmodernism and postcolonialism.” (back cover)

[johan _5179 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear, concise and easy to read and follow,Davies' 'Humanism' tackles the complex issue of finding some coherence in the homogenous baggage which the word Humanism carries. Davies looks at the issue from multiple perspectives of history, philosophy and politics. All in all, it is a very good book for a student, and is highly recommended to one and all.

[Gebo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an investigation of the usage of the word "humanism" throughout history. It helps people to understand movements like anti-humanism and to be able to make sense of why terms like that can identify people who are still very much "humanistic" given the contemporary usage of the term.