Today, the human species is collectively confronting a complex existential crisis comprised of a number of diverse elements: political, economic, religious, technological, and environmental. The globalization of information and commerce has revealed to us the universality and interrelatedness of all of these factors. A Treatise of Humanism is an attempt to address the human crisis through an examination of ourselves: our past, our possibilities for a future, our common rational capacity (which should give us hope), and our common human nature. As a philosophy of humanism, this book shares many ideas with existentialism, and it may in fact be viewed as a work of American existentialism, focused on our common human condition and on what we may need to do to continue to survive and to thrive together, not only as a species of life unified through reason but as an interrelated collectivity of unique human individuals.

From the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, humanism played a key role in European culture. Beginning as a movement based on the recovery, interpretation and imitation of ancient Greek and Roman texts and the archaeological study of the physical remains of antiquity, humanism turned into a dynamic cultural programme, influencing almost every facet of Renaissance intellectual life. The fourteen essays in this 1996 volume deal with all aspects of the movement, from language learning to the development of science, from the effect of humanism on biblical study to its influence on art, from its Italian origins to its manifestations in the literature of More, Sidney and Shakespeare. A detailed biographical index, and a guide to further reading, are provided. Overall, The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism provides a comprehensive introduction to a major movement in the culture of early modern Europe.

Volume IV deals with the 'Middle Ages'. It starts with the expansion of Islam and closes with the discovery of the New World. Various events during this period led to a significant expansion in communications: the rapid spread of Islam and of Gengis Khan's Mongol Empire, as well as the Crusades and the development of trans-Saharan and maritime routes around Africa to the Indian Ocean, leading to multiplied exchanges between the peoples and cultures of Africa, Asia and Europe.

Schillebeeckx's theology is a reflection on the nature of God who is both creator and redeemer: his theology is a 'treatise' on the God who is God for humanity. This means of course that his theology is always both a reflection on the nature of God and on the meaning of humanity; and hence there is a theological anthropology at the centre of his whole theological enterprise. The 'definition' of humanity is given in the relationship between the mystery of God - the God who is both transcendent and immanent - and the mystery of humanity. For Schillebeeckx, the meaning of humanity is revealed and established in the mystery of God as a vocation to intimacy with God. This intimacy is described both as a dependence upon God and as a situated freedom, and hence the description of humanity which emerges from Schillebeeckx's treatise on God holds together humanity's metaphysical and moral significance. At the heart of this theocentric anthropology is its christological structure. Schillebeeckx develops a sacramental christology in light of his interpretation of Christ's incarnation. The relation of incarnation to the death, resurrection and glorification of Christ establishes a sacramental theological anthropology. The meaning of humanity is given in its creative, salvific, sanctifying, participative and personal relation to the God who is God both of creation and of covenant. This book develops an interpretation of Schillebeeckx's theological anthropology by analysing his theology of revelation and grace, and by examining the christological structure of his theology. This christology centres on an interpretation of the incarnation in which the fully personal nature of Christ's humanity is key. This christology establishes the sacramental nature of humanity and hence Schillebeeckx's description of the meaning of human nature is also a theological description of the meaning of human action.

By far the best collection of sources to introduce readers to Renaissance humanism in all its many guises. What distinguishes this stimulating and useful anthology is the vision behind it: King shows that Renaissance thinkers had a lot to say, not only about the ancient world--one of their habitual passions--but also about the self, how civic experience was configured, the arts, the roles and contributions of women, the new science, the 'new' world, and so much more. --Christopher S. Celenza, Johns Hopkins University

"The Oxford Handbook of Humanism aims to cover the history, the philosophical development, and the influence humanist thought and culture. As a system of thought that values human needs and experiences over supernatural concerns, humanism has gained greater attention amid the rapidly shifting demographics of religious communities, especially in Europe and North America. This outlook on the world has taken on global dimensions as well, with activists, artists, and thinkers forming a humanistic response not only to traditional religion, but to the pressing social and political issues of the 21st century. To address these areas, the chapters in this volume discuss humanism as a global phenomenon-an approach that has often been neglected in more Western-focused works. The Handbook will also approach humanism as both an opponent to traditional religion as well as a philosophy that some religions have explicitly adopted. Sections are divided into regional studies, intellectual histories, humanist organizations and movements, the impact on culture, humanism in the public arena, and influence of humanism on social issues. Keywords: Humanism, atheism, unbelief, free-thought, secularism, philosophy, religious studies, sociology, history"--

This study of the foremost patristic scholar in 15th-century Florence is based almost exclusively on manuscript letters and incunabula in Greek, Latin, and Italian. The influence of the revival of patristic studies on the meaning and purpose of Renaissance learning emerges as one of the original considerations in this book which should be of interest to humanists, generally, but also to art historians, intellectual history researchers, theologians, and philosophers.

humanism /'hju:meniz(e)m/ n. an outlook or system of thought concerned with human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Albert Einstein, Isaac Asimov, E.M. Forster, Bertrand Russell, and Gloria Steinem all declared themselves humanists. What is humanism and why does it matter? Is there any doctrine every humanist must hold? If it rejects religion, what does it offer in its place? Have the twentieth century's crimes against humanity spelled the end for humanism? On Humanism is a timely and powerfully argued philosophical defence of humanism. It is also an impassioned plea that we turn to ourselves, not religion, if we want to answer Socrates' age-old question: what is the best kind of life to lead? Although humanism has much in common with science, Richard Norman shows that it is far from a denial of the more mysterious, fragile side of being human. He deals with big questions such as the environment, Darwinism and 'creation science', euthanasia and abortion, and then argues that it is ultimately through the human capacity for art, literature and the imagination that humanism is a powerful alternative to religious belief. Drawing on a varied range of examples from Aristotle to Primo Levi and the novels of Virginia Woolf and Graham Swift, On Humanism is a lucid and much needed reflection on this much talked about but little understood phenomenon.

The Enlightenment era saw European thinkers increasingly concerned with what it meant to be human. This collection of essays traces the concept of ‘humanity’ through revolutionary politics, feminist biography, portraiture, explorer narratives, libertine and Orientalist fiction, the philosophy of conversation and musicology.

The author contends that the traditional views of puritan social thought have done a great injustice to the intellectual history of the 16th-century. Margo Todd reveals the puritans to be the heirs to a complex intellectual legacy.