humanism

is 'the responsible use of reason' and 'human experience in the real world' as the grounds for moral choices.

humanism, if one believes that moral choices should be grounded in 'the responsible use of reason' and 'human experience in the real world' then one is a humanist.[2]

is a (flawed) ideology that suggests there is a universal essence of man. Humanism gives rise to the concept of man (or human nature, or the human subject) as an unproblematic and stable center. The idea of man must be abolished.

humanism is characterised by two complementary and indissociable postulates: '(i) that there is a universal essence of man... (ii) that this essence is the attribute of 'each single individual' who is its real subject' (For Marx, p. 228... the italicised phrase is a direct reference to Marx's sixth thesis on Feuerbach). Humanism gives rise to the concept of 'man' which, says Althusser, must be abolished: 'It is impossible to know anything about men except on the absolute precondition that the philosophical (theoretical) myth of man is reduced to ashes' (p.229). Against Humanism Althusser contends that 'The human subject is decentred, constituted by a structure which has no 'centre' either, except in the imaginary misrecognition of the ego that is to say in the ideological formations where it finds recognition' (Lenin and Philosophy, p. 201)

is a failed movement to liberate human kind from the dead weight of tradition but instead declining into a tradition itself, oppressing humankind. Humanism is dead, and good riddance.

While humanism may have started as amovement to liberate humankind from the dead weight of tradition, it has declined into a tradition itself, so the story goes, oppressing humankind in its turn. It is therefore to be resisted and undermined wherever possible. As far as post-structuralism and postmodernism are concerned, humanism is dead and goodriddance too, seems to be the general reaction. Time to reassess where we are going culturally: 'Why do we have to save money and time to the point where this imperative seems like thelaw of our lives'', Lyotard demands, dramatising the point that we have internalised the dynamics of modernity into our very being, as9if that were the only possible way to behave. Modernity and humanism conspire to be a particularly sophisticated form of social brainwashing. (sims 'lyotard and the inhuman: 13)

is a problematic ideology that does not enrich man, but that restricts desire by creating submissive man.

is a problematic kind of 'subjected sovereignty' whereby western man is told 'the more you refuse and submit to power, the more you are an obedient 'subject' the more your sovereignty is increased.

is a way of defining man in the not-incorrect albeit incomplete terms of human reason.

According to Heidegger, humanism has traditionally defined man as animal rationale-- the animal with reason. While this definition is not false, it nevertheless fails to address the more fundamental question concerning the ground of human existence itself, which he calls 'eksistence.' Heidegger's position, then, is not so much a rejection of humanism as a call for a radical rethinking of the very essence of human beings.' The Continental Ethics Reader By Matthew Calarco, Peter Atterto p.95)

is absolute subjectivity. That is, not the absolute identity of the subject with the infinite, but rather the fulfillment (that is, the infinite as the 'end' and 'overcoming' of finitude).

Humanism, however, is the name in Marx for absolute subjectivity, but taken in a particular way. As absolute subjectivity it is not the 'ontotheological' absolute identity of the subject with the infinite, but rather the fulfilment (the infinite as the 'end' and 'overcoming' of finitude.

is an expression of reactionary socialism.

. . humanism which he considered, following Marx, as an expression of 'reactionary socialism . . .

humanism, n.Definitions

humanism