Blurry humanism

a reply to Michael Lynch

Chris Calvert-Minor

pp. 147-152

in: Human Studies 37 (1), 2014.

Abstract

Humanism is blurry. It can have some clarity, but it is mainly blurry. To say anything otherwise is to fool oneself. Yes, we can construct reasonable humanistic theories that attempt to organize our understanding, such as methodologicalhumanism where one unifies discourses or practices according to human subjects or substantivehumanismthat touts the importance of humanity via some shared attribute or substance. But to suggest that one can delineate and define the full salience of humanity, whether great or small, in the world we live and understand is to suppose a divine clarity that eludes our possession. Theorists use terms like ‘social causes,’ ‘matter,’ ‘construction,’ and ‘interpretation’ to help us figure out how our cognition and rationality work, and yet they woefully fail to capture the richness of our experiences, which blur distinctions between society and matter all the time. Every account of humanism should take stock of this difficulty, being careful to say only what...

Cited authors

Lynch Michael