The Humanist Movement In Modern Britain

Author : Callum G. Brown,David Nash,Charlie Lynch
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 345 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2022-12-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781350136632

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The Humanist Movement in Modern Britain by Callum G. Brown,David Nash,Charlie Lynch Pdf

Humanists have been a major force in British life since the turn of the 20th century. Here, leading historians of religious non-belief Callum Brown, David Nash, and Charlie Lynch examine how humanist organisations brought ethical reform and rationalism to the nation as it faced the moral issues of the modern world. This book provides a long overdue account of this dynamic group. Developing through the Ethical Union (1896), the Rationalist Press Association (1899), the British Humanist Association (1963) and Humanists UK (2017), Humanists sought to reduce religious privilege but increase humanitarian compassion and human rights. After pioneering legislation on blasphemy laws, dignity in dying and abortion rights, they went on to help design new laws on gay marriage, and sex and moral education. Internationally, they endeavoured to end war and world hunger. And with Humanist marriages and celebration of life through Humanist funerals, national ritual and culture have recently been transformed. Based on extensive archival and oral-history research, this is the definitive history of Humanists as an ethical force in modern Britain.

Author : Andrew Copson,Luke Donnellan,Richard Norman
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 225 pages
File Size : 51,6 Mb
Release : 2022-09-30
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781000645385

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Understanding Humanism by Andrew Copson,Luke Donnellan,Richard Norman Pdf

Understanding Humanism is an easy-to-read and informative overview of the beliefs, practices, and values of humanism as a non-religious worldview. This short and lively book explores humanism both as a broad historical tradition of thought and as a stance embodied in organised institutions. It sets out clearly and systematically the beliefs and values of humanism as well as the reality and personal experience of living as a humanist today. Questions discussed in this book include: How do humanists see the relation between science and religious belief? Is humanism wedded to science as the only valid form of knowledge? What value do humanists place on the arts, and can they value religious art? Does the emphasis on human responsibility depend on an untenable belief in 'free will', and is this undermined by psychology and neuroscience? Do humanists think that life is sacred? What account would humanists give of the basis of human rights, and why they are important? Does humanism entail that human life is meaningless and pointless? Can humanists meet the challenge of nihilism? Understanding Humanism provides a reliable and easily digestible introduction to the field. By exploring these questions and inviting readers to engage with the arguments, it serves as the ideal textbook for those approaching the topic of humanism for the first time.

Author : Brian Maxson
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 301 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2014
Category : Electronic books
ISBN : 1107701996

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The Humanist World of Renaissance Florence by Brian Maxson Pdf

"This book offers a major contribution for understanding the spread and appeal of the humanist movement in Renaissance Florence. Investigating the connections between the individuals who were part of the humanist movement, Brian Jeffrey Maxson reconstructs the networks that bound them together. Overturning the problematic categorization of humanists as either professional or amateurs, a distinction based on economics and the production of original works in Latin, he offers a new way of understanding how the humanist movement could incorporate so many who were illiterate in Latin, but who nonetheless were responsible for an important intellectual and cultural paradigm shift. The book demonstrates the massive appeal of the humanist movement across socio-economic and political groups and argues that the movement became so successful and so widespread because by the 1420s-30s the demands of common rituals began requiring humanist speeches. Over time, deep humanist learning became more valuable in the marketplace of social capital, which raised the status of the most learned humanists and helped disseminate humanist ideas beyond Florence."--Publisher's description.

Author : Helen Wilcox
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 334 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 1996-11-13
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0521467772

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Women and Literature in Britain, 1500-1700 by Helen Wilcox Pdf

First comprehensive introduction to women's role in, and access to, literary culture in early modern Britain.

Author : Riccardo Fubini
Publisher : Duke University Press
Page : 319 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2003-01-22
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780822384014

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Humanism and Secularization by Riccardo Fubini Pdf

The Renaissance movement known as humanism eventually spread from Italy through all of western Europe, transforming early modern culture in ways that are still being felt and debated. Central to these debates—and to this book—is the question of whether (and how) the humanist movement contributed to the secularization of Western cultural traditions at the end of the Middle Ages. A preeminent scholar of Italian humanism, Riccardo Fubini approaches this question in a new way—by redefining the problem of secularization more carefully to show how humanists can at once be secularizers and religious thinkers. The result is a provocative vision of the humanist movement. Humanism and Secularization offers a nuanced account of humanists contesting medieval ideas about authority not in order to reject Christianity or even orthodoxy, but to claim for themselves the right to define what it meant to be a Christian. Fubini analyzes key texts by major humanists—isuch as Petrarch, Poggio, and Valla—from the first century of the movement. As he subtly works out these authors’ views on religion and the Church from both biographical and textual information, Fubini reveals in detail the new historical consciousness that animated the humanists in their reading of classical and patristic texts. His book as a whole shows convincingly just how radical the humanism of the first half of the fifteenth century was and how sharply it challenged well-entrenched ideas and institutions. Appearing here in English for the first time, his work provides a model set of readings of humanist texts and a critical perspective on Italian humanism that will alter and enrich discussion and understanding of the nature of the humanist movement.

Author : Stephen Law
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 169 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2011-01-27
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780199553648

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Humanism: A Very Short Introduction by Stephen Law Pdf

Summary: Philosopher Stephen Law explains why humanism--though a rejection of religion--nevertheless provides both a moral basis and a meaning for our lives.-publisher description.

Author : Tony Davies
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 161 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2006-10-19
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781134836123

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Humanism by Tony Davies Pdf

Humanism offers students a clear and lucid introductory guide to the complexities of Humanism, one of the most contentious and divisive of artistic or literary concepts. Showing how the concept has evolved since the Renaissance period, Davies discusses humanism in the context of the rise of Fascism, the onset of World War II, the Holocaust, and their aftermath. Humanism provides basic definitions and concepts, a critique of the religion of humanity, and necessary background on religious, sexual and political themes of modern life and thought, while enlightening the debate between humanism, modernism and antihumanism through the writings and works of such key figures as Pico Erasmus, Milton, Nietzsche, and Foucault.

Author : Brian Jeffrey Maxson
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 313 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2013-12-30
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781107660861

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The Humanist World of Renaissance Florence by Brian Jeffrey Maxson Pdf

This book offers a major contribution for understanding the spread of the humanist movement in Renaissance Florence. Investigating the connections between individuals who were part of the humanist movement, Maxson reconstructs the networks that bound them together. Overturning the problematic categorization of humanists as either professional or amateurs, a distinction based on economics and the production of original works in Latin, he offers a new way of understanding how the humanist movement could incorporate so many who were illiterate in Latin, but who nonetheless were responsible for an intellectual and cultural paradigm shift. The book demonstrates the massive appeal of the humanist movement across socio-economic and political groups, and argues that the movement became so successful and widespread because by the 1420s–30s the demands of common rituals began requiring humanist speeches. Over time, humanist learning became more valuable as social capital, which raised the status of the most learned humanists and helped disseminate humanist ideas beyond Florence.

Author : Sara A. Underwood
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 348 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 1876
Category : Free thought
ISBN : BL:A0026107782

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Heroines of Freethought by Sara A. Underwood Pdf

Author : Jill Kraye,Martin William Francis Stone
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2000
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 0415186161

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Humanism and Early Modern Philosophy by Jill Kraye,Martin William Francis Stone Pdf

Annotation. Focusing on individual authors as well as intellectual trends, this book aims to portray the humanist movement as an essential part of the philosophy of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Author : Callum G. Brown
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2017-01-12
Category : History
ISBN : 9781474224550

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Becoming Atheist by Callum G. Brown Pdf

The Western World is becoming atheist. In the space of three generations churchgoing and religious belief have become alien to millions. We are in the midst of one of humankind's great cultural changes. How has this happened? Becoming Atheist explores how people of the sixties' generation have come to live their lives as if there is no God. It tells the life narratives of those from Britain, Western Europe, the United States and Canada who came from Christian, Jewish and other backgrounds to be without faith. Based on interviews with 85 people born in 18 countries, Callum Brown shows how gender, ethnicity and childhood shape how individuals lose religion. This book moves from statistical and broad cultural analysis to use frank, humorous and sometimes harrowing personal testimony. Becoming Atheist exposes people's role in renegotiating their own identities, and fashioning a secular and humanist culture for the Western world.

Author : Nicolas Walter
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 148 pages
File Size : 45,5 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : History
ISBN : PSU:000033643342

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Humanism by Nicolas Walter Pdf

What is a humanist? After an introduction to the earliest ideas of, and terms for, humanism in the ancient world, noted humanist Nicolas Walter explores the history of humanism and its evolving definitions from the time of the original appearance and first meanings of "humanist" in the Italian Renaissance, concluding with a manifesto of modern humanism. Drawing on personal experience and information from more than 400 sources, this is the first full-length treatment of the subject.

Author : Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 55 pages
File Size : 54,5 Mb
Release : 2012-03-27
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781596983014

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Oration on the Dignity of Man by Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola Pdf

An ardent treatise for the Dignity of Man, which elevates Humanism to a truly Christian level, making this writing as pertinent today as it was in the Fifteenth Century.

Author : Joseph M. Levine
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 301 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2019-05-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781501746000

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Humanism and History by Joseph M. Levine Pdf

In this thoughtful and engaging book, Joseph M. Levine reveals how Renaissance humanists and their neoclassical progeny transformed the ways that the English practices history and viewed the past. Between 1500 and 1800, many of the methods of modern historiography were first introduced into England, where they developed under the influence of classical philology and the study of antiquities. English scholars gradually differentiated past from present and successfully detected and recovered the ancient Roman, Saxon, Celtic, and Norman cultures. A first attempt was also made to distinguish historical fact from fiction, and such legends as the Trojan origins of Britain and the Donation of Constantine were rejected. Levine sets the scene for these developments with an examination of the historical outlook of William Caxton at the end of the Middle Ages; he concludes with an essay on Edward Gibbon, whose work three centuries later, he argues, summarizes the whole achievement of early modern historiography. Along the way, Levine investigates such topics as the transformation the antiquarian enterprise into modern archaeology, the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns, the Gothic revival, and the influence of humanism on Francis Bacon and the new philosophy.

Author : James Hankins
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 769 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2019-12-17
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780674242524

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Virtue Politics by James Hankins Pdf

Winner of the Helen and Howard Marraro Prize A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year “Perhaps the greatest study ever written of Renaissance political thought.” —Jeffrey Collins, Times Literary Supplement “Magisterial...Hankins shows that the humanists’ obsession with character explains their surprising indifference to particular forms of government. If rulers lacked authentic virtue, they believed, it did not matter what institutions framed their power.” —Wall Street Journal “Puts the politics back into humanism in an extraordinarily deep and far-reaching way...For generations to come, all who write about the political thought of Italian humanism will have to refer to it; its influence will be...nothing less than transformative.” —Noel Malcolm, American Affairs “[A] masterpiece...It is only Hankins’s tireless exploration of forgotten documents...and extraordinary endeavors of editing, translation, and exposition that allow us to reconstruct—almost for the first time in 550 years—[the humanists’] three compelling arguments for why a strong moral character and habits of truth are vital for governing well. Yet they are as relevant to contemporary democracy in Britain, and in the United States, as to Machiavelli.” —Rory Stewart, Times Literary Supplement “The lessons for today are clear and profound.” —Robert D. Kaplan Convulsed by a civilizational crisis, the great thinkers of the Renaissance set out to reconceive the nature of society. Everywhere they saw problems. Corrupt and reckless tyrants sowing discord and ruling through fear; elites who prized wealth and status over the common good; religious leaders preoccupied with self-advancement while feuding armies waged endless wars. Their solution was at once simple and radical. “Men, not walls, make a city,” as Thucydides so memorably said. They would rebuild the fabric of society by transforming the moral character of its citizens. Soulcraft, they believed, was a precondition of successful statecraft. A landmark reappraisal of Renaissance political thought, Virtue Politics challenges the traditional narrative that looks to the Renaissance as the seedbed of modern republicanism and sees Machiavelli as its exemplary thinker. James Hankins reveals that what most concerned the humanists was not reforming institutions so much as shaping citizens. If character mattered more than laws, it would have to be nurtured through a new program of education they called the studia humanitatis: the precursor to our embattled humanities.