Hostname: page-component-669899f699-7tmb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-30T17:02:25.611Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Humanizing Humanity: The Global Significance of the Humanities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Fred Dallmayr
Fred Dallmayr*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, USA
*
Fred Dallmayr, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA. Email: [email protected]
Get access

Abstract

The essay seeks to vindicate the importance of the humanities or liberal arts deriving from their crucial contribution to the “humanization of humanity”. This vindication is timely in view of the wide-spread curtailment of humanistic or liberal education in many institutions of higher learning. It is also timely as a pedagogical antidote to the fascination with violence in our world (which often culminates in “crimes against humanity”). In a first step, the paper traces the historical development of the humanities or liberal arts in the West. Next, I highlight some crucial features of humanistic education: the emphasis on ethical and character formation; the fine-tuning of moral judgment; and the cultivation of a sensus communis. Another central feature is that such education offers a counterpoint to the overwhelming preoccupation today with career training and utilitarian objectives. In the words of Martha Nussbaum: it is “not for profit”, but serves an intrinsic good. In this respect, humanistic pedagogy bears a close affinity to the needed education for democracy and world citizenship.

Type
Articles
Information
Diogenes , Volume 60 , Issue 1: Universalism in a Multicultural World , February 2013 , pp. 27 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Arendt, H (1958) The Human Condition: A Study of the Central Dilemmas Facing Modern Man. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Blanshard, B (1973) The Uses of a Liberal Education, and Other Talks to Students. La Salle, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar
Bliss, HE (1929) The Organization of Knowledge and the System of the Sciences. New York, NY: Holt.Google Scholar
Boulding, E (1990) Building a Global Civic Culture: Education for an Interdependent World. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N (2011) ‘Public Education under Massive Corporate Assault – What's Next?’, www.alternet.org/story/151921/chomsky%3A_public_education_under_massive_corporate_assault_–_what's_next.Google Scholar
Crick, B (1964) In Defense of Politics. Baltimore: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Dallmayr, FR (1981) ‘Political Science and the Two Cultures.’ In: Beyond Dogma and Despair: Toward a Critical Phenomenology of Politics. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, pp. 21–42.Google Scholar
Dallmayr, FR (2010) ‘Who Are We Now? For an “Other” Humanism.’ In: The Promise of Democracy: Political Agency and Transformation. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, pp. 135–154.Google Scholar
Flint, R (1904) Philosophy as Scientia Scientiarum and a History of Classifications of the Sciences. Edinburgh and London: Blackwood.Google Scholar
Gadamer, H-G (1989) Truth and Method. 2nd revised ed. Translated by Weinsheimer, Joel, Marshall, Donald G. New York: Crossroad.Google Scholar
Habermas, J (1971) Knowledge and Human Interests. Translated by Shapiro, Jeremy J. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Heidegger, M (1962) Being and Time. Translated by Macquarrie, John, Robinson, Edward. New York: Harper.Google Scholar
Heidegger, M (1977) ‘Letter on Humanism.’ In: Krell, DF (ed.) Heidegger M, Basic Writings. New York: Harper & Row, pp. 193–242.Google Scholar
Hennis, W (1963) Politik und praktische Philosophie. Neuwied/Berlin: Luchterhand.Google Scholar
Herder, JG (1967) Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit, with an epilogue by Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Frankfurt-am-Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Kemp, P (2011) Citizen of the World: The Cosmopolitan Ideal of the Twenty-First Century. New York: Humanities Books.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, A (2007) After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, MC (1997) Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, MC (2010) Not for Profit. Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP.Google Scholar
Reid, T (1967) The Philosophical Works. 8th ed. Hildesheim: Georg Olms.Google Scholar
Scheler, M (1926) Die Wissensformen und die Gesellschaft. Leipzig: Der Neue Geist.Google Scholar
Schneider, L (ed.) (1967) The Scottish Moralists on Human Nature and Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sikka, S (2011) Herder on Humanity and Cultural Difference. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.10.1017/CBO9780511783012CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vico, G (1990) On the Study Methods of Our Time []. Translated by Gianturco, Elio, with an introduction by Verene, Donald P. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Washburn, J (2005) University, Inc.: The Corporate Corruption of American Higher Education. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Wriston, HM (1937) The Nature of a Liberal College. Appleton, WI: Lawrence University Press.Google Scholar