The three great ages of Western civilization are ancient Greece, the Renaissance, and the modern period of reason, enlightenment, science and democracy. These three great eras are periods in which humanistic thought has flourished.

Although the Western world has been dominated in its religious thought by Judaism and Christianity, humanism remains a strong candidate for any new worldwide philosophic synthesis of religion.

Everywhere we look in the modern world we see signs of humanist influence.

Consider the modern university. Although there are Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and individuals with all sorts of ideological commitments in university centers--the dominant faith in the academic world is humanism.

Humanism is the point of view one is likely to adopt if one surveys and attempts to integrate into a philosophy the scope of human knowledge to be found in physics, the behavioral sciences, the humanities and so forth.

Just as Aristotle's attempt to integrate all that was known led him toward a humanist epistemology, so today the academic finds himself channeled by--his setting towards humanism.

This is not to suggest that humanists in the universities, or anywhere else, are apt to agree on most subjects. On almost every major question, humanists differ from their fellow humanists. The diversity among humanists is well illustrated in psychology. B. F. Skinner, Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, all of them honored and avowed humanists, differed profoundly on the most basic issue of human freedom and human nature. On this question, though, as in so many other cases, we find that the important dialogue is occurring between humanists.

Although humanism is widespread in the academic world, it does not lead to agreement, and most of the significant theoretical discussions in the modern world are taking place among humanists who differ.

These differences between humanists may be more productive of new knowledge, and more to be valued for the contribution made to society at large, than the differences humanists have with non-humanists.

Humanists may be capitalists or Marxists, expounders of free enterprise or of a planned economy, believers in self- ethics or altruism, political activists or scholarly recluses. They do not necessarily come to agreement on the issues they debate.

Humanism is not a final set of strategies or of answers. It is a frame or orientation, an approach to the human situation.

--Paul Beattie
Freethought Forum
Newsletter of Humanists of San Diego