العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
EspañolANTIHUMANISM
(Redirected from Antihumanist)
'Antihumanism' is a term applied to a number of thinkers critical of Enlightenment-era values. Central to antihumanism are the notions that talk of human nature or of "man" or "humanity" in the abstract should be rejected as historically relative, or as metaphysical, as well as the rejection of the view of humans as autonomous subjects.
In the late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century, the philosophy of humanism was a cornerstone of the Enlightenment. Because it was believed there was a universal moral core to humanity, it followed that all persons could be said to be inherently free and equal. For liberal humanists such as Rousseau or Kant, the universal law of reason guided the way towards total emancipation from any kind of tyranny.
Such ideas did not go unchallenged. The young Karl Marx criticised the project of political emancipation (embodied in the form of human rights), asserting it to be symptomatic of the very dehumanisation it is supposed to oppose. Marx argued that because, under capitalism, egoistic individuals are constantly in conflict with one another, rights are needed to protect them from one another. True emancipation can only come through the establishment of communism, which abolishes all private property. While the mature Marx may have retained a belief in the inevitability of progress, he also became more forceful in his criticism of the concept of human rights as idealist or utopian. For the mature Marx, "humanity" is an unreal abstraction: because rights themselves are abstract, the justice and equality they protect is also abstract, permitting extreme inequalities in reality.
For Friedrich Nietzsche, humanism was nothing more than a secular version of theism. In his ''Genealogy of Morals,'' he argues that human rights exist as a means for the weak to collectively constrain the strong. On this view, such rights do not facilitate emancipation of life, but rather deny it.
In the twentieth-century, the notion that human beings are rationally autonomous was challenged by Sigmund Freud, who believed humans to be driven by unconscious irrational desires.
Martin Heidegger criticised humanism on a number of grounds. Heidegger believed humanism to be a metaphysical philosophy, in that it ascribes to man a universal essence, and privileges him above all else. For Heidegger, humanism takes consciousness as the paradigm of philosophy, leading it to a subjectivism and idealism that must be avoided. What is more, Heidegger (like Hegel before him) rejected the Kantian notion of autonomy, claiming humans to be social and historical beings. Heidegger also rejected Kant's notion of a constituting consciousness, that constructs the world around it. In spite of this, Heidegger was claimed as a forebear to the ostensibly humanist movement of existentialism, leading him to distance himself from humanism in his 1947 "Letter on Humanism."
The development of structuralism was initially greeted as a means of overcoming the problematic concept of "man". Much as modern empirical science had replaced philosophical speculation about the nature of "matter", so would abstract philosophical speculation be superseded by concrete sciences such as linguistics (Saussure) or anthropology (Levi-Strauss).
When Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser coined the term "antihumanism," it was directed against Marxist humanists, which he considered a revisionist movement. It meant a radical opposition to the philosophy of the subject, which Althusser considered was the form of "ideological thought" in force in the Western world for several centuries. This "structural Marxism" was a philosophy, based on Marx's thought, which considers "social relations" to be primary over individual consciousness. For example, Althusser opposed himself to John Lewis, stating that it was not "man" who made history, but the "masses", that is, the proletariat. Antihumanism thus is a term meant to signify Althusser's opposition to individualism, which is qualified as an ideology.
Closely related to Althusser's antihumanism were the philosophies of post-structuralists such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. While their philosophies are quite different, they both problematize the subject. A common neologism for this is "the decentered subject", implying that the human subject does not have agency. For instance, Jacques Derrida argues for the fundamentally ambiguous nature of language, thus making intention unknowable and leaving language to structure and govern our thoughts and actions. Michel Foucault, in ''The Order of Things,'' argues that there is a basis for knowledge in every epoch, what he calls episteme. He argues that our present time is the "Age of Man" and he envisions and supports a time where thought moves beyond the human as the object of inquiry.
The semiological work of Roland Barthes (1977) decried the cult of the author and indeed proclaimed his death, whilst other social scientists advocated that in postmodern terms, the humanism model in literary texts created a problematic condition. Classic realism narratives cannot maintain the chaos of a dysfunctional content as the subject struggles in opposition against dominant cultural principles.
Critics of antihumanism, most notably Jürgen Habermas, claim that while antihumanists may highlight humanism's failure to fulfil its emancipatory ideal, they do not offer an alternate emancipatory project of their own. While Habermas accepts some criticisms levelled at traditional humanism, he believes that humanism must be rethought and revised rather than simply abandoned.
★ Humanism
★ Misanthropology
★ Modernism
★ Postmodernism
★ Post-structuralism
★ Structuralism
★ Structural Marxism
★ Marx's theory of human nature
★ Roland Barthes, ''Image: Music: Text'' (1977)
★ Michel Foucault, ''The Order of Things'' (1966)
★ Michel Foucault, ''Discipline and Punish'' (1977)
★ Martin Heidegger, "Letter on Humanism" (1947) reprinted in ''Basic Writings''
★ Karl Marx, "On the Jewish Question" (1843) reprinted in ''Early Writings''
★ Friedrich Nietzsche, ''On the Genealogy of Morals'' (1887)
'Antihumanism' is a term applied to a number of thinkers critical of Enlightenment-era values. Central to antihumanism are the notions that talk of human nature or of "man" or "humanity" in the abstract should be rejected as historically relative, or as metaphysical, as well as the rejection of the view of humans as autonomous subjects.
| Contents |
| Origins |
| Structuralism, Post-structuralism and Postmodernism |
| Criticism |
| See also |
| References |
Origins
In the late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century, the philosophy of humanism was a cornerstone of the Enlightenment. Because it was believed there was a universal moral core to humanity, it followed that all persons could be said to be inherently free and equal. For liberal humanists such as Rousseau or Kant, the universal law of reason guided the way towards total emancipation from any kind of tyranny.
Such ideas did not go unchallenged. The young Karl Marx criticised the project of political emancipation (embodied in the form of human rights), asserting it to be symptomatic of the very dehumanisation it is supposed to oppose. Marx argued that because, under capitalism, egoistic individuals are constantly in conflict with one another, rights are needed to protect them from one another. True emancipation can only come through the establishment of communism, which abolishes all private property. While the mature Marx may have retained a belief in the inevitability of progress, he also became more forceful in his criticism of the concept of human rights as idealist or utopian. For the mature Marx, "humanity" is an unreal abstraction: because rights themselves are abstract, the justice and equality they protect is also abstract, permitting extreme inequalities in reality.
For Friedrich Nietzsche, humanism was nothing more than a secular version of theism. In his ''Genealogy of Morals,'' he argues that human rights exist as a means for the weak to collectively constrain the strong. On this view, such rights do not facilitate emancipation of life, but rather deny it.
In the twentieth-century, the notion that human beings are rationally autonomous was challenged by Sigmund Freud, who believed humans to be driven by unconscious irrational desires.
Martin Heidegger criticised humanism on a number of grounds. Heidegger believed humanism to be a metaphysical philosophy, in that it ascribes to man a universal essence, and privileges him above all else. For Heidegger, humanism takes consciousness as the paradigm of philosophy, leading it to a subjectivism and idealism that must be avoided. What is more, Heidegger (like Hegel before him) rejected the Kantian notion of autonomy, claiming humans to be social and historical beings. Heidegger also rejected Kant's notion of a constituting consciousness, that constructs the world around it. In spite of this, Heidegger was claimed as a forebear to the ostensibly humanist movement of existentialism, leading him to distance himself from humanism in his 1947 "Letter on Humanism."
Structuralism, Post-structuralism and Postmodernism
The development of structuralism was initially greeted as a means of overcoming the problematic concept of "man". Much as modern empirical science had replaced philosophical speculation about the nature of "matter", so would abstract philosophical speculation be superseded by concrete sciences such as linguistics (Saussure) or anthropology (Levi-Strauss).
When Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser coined the term "antihumanism," it was directed against Marxist humanists, which he considered a revisionist movement. It meant a radical opposition to the philosophy of the subject, which Althusser considered was the form of "ideological thought" in force in the Western world for several centuries. This "structural Marxism" was a philosophy, based on Marx's thought, which considers "social relations" to be primary over individual consciousness. For example, Althusser opposed himself to John Lewis, stating that it was not "man" who made history, but the "masses", that is, the proletariat. Antihumanism thus is a term meant to signify Althusser's opposition to individualism, which is qualified as an ideology.
Closely related to Althusser's antihumanism were the philosophies of post-structuralists such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. While their philosophies are quite different, they both problematize the subject. A common neologism for this is "the decentered subject", implying that the human subject does not have agency. For instance, Jacques Derrida argues for the fundamentally ambiguous nature of language, thus making intention unknowable and leaving language to structure and govern our thoughts and actions. Michel Foucault, in ''The Order of Things,'' argues that there is a basis for knowledge in every epoch, what he calls episteme. He argues that our present time is the "Age of Man" and he envisions and supports a time where thought moves beyond the human as the object of inquiry.
The semiological work of Roland Barthes (1977) decried the cult of the author and indeed proclaimed his death, whilst other social scientists advocated that in postmodern terms, the humanism model in literary texts created a problematic condition. Classic realism narratives cannot maintain the chaos of a dysfunctional content as the subject struggles in opposition against dominant cultural principles.
Criticism
Critics of antihumanism, most notably Jürgen Habermas, claim that while antihumanists may highlight humanism's failure to fulfil its emancipatory ideal, they do not offer an alternate emancipatory project of their own. While Habermas accepts some criticisms levelled at traditional humanism, he believes that humanism must be rethought and revised rather than simply abandoned.
See also
★ Humanism
★ Misanthropology
★ Modernism
★ Postmodernism
★ Post-structuralism
★ Structuralism
★ Structural Marxism
★ Marx's theory of human nature
References
★ Roland Barthes, ''Image: Music: Text'' (1977)
★ Michel Foucault, ''The Order of Things'' (1966)
★ Michel Foucault, ''Discipline and Punish'' (1977)
★ Martin Heidegger, "Letter on Humanism" (1947) reprinted in ''Basic Writings''
★ Karl Marx, "On the Jewish Question" (1843) reprinted in ''Early Writings''
★ Friedrich Nietzsche, ''On the Genealogy of Morals'' (1887)
This article provided by Wikipedia. To edit the contents of this article, click here for original source.
psst.. try this: add to faves
Featured Companies
| Golf Holidays International | |
| Green Parrot Beach Houses Resort | |
| Century 21 Beltair Associates |
