Elements and variants

There is a vast variety of usages of the term “humanism.” Humanism is commonly associated with what was called the studia humaniora in late medieval and early modern times. Reading classical authors such as Cicero or Seneca, and later Plato and Aristotle, expressed a humanistic attitude in education and learning. Italian Renaissance humanists like Petrarch recommended reading the Latin and Greek texts of ancient times. They thought that this would help to develop one's personality, to become mitis and amabilis, mild and friendly. The early humanists of the Italian Renaissance did not see scholarship as an end in itself. Scholarship was merely a side-effect of a general program of human refinement.

Let us take this as the first key element of humanism: the idea that human nature is not given, that it can be refined and that education and learning is an adequate means to refine human nature. The idea of educating the human personality is a key element of humanism at all times. It rests on a tradition of philosophical thought that has its origins in Socrates and Plato. For them, instead of authorities, instead of political institutions, instead of holy texts it is reason alone that justifies belief and action. All Platonic dialogues are constructed around this philosophical stance. “Truth” is “adequately justified true belief,” as Socrates argues in the Theaetetus dialogue. Rhetoric is a cheating art if it is used to win the battle of arguments instead of finding out the truth.