Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-wq484 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T09:51:37.390Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Humanism and Embodiment: Remarks on Cause and Effect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Susan E. Babbitt
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I understand humanism to be the meta‐ethical view that there exist discoverable (nonmoral) truths about the human condition, that is, about what it means to be human. We might think that as long as I believe I am realizing my unique human potential, I cannot be reasonably contradicted. Yet when we consider systemic oppression, this is unlikely. Systemic oppression makes dehumanizing conditions and treatment seem reasonable. In this paper, I consider the nature of understanding—drawing in particular upon recent defenses of realism in the philosophy of science—and argue that humanism makes sense if we recognize more thoroughly the role of cause and effect in practical deliberation. By this I mean the cause‐and‐effect relation between mind and body and between minds, bodies, and the world. Three philosophical sources—Marxism, Buddhism and Christianity—show what this might mean, as I indicate in the second half of the paper.

Type
Open Issue Content
Information
Hypatia , Volume 28 , Issue 4 , Fall 2013 , pp. 733 - 748
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by Hypatia, Inc.

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.)

References

Babbitt, S. E. 2011. Secularism, ethics, philosophy: A case for epistemic humility. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 31 (1): 4–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Badiou, Alain. 2003. Saint Paul: The foundation of universalism. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bodhi, Bhikkhu. 2005. In the Buddha's words: An anthology of discourses from the Pāli canon. Boston, Mass: Wisdom Publications.Google Scholar
Boyd, Richard. 1983. On the current status of the issue of scientific realism. Erkenntnis 19 (4): 45–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Richard. 1985. Observations, explanatory power, and simplicity. In Observation, experiment, and hypothesis in modern physical science, ed. Achinstein, P. and Hannaway, O.Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Boyd, Richard. 1990. Realism, conventionality, and “realism about.” In Meaning and method, ed. Boolos, G.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Eagleton, Terry. 2010. Reason, faith, and revolution: Reflections on the God debate. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Fanon, Frantz. 1963. Wretched of the earth. New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Fine, A. 1984. The natural ontological attitude. In Scientific Realism, ed. Leplin, J.Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hart, Armando. 2006. Ética, política, y cultura. Havana: Centro de estudios martianos.Google Scholar
Hawking, Stephen, and Cox, Brian. 2010. Gods of science: Stephen Hawking and Brian Cox discuss mind over matter. The Guardian Weekly, September 24–30.Google Scholar
Illich, Ivan. 1971. Deschooling society. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Illich, Ivan, and Cayley, David. 2005. The rivers north of the future: The testament of Ivan Illich. Toronto: House of Anansi Press.Google Scholar
Ionesco, Eugène. 1959. Rhinoceros. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 1982. Abusing science: The case against creationism. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1970. The structure of scientific revolutions, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S., and Giles, Steve, eds.2003. Brecht on art and politics. London: Methuen Drama.Google Scholar
Lenin, V. I. 1961a. On the question of dialectics. In Collected Works, vol. 38, ed. Smith, Stewart. Trans. Clemens Dutt. London: Lawrence and Wishart.Google Scholar
Lenin, V. I. 1961b. Conspectus of Hegel's book The Science of Logic. In Collected Works, vol. 38, ed. Smith, Stewart. Trans. Clemens Dutt. London: Lawrence and Wishart.Google Scholar
Martí, José. 2002. Our America. In José Martí: Selected writings, ed. Allen, Esther and González Echevarría, Roberto. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Maté, Gabor. 2008. In the realm of hungry ghosts: Close encounters with addiction. Toronto: Vintage Canada.Google Scholar
Mayr, Ernst. 1970. Populations, species, and evolution: An abridgement of Animal Species and Evolution. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Mayr, Ernst. 1982. The growth of biological thought: Diversity, evolution, and inheritance. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Merton, Thomas. 1968. The new consciousness. In Zen and the birds of appetite. New York: New Directions.Google Scholar
Merton, Thomas. 2004. Introduction. In The way of Chuang Tzu. Boston: Shambhala Publications.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. 1969. Natural kinds. In Ontological relativity and other essays, ed. Quine, W. V. O.New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saramago, José. 2002. From justice to democracy by way of the bells. World Social Forum, March 9, 2002, Puerto Alegre, Brazil, www.znet.org/content/VisionStrategy/Saramogobell.cfm (accessed July 2, 2002).Google Scholar
Sartre, Jean Paul. 1963. Preface. In Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the earth. New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Spelman, Elizabeth V. 1988. Inessential woman: Problems of exclusion in feminist thought. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 2005. Foreword. In Ivan Illich, Rivers north of the future: The testament of Ivan Illich, as told to David Cayley. Toronto: House of Anansi Press.Google Scholar
Wood, Allen W. 2004. Karl Marx: Second Edition. New York and London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar