Interpretations of Humanism: Western Humanisms from the Renaissance to Present

Humanistic thought in our century is in grave disarray, declares Italian chemist and fantasy novelist Puledda in this stimulating inquiry. Sartre's postwar humanist existentialism, which urges the individual to militant struggle against unfreedom, has found minimal political expression, observes the author. Theocentric Christian humanists such as Jacques Maritain are beset by self-contradictions, in Puledda's estimation, while Marxist humanists (Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm) have fallen out of fashion, although he credits socialist humanism as an inspiration for Gorbachev's perestroika. Puledda soundly critiques Heidegger, who dismissed Western humanist philosophy as ""metaphysics,"" and he labels as antihumanist Claude Levi-Strauss's structuralism as well as Michel Foucault's ""Nietzschean"" approach to the nexus of power and knowledge. Drawing on the ""New Humanism"" of Argentinean essayist and storyteller Mario Rodriguez Cobos (pen name Silo), Puledda defines humanism as a creative attitude, a perspective in facing life, a commitment to eliminating oppression, violence and discrimination. His concise, lucid survey of humanist currents from the Renaissance to psychotherapist Viktor Frankl makes this book a springboard for thought and action. (Apr.)