[lit-ideas] Humanism as a Social Construction

-- Now, I would also think, inspired by comments by Wager, that it may be  
possible to see Humanism as a 'social construction', i.e. as a rather 
artificial 
 philosophy that started in the Renaissance.
 
In that sense, 'Analytic Philosophy' would _not_ be humanist. Why, I've  
studied analytic philosophy for some time (I have hardly studied anything else) 
 
and we _never_ did study the concept 'man'. [Although I did have a course 
called  "Philosophical Anthropology" where the tutor, a German, was into 
anti-humanism,  "Die Mensch" in the anthropobiological sense that he saw 
humanity as a  
_disease_.
 
On the other hand, in later writings, H. P. Grice, the epitome of analytic  
philosophy, became a sort of humanist, when he would say that while the concept 
 'man' is extensional, the concept 'human' is INTENSIONAL. There is a  
transcendental gap between one class and the other, made by axiological means.  
That 
while it would not be immoral to kill _men_, it would be immoral to kill  
_humans_. 
 
Cheers,
 
JL
   Buenos Aires, Argentina
      author of "Self-Made Man: The Historical  Origins of Humanism"



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