Introduction to Part 1

What is humanism?

The question ‘What is humanism?’ is not an easy question to answer. Different people will describe humanism in different ways.

Rather than attempt to define humanism here at the beginning, the course will lead you through the different beliefs and values typically held by humanists. By the end of the course, through the search for what lies in the centre of the overlapping circles of this Venn diagram, you will be able to decide whether you feel there are any necessary or sufficient requirements for being a humanist. Are there any specific beliefs a person must hold to be a humanist? Is there any particular set of beliefs that, when held, enables us to define somebody as a humanist?

A related question is, ‘What sort of a thing is humanism?’ A worldview? A lifestance? A religion? A philosophy? An approach to life? Again, we will not start here. If one wished to understand computers, the best thing to do would be to explore how they work and what they do, rather than begin by trying to define what kind of a thing a computer is. That is the approach we will adopt in this course to support your understanding of humanism.

We will return to the questions of whether it is possible to define humanism and what kind of thing it might be in the final part of the course. Hopefully by then you will have been able to reach some conclusions of your own.

For now it will suffice to describe humanism as an attempt to answer the question, ‘How should I live?’. Humanism tries to tackle many of the puzzles that spring from that question: ‘What sort of thing am I?’, ‘How can I know what is true?’, ‘How can I live a meaningful life?’, ‘How should I treat others?’, and ‘What kind of world do I want?’. These are the same questions that many of the world’s diverse religious and non-religious worldviews have attempted to provide answers to. In this course, we will explore the humanist approach to such questions.

Part 1

In this first part of the course, we will begin by introducing you to some of the humanist beliefs, values, and practices that we will explore in greater depth later in the course. We will then pose some of the questions that are raised by a humanist approach to life, questions that will lie behind much of the upcoming content.

In the remainder of Part One, we will ask ‘What kind of a thing is a human being?’. An appreciation of the humanist perspective on what we are will help to ground many of the humanist responses to the rest of the questions explored in the course. Deciding how we ought to live requires an understanding of our human nature and potential.