The Methods of Humanism

Abstract

The first representatives of worldly learning in the modern era were the Italian humanists. Humanism is older than modern science. Though they conform in some respects - both humanism and science deal with worldly subject matters and proceed rationally - the two intellectual attitudes differ hardly less from one another than science and scholasticism. Just because of this contrast an analysis of humanism can shed light on the characteristics of the scientific spirit. As the methods of the scholastics are understood best through the study of their professional tasks, so the sociological analysis of humanism must start with the occupations and professional aims of its representatives.

[This essay has not been previously made public. We know that a first version of this essay was written before the summer of 1941 for in his ‘Report on the present state of the study of Dr. Edgar Zilsel on the Sociological Roots of Science‘ of June 22, 1941, Zilsel mentions a MS on humanism and writes “The Chapter on humanism and its conformities with and differences from science is nearly ready for the press” (HP/Z). In his first application to the American Philosophical Society (APS) of October 28, 1941, Zilsel again mentions what we take to be the same MS. This time he writes: “The section of the relation ship of the scientific to the humanistic methods (about forty typewritten pages) is nearly ready for the press”. For reasons that are unclear to us Zilsel did not publish this MS. In his second application to the APS of February 28, 1943, he writes: “The section on the methods of humanism (71 typewritten pages)… [is] ready for the press”. We take this to be a reference to the MS published here. Like he did in his essay ‘Problems of Empiricism’ Zilsel makes use of what could be called ‘supporting evidence paragraphs’. In the original MS these paragraphs are indicated to put into small print. Following his practice in his ‘Problems of Empiricism’ we have put these paragraphs in the main text and have not turned them into footnotes. Eds.]