Exploring Humanity: Intercultural Perspectives on Humanism

Edited by Mihai I. Spariosu, Jorn Rusen

The old humanistic model, aiming at universalism, ecumenism, and the globalization of various Western system of values and beliefs, is no longer adequate – even if it pleads for an ever-wider inclusion of other cultural perspectives and for intercultural dialogue. In contrast, it would be wise to retain a number of its assumptions and practices – which it incidentally shares with humanistic models outside the Western world. We must mow reconsider and remap it terms of a larger, global reference frame. This anthropology does just that, thus contributing to a new field of study and practice that could be called “intercultural humanism”.

Jorn Rusen
Jorn Rusen is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen and Professor Emeritus at the University of Witten / Herdecke. Between 1974 and 1989 Professor Rusen taught History at the University of Bochum, following which he moved to the University of Bielefeld. For a decade starting in 1997, Dr. Rusen was the President / Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities and Social Science National Taiwan University on 2008 and 2009.

Dr. Rusen works on the theory and methodology of history, history of historiography, strategies of intercultural comparison in modern societies, and humanism in a globalizing world. Between 2006 and 2009 he headed the research project on ”Humanism in the era of globalization – an intercultural dialogue on humanity, culture, and values” at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen, and has published widely on the topic.

Mihai I. Spariosu
Mihai I. Spariosu is a Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Georgia, Athens, in the United States. He holds an M.A. from Tulane University and a Ph.D. form Stanford University. He is the founder and leading theoretician of a new field of study and practice, Intercultural Knowledge Management, which he proposed and developed in two internationally acclaimed books: Global Intelligence and Human Development: Towards an Ecology of Global Learning (MIT Press, 2005) and Remapping Knowledge : Intercultural Studies for a Global Age (Berghahn Publishers,2006) In 2010, he published his first novel, a fictional exploration of Plato’s life, ideas, and milieu.

Contents
 
Mihai I. Spariosu
Introdution
 
Part One: Reopening the Door on Humanism
 
Jorn Rusen
Temporalizing Humanity: Towards a Universal History of Humanism 
 
Roger Griffin
Homo Humanistus? Towards an Inventory of Transcultural Humanism 
 
Kirill Thompson
Lessons from Early Chinese Humanist Impulses
 
Sayyed Moshen Fatemi
Islam, Secular Modernity and Intercultural Humanism 
 
Mihai I. Spariosu
Intercultural Humanism and Global Intelligence: Definition, Principles, Practice 
 
Part Two: The Treasures of Humankind
 
Hubert Cancik
The Awareness of Cultural Diversity in Ancient Greece and Rome 
 
Robert Evans
European Humanism: East and West
 
Chen Chao-ying 陳昭瑛
Human Being as Species Being: A Reconsideration on Xunzi’s Humanism 
 
M. Satish Kumar
Buddhism and Intercultural Humanism: An Exploration in Context 
 
Ming Xie
Harmony in Difference: Tension and Complementarity 
 
Part Three: Challenging Humanity: The Multiple Dimensions
 
Mikhail Epstein
Humanology : The Fate of the Human in the “Posthuman” Age
 
Gheorghe M. Ştefan
Integral Humanism and Its Challenges
 
Erhard Reckwitz
Otherness? Towards an Intercultural Literary Anthropology 
 
Michael Onyebuchi Eze
Ubuntu/ Botho: Ideology or Promise? 
 
Virgil Nemoianu
Tradition, the Beautiful, and the Uncertainties of Global Humanism 
 
List of Contributors
Biography
Index of Names