The Human and the Humane: Humanity as Argument from Cicero to Erasmus
Christian Høgel
- PublishedJuly, 2015
- Binding精裝 / 15.5*24 / 132pages / 單色(黑) / 英文
- Publisher國立臺灣大學出版中心
- SeriesResearch in East Asian Civilizations-Reflections on (In)Humanity 8
- ISBN978-986-350-082-7
- Price NT$320
- Paper Books San Min Books / wunan / books.com.tw / National Books / iRead / eslite / TAAZE /
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In times of conflicts and crises, an argument insisting on the humane is commonly heard. In wars, voices demanding a humane treatment of prisoners – as decreed by the Geneva Convention – will be raised. Opposition to social injustice may be framed in a collected call for a humane society. Even educational systems may insist on having a humane perspective among its leading causes. Words referring to man – humane, but also humanistic, humanitarian, even humanity – thus take on status of ideals for mankind. Man, in common and legal speech, thus becomes the conceptual marker of his own perfection. The subject of this book is the early history of this linguistic feature and in particular its argumentative use, from its starting point till early modern times.
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1:
The Humane as Argument
Beginnings
Chapter 2:
The Humanitas of Cicero
Laws and diplomacy
The empire: provincials, barbarians, and slaves
The dynamic turn
Subject or object or both: cultural education or the law?
Chapter 3:
Implementing Humanitas
Imperial responses
Humanitas as ‘humanitarian’
Seneca
Chapter 4:
Christianizing Humanitas
Lactantius
Other medieval usages
Chapter 5:
Humanitas as Argument Against War
The Italian humanists
First beginnings in the Renaissance
Erasmus and later humanists
Epilogue: Ancient Humanitas after Erasmus
Bibliography
Abbreviations of ancient, Greek-Roman sources
Index