Light, Truth, Education: History in European Humanism

Title

Light, Truth, Education: History in European Humanism

Author

Hubert CANCIK

Page

1-16

DOI

10.6163/tjeas.2011.8(2)1

Abstract

　　The education of the ideal speaker must equip him with "all antiquity and a wealth of historical examples," thus argues Cicero. He extols history's power and achievements in a short hymn: history sheds light on the dark shades of past times (lux veritatis); history is a witness (testis) in a trial which should bring to light the whole truth; history is the living force of memory and the adviser of human life. Being a part of rhetoric history became an important element of general education in Western Europe. A man called "umanista" (first instances in the 15th century) is a teacher occupied with poiesis, rhetorica, historia, and moralis scientia. It is the education system which the names of the profession (umanista) and of the program (humanismus) are derived from.
　　Secondly, the Stoic doctrine of man introduces Nature dressing him up with the general role (persona – mask) of a rational being and with the specific role (propria persona) of an individual. The third role which Nature imposes is called "situation, chance, time" (casus et tempus). In this doctrine, then, time ranks with mind, individuality, free will as constituents of the human being. Man is conceived of as imperfect in body and mind, shaped by time, destined do make progress (prokopé; pro-gredi).
　　On a third level history is a structural element in humanism itself. The rhetorical and philosophical traditions just mentioned and a considerable bulk of scientific chronology and historiography were embedded in modern European humanism. Its very structure evokes, again and again, the awareness of historical distance and cultural difference that is a necessary precondition for a world view, a tradition, an ethical system in non-European countries to be classified as "humanism".

Keyword

anthropology, cultural diversity, education, European humanism, historiography, language, "nearest stranger", persona

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