Blackwell Reference Online

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Humanism, a philosophical movement that affirms the dignity of the human being, originated in Italy in the second half of the fourteenth century. While the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had been dominated by the philosophical school of Scholasticism (philosophy taught by the “schoolmen” of medieval universities who tried to reconcile the philosophy of the ancient classical philosophers with medieval Christian theology), by the fourteenth century, Scholasticism was more and more seen by thinkers outside the church and the universities as irrelevant to everyday life. This view of Scholasticism, along with the growth of cities and greater contact with the East and its differing views and customs, led thinkers such as Francesco Petrach (1304–74) and Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) to view the world differently than had the Scholastics. Although, the early Humanists were still Christians who believed that God ruled the world, it was a world which they saw as in need of change, change that could be brought about by human reason. For the Humanists, human beings possessed free will and the ability to use their reasoning power to bring about a humane world. Humanism spread throughout Europe over the next few centuries, finally culminating in the Enlightenment, and it was out of the Enlightenment that the fundamental underpinnings of the birth of social science and eventually sociology ... log in or subscribe to read full text