150 Humboldt, Wilhelm von
Jesus Christ as the only ideal person but also CONSER-
VATIVES(Edmund BURKE) who criticize humanist pre-
tensions and utopian speculations as inaccurate in
history and disastrous in the future.
Twentieth-century humanist thought is revealed in
The Humanist Manifesto(1933 and 1973) and wide-
spread premises of MODERN, LIBERAL society. The
humanist assumptions about the goodness and value
of people, the rejection of God, the glorification of
humanity, hope in progress and humanmade technol-
ogy undergird much of Modern Western society (edu-
cation politics, media, business, science).
In the United States, the CHRISTIAN RIGHTbegan to
challenge secular humanism in the culture, offering a
religious alternative in education, politics, and media.
CATHOLICpope John Paul II criticized Modern human-
ism with actually degrading human life with a “Culture
of Death” (ABORTION, HOMOSEXUALITY, EUTHANASIA). In
1961, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that secular
humanism had become a nontheistic “religion,” taught
in the public schools as a distinct worldview. This chal-
lenged the view that humanism was ethically neutral or
objective and opened the door for alternative (Jewish,
Christian, Muslim) religious worldviews in the public
school curriculum. Conservatives welcomed this devel-
opment as an honest recognition that humanism had
replaced Christianity as the dominant religion in the
contemporary United States. For a good discussion of
these conflicting philosophies, see James Davison
HUNTER’s CULTURE WARS.
If traditional religions challenged humanism from
“above,” spiritually, ENVIRONMENTALISMcriticizes it from
“below”: other animal species’ rights, and the natural
order. For environmentalists, humanism arrogantly pla-
ces humans in a superior position to other animals and
nature.
Further Reading
Flew, Anthony. Atheistic Humanism. New York: Prometheus
Books, 1993.
Humboldt, Wilhelm von (1767–1835) Ger-
man philosopher, linguist, and educational reformer
Humboldt was born in Potsdam, then part of the for-
mer kingdom of Prussia. He studied at the universities
of Frankfurt an Oder, Göttingen, Weimer, and then the
University of Jena, where he developed a close friend-
ship with Friedrich von Schiller. From 1802 to 1808,
Humboldt served as the Prussian ambassador to the
Vatican and in 1809 was appointed the Prussian minis-
ter of education, a position Humboldt used to make
progressive reforms in the school and university sys-
tem and to establish the University of Berlin (now
Humboldt University).
Humboldt’s educational reforms were grounded in
the ideas of HUMANISM, especially those of the value
and dignity of human beings. The German humanists
of the period were advocates of the need to incorpo-
rate training in classical arts, literature, languages,
and philosophy with new developments in the ad-
vancing social and natural sciences. Humboldt
believed that the state has a responsibility to educate
its citizens and to cultivate civic virtues while allow-
ing for the diversity of individual tastes and interests.
Humboldt’s humanism, therefore, contained a form
of perfectionism, that is, a morality that character-
izes some states of human beings as intrinsically good
and holds that right actions are those that most fully
develop such states. In The Sphere and Duties of
Government (1854), Humboldt wrote “The grand,
leading principle, towards which every argument
unfolded in these pages directly converges, is the
absolute and essential importance of human develop-
ment in its richest diversity.” For Humboldt, the ideal
of development that humans ought to pursue is based
in the good of AUTONOMY, or the freedom of choice
associated with LIBERTY. Politically, then, Humboldt
argued that individual self-development can flourish
to the maximum extent only when governmental
activity is limited to providing security, that is, pre-
venting harm to others. This view was to have a
strong influence on the work of the British philoso-
pher John Stuart MILL.
From his enthusiasm for classical studies, Hum-
boldt argued for the importance of historical experi-
ence. In particular, Humboldt emphasized the role of
ideas in shaping human history, and in a number of
essays, he explored how ideas have informed great
social and political developments in Western civiliza-
tion. “Everything that is active in world history,” Hum-
boldt wrote, “is also stirring in the inner being of
man.” Humboldt’s influential works on language
sought to demonstrate how nature and history are
connected through the ideas expressed in human lan-
guage. According to Humboldt, language reflects the
culture and character of its speakers and reveals the
unifying worldview unique to each nation. Because
humans perceive the world largely through the