Intellectual effects of humanism in the Western and Arab philosophical spheres

Gheidan Al-Sayyed Ali

Abstract

"Humanism" is an intellectual tendency and a philosophical trend that has been imposed on the Western philosophical sphere since the Renaissance in Europe, as an intellectual revolution against religious doctrines that had made God the axis of all concerns, ignoring the human concern. Humanists thought they could take people away from the power of God and make them think they would not be in need of Him. They said that science and cognitive development would suffice, and people could build their worldview away from the light of divine revelation. This movement continued to exist in the West until our present time, when it collapsed into nihilism, absurdity, and the domination of relativity over everything. This trend also appeared remarkably in the Arab and Islamic culture, where it focused on the “humanizing” of religion with all its components. Its ultimate goal was to give a new understanding of religion, violating the constants by following humanistic approaches in the reading of religious texts, completely relying on human reason as a substitute for revelation. Therefore, this study gives two examples of the intellectual effects of humanism, one in the Western philosophical sphere, that is the German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach, and the other in the Arab philosophical sphere, that is the thinker Muhammad Arkoun.The study has followed the analytical, critical and comparative approaches.

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)