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Recommended: The importance of humanism in the Renaissance

In the 50th anniversary World Humanist Congress, International Humanist and Ethical Union established “The Amsterdam Declaration 2002.” This declaration defined Humanism as perfecting every human being through science, creativity and education for the good of humanity. IHEU’s modern definition of Humanism embodies the Renaissance ideas of pursuit of knowledge and secularism.
IHEU communicated the importance of science and human thought in perfecting both himself and society. In its second statement, IHEU explains how “Humanists believe that the solutions to the world’s problems lie in human thought and action.”(2) This models IHEU’s interpretation of Humanists as individuals who seek for knowledge and utilize their reason. Renaissance agreed with IHEU’s emphasis on knowledge. Vittornio de Feltre was an Italian Humanist who studied Ancient Greek and Roman works. More importantly, he used his knowledge of the past to create a school known as La Casa Giosia. In his school, his students learned grammar, mathematics, logic, music, astronomy, history and religion to become well-rounded scholars. Before Renaissance, the church was the sole authority that limited education to only church-approved ideas. The church used education to prevent people questioning its authority in order to perpetuate its power, not to teach. Feltre solved this problem of corrupt education of the church by establishing the new form of education in which students are taught both Humanistic, religious and physical knowledge. IHEU emphasized that perfect human studies the past to develop new ideas that either contradict or agree with past works. It states “...reliable knowledge of the world and ourselves arises through a continuing process of observation, evaluat...

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...e church because Durer portrayed himself as the main character in his art, not the church or God. Furthermore, he incorporated his personal opinion of artists as individuals who are continuing God’s creation/work by attributing the characteristics of Jesus Christ such as the long, wavy hair to his face. Durer created this work to illustrate himself as Jesus like and important, not to display what the church believed. Both Northern Renaissance and modern Humanism granted individuals with personal freedom from religious and political authority in education and art.
IHEU accurately defined Humanism because it represented the two important ideals of Renaissance of pursuit of knowledge and secularism. IHEU interpreted these two ideas as an essential process in perfecting every human being to ultimately better society which was also the goal for Renaissance Humanists.

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