The Concept of Humanity in an Age of Globalization

Longxi Zhang, Sorin Antohi, Chun-chieh Huang, Jörn Rüsen

• Publisher: V&R unipress
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9783862349180
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: History Reference
• Index: History

Rethinking humanity as a concept in our age of globalization and its relevance to the social and political reality of our times are the topic of this book. It calls for the reclaiming of humanism as an effective response to the conflict, turmoil, and violence we witness in the world today. Concepts of humanity and humanism have become suspect of naïveté at best, and guilty of bad faith and repressive ideologies at worst. Yet, hope for improvement is incorrigibly human – the concept of humanity still holds enormous attraction to intellectuals and humanistic scholars. At the same time, it is important to realize that the critique of humanism is very much based on – and limited to – Western social and historical experience. To re-conceptualize humanity and humanism from a truly global perspective will help reclaiming a more inclusive kind of humanism. In this sense, a cross-cultural perspective is important for reclaiming humanism in our age of globalization.The present volume is the result of such an effort. The diversity of the authors' views speaks eloquently of the complexity of the concept of humanity or what constitutes the distinctly human, and therefore the necessity to have an in-depth dialogue on the fate of humanity.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Body
• Acknowledgment
• Zhang Longxi: Introduction: Humanity and the Diversity of Conceptualization
• Fred Dallmayr: 1. Who Are We Now? For an “Other” Humanism
• Jörn Rüsen: 2. Towards a New Idea of Humankind: Unity and Difference of Cultures at the Crossroads of Our Time
• Djelal Kadir: 3. Ecce homo: Somewhat Human, Particularly Global, Conveniently Universal, Relatively Unique, Comparatively Incommensurable
• Balmurli Natrajan: 4. The Problem of “Difference” in Discourses of Civilization and Culture
• Patrick Colm Hogan: 5. The Trouble with Moral Universalism: On Human Cognition, Human Bias, and Human Rights
• Dieter Sturma: 6. Humanism and Intercultural Dialogue
• Georg Essen: 7. “Who observes religions?” Negotiating Faith, Politics and the Idea of Humanism in an “Era of Terrorism”
• Sophia Rosenfeld: 8. Humanity and Its Common Sense
• Donald D. Stone: 9. The Theme of Forgiveness in Western Culture
• David Stern: 10. The Idea of Humanity in Jewish Tradition: From “The Image of God” to the Jews of China
• Oliver Kozlarek: 11. Towards a Practical Humanism
• Zhang Longxi: 12. What Is Human or Human Nature? Different Views in Ancient China
• Krishan Kumar: 13. Empires as Bearers of Global Ideas of Humanity
• G.E.R. Lloyd: 14. Humanities in a Globalized World: Vive l'Unité, Vive la Différence
• List of Contributors