10 key moments in the history of humanist thinking

Sarah Bakewell’s book 'Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope' charts the course of humanism (which explores what it means to be human) through the prism of great philosophers and artists.

Here are 10 key moments in its evolution...

The humanist movement began in Italy during the Renaissance, when thinkers like Petrarch and Pico della Mirandola began advocating for individual freedom and intellectual curiosity.

Francis Bacon, a key figure in the scientific revolution, believed that knowledge should serve practical ends and should be tested through experimentation, rather than relying on ancient authorities.

The philosopher Baruch Spinoza argued that God is not a distant ruler, but rather the natural world itself, and that human beings can achieve a kind of spiritual fulfillment through understanding and accepting their place within it.

Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Denis Diderot challenged traditional religious and political authority, advocating for reason, tolerance, and democracy.

Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, argued that women should have equal access to education and political rights, challenging the idea that they were inherently inferior to men.

The Romantic poets, including William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, celebrated the beauty of nature and the imagination, rejecting the cold rationalism of the Enlightenment.

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche challenged traditional morality and religion, promoting the idea of the 'superman' who creates his own values and lives according to his own instincts.

The existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre argued that humans must create their own meaning in a meaningless world, rejecting the idea of a fixed human nature and embracing freedom and responsibility.

The feminist thinker Simone de Beauvoir once declared that 'one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman', arguing that gender is a social construct rather than a biological fact.

To see how these steps interlink, I recommend diving into Bakewell’s sweeping history for yourself!