Scientific humanism

From Geography

Assignment 1

Scientific humanism is often referred to secular humanism. Aristotle tells us of mankind creating skills for who we would be, even translated in modern society. What ethical norms and values should we grasp? Ley and Samuels ( 1978, p.6 ) note a clear distinction between the basic features of Renaissance humanism and those of scientific humanism. Ley and Samuels insist on a clear decision for making humanity the measure in academic inquiry.

' To think is to be' introduced a new dimension to the history of Western humanism. It introduced a fundamental doubt about existence itself, not to mention an existential doubt about one's own being. Thereafter, the central issue for Western science and philosophy was the proof of existence and the verification of one's own self. ( Ley and Samuels, 1978 )

Edward Relph ( 1981 ) sees scientism as a threat and ultimately lead to the shortcomings within humanism itself. Slowly we see that humanistic geography turns out to be at same foot with spatial science, even Marxist geography.

From the humanistic approach since the 1950s there is need for a new human geography, built upon some key foundational spatial laws. This ‘ Newtonian ‘ human geography could explain gravity models for human interaction ( flows of migration, traffic and information )

If you regard scientific methods as humanist action we have to take a look into the philosophy of science. Mainly there are two true assumptions like, 1) reality has a consistent feature and is objective, 2) humans have the capacity to obtain reality accurately and have basic rational explanation. So basically we have to invite each other for a conversation. And the best of our epistemologies is science. A positive effort eventually to humanity is science. It leads to greater ethical norms

Thomas Samuel Kuhn’s book ‘ The Structure of Scientific Revolutions ‘ tells us that reality faces subjectively. Kuhn’s book turned out to be a real influential book about how we think, explore and build knowledge. The imperfect system of learning as a collective has shaped our modern world of thinking.

Sources

-Cloke, P., Philo, Ch. & Sadler, D. (eds.) (1991) Approaching Human Geography. Chapman, London. Chapter 3: Peopling human geography and the development of humanistic approaches. pp. 60-68

-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbeY9_NErCs -Darwin, Humanism and Science - A C Grayling

By Jorg Schröder (s4083245)