Humanism

From Geography

Humanism is an umbrella for an approach that we can find in social sciences and philosophy. According to F.C.S. Schiller, humanist thought "is really in itself the simplest of philosophic view points: it is merely the perception that the philosophic problem concerns human beings striving to comprehend a world of human experience by the resources of human minds"(Cloke et al., 1991, p.59). You could say that humanist thought argues that we take seriously that the world around us consists of the sum of human experiences and the only way we can access this world is through the human mind (Cloke et al., 1991, p.59). To make sense of the world around us we can't circumvent the human mind. It is only through our minds that we can perceive and are able to know the world.

For Humanism the working of the mind and experiences that people have are the data of their inquiry. So Humnaists stress to "leave in the whole luxuriance of individual minds and on paying attention to the psychological wealth of every human mind and [to] the complexities of its interests, emotions, volitions, aspirations'" (Cloke et al., 1991, p. 59).

The human being, which is really complex, has a centred position in the humanistic approach. And besides the philosophical side of this approach, Humanism also has a practical side. According to Schiller, the resources of the human mind should also be mobilised to impove peoples lives and "making the world a better place for people to live in"(Cloke et al., 1991, p.60). For Schiller the practical use of the intellectual debate was a very important issue. And this is where humanistic geography can play an important part. One of the methods to reach this goal is to mobilise the research of human minds and to ”understanding ourselves, others and the world we share” (Cosgrove, 1989).

In the seventies humanistic geography becomes bigger and bigger. It first developed as a critique of the positivistic approach, which is characterized by scientific quantitative theories, models and methods (Aitiken & Valentine, 2009). In Humanism, the human gets a centred role and the human knowledge and skills are growing. Before this development the humanistic geography was a science that was very traditional. Although the gap between Humanism and science isn’t that big. In both the relation with place, plays an important role at the time.

There is some critique about the humanistic approach in geography. Some people think humanism is fictional, Eurocentric, racist and focused on man instead of woman (Aitiken & Valentine, 2009).

References:

Aitken S, Valentine G, 2009, Approaches to Human Geography. SAGE: California, London, New Delhi, Singapore

Spatial Action, Huib Ernste, 2010

Cloke P, Philo C, Sadler D 1999, Approaching Human Geography,

Published by Robbert Vossers (4080939)

Cloke P., Philo C., Sadler D., 1991, 'Peopling' Human Geography and the development of humanistic approaches, Paul Chapman, London

Edited by Fenki Evers and Anton de Hoogh 08-09-2011

Edited by Thadeus Bergé, 12-11-2011

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