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What Is Humanism? A Plain-Language Guide

A clear, accessible explanation of humanism, the Renaissance intellectual movement that celebrated classical learning, individual dignity, and human potential.

What Is Humanism? A Plain-Language Guide

Humanism is one of the most important and most influential intellectual movements in Western history. It emerged in 14th-century Italy, shaped the Renaissance, and went on to influence philosophy, education, politics, religion, and culture for centuries. Yet the term “humanism” can be confusing, because it has been used in different ways at different times. This article offers a clear, plain-language explanation of what humanism was, where it came from, what it believed, and why it matters.

Humanism in the Renaissance

In the Renaissance, humanism was a movement of intellectual reform. The humanists believed that the study of classical literature, history, and moral philosophy could transform the individual and society. They championed the studia humanitatis — the “studies of humanity” — a curriculum that included grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and moral philosophy.

The Renaissance humanists were not, in the modern sense, atheists or secularists. Most of them were devout Christians. What distinguished them from their medieval predecessors was their emphasis on the dignity and the potential of the human being. Where medieval thinkers had stressed the fallen nature of humanity and the supreme importance of divine grace, the humanists insisted that human beings had the capacity — through education, virtue, and effort — to shape their own lives and to improve their societies.

The Roots of Humanism

The humanist movement grew out of the recovery of classical texts in the 14th and 15th centuries. The Italian poet Petrarch is often called the father of humanism. Petrarch spent years searching monastic libraries for lost works of classical authors, especially Cicero, and he was instrumental in rediscovering texts that had been unknown for centuries.

Petrarch’s recovery of Cicero and other classical authors was a turning point in Western intellectual history. The classical texts presented a vision of human beings as capable, rational, and morally responsible — a vision that contrasted sharply with the medieval emphasis on human weakness and sin. The humanists took this vision as the foundation of their program, and they sought to apply the wisdom of the ancient world to the problems of their own time.

The Humanist Program

The humanist program had several key elements:

1. The Recovery of Classical Texts

The humanists searched libraries across Europe for lost or forgotten works of ancient Greek and Roman authors. They located Cicero’s letters, Tacitus’s histories, the complete works of Plato, the plays of Plautus and Terence, and many other texts. The recovery of these works transformed the intellectual landscape of Europe.

2. The Mastery of Classical Latin and Greek

The humanists believed that the classical languages were the key to understanding the ancient world. They studied Latin with great care, imitating the style of Cicero and other great authors, and they learned Greek in order to read the works of Plato, Aristotle, Homer, and the Church Fathers in the original.

3. The Imitation of Classical Models

The humanists believed that the literature, the philosophy, and the art of the ancient world were models to be imitated. They wrote poetry, letters, and histories in the style of the great classical authors, and they sought to apply the moral and political insights of the ancient world to the problems of their own time.

4. The Education of the Whole Person

The humanist education was not just a matter of training the mind. It was a matter of forming the whole person — the intellect, the character, the body, and the spirit. The humanist school, with its emphasis on Latin, Greek, rhetoric, history, and moral philosophy, was designed to produce well-rounded, virtuous, and effective individuals who could serve their communities and their churches.

5. The Dignity of the Individual

The humanists believed that the human being was a creature of immense worth and potential. Pico della Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486) is the most famous statement of this view, but the conviction was shared by virtually all the humanists. The human being, in their view, was not a fallen creature whose highest duty was to obey the will of God. The human being was a free agent, capable of shaping his or her own destiny through the exercise of reason and will.

Humanism in the North

The humanist program spread from Italy to the rest of Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Northern humanists, led by Desiderius Erasmus, adapted the Italian program to their own concerns. Where the Italian humanists had focused on the recovery of classical learning, the Northern humanists were more interested in the application of humanist principles to the reform of the Christian Church.

The Northern humanists were also more critical of the established Church than their Italian counterparts. Erasmus, the leading Northern humanist, used his scholarship and his satirical writings to attack the corruption of the Church and to call for a return to the sources of the Christian faith. The Northern humanist program contributed directly to the Protestant Reformation, which broke out in 1517.

Humanism and the Reformation

The relationship between humanism and the Reformation was complex. The humanist emphasis on returning to original sources supported the Reformers’ insistence on sola scriptura — that the Bible, not church tradition, was the final authority in matters of faith. The humanist emphasis on the use of vernacular languages supported the Reformers’ insistence on translating the Bible into the languages of ordinary people. The humanist emphasis on the education of the individual supported the Reformers’ emphasis on the priesthood of all believers.

But the humanist program and the Reformation were not the same thing. The humanists believed in reform through education and persuasion; the Reformers believed in reform through confrontation and the assertion of biblical authority. The split between Erasmus and Luther, which became permanent in the 1520s, marked the end of the hope that humanism and the Reformation could work together.

Humanism and Science

The humanist program also contributed to the rise of modern science. The humanist emphasis on direct observation, on the recovery of ancient texts, and on the application of reason to the study of the natural world prepared the intellectual ground on which the Scientific Revolution would take place.

The works of Copernicus, Vesalius, Galileo, and other founders of modern science were deeply influenced by the humanist program. Copernicus cited the ancient astronomers, especially Ptolemy and Aristarchus, in his defense of heliocentrism. Vesalius appealed to direct observation of the human body, in the humanist spirit, in his corrections of Galen. Galileo, in his dialogues, used the rhetorical techniques of the humanists to defend the Copernican view.

Humanism in the Enlightenment and Beyond

The humanist tradition continued to be influential in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment philosophers, with their emphasis on reason, individual rights, and religious tolerance, were the heirs of the humanist tradition. The American Founders, with their conviction that human beings are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,” were drawing on a tradition that went back to the Renaissance humanists.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the term “humanism” took on new meanings. The “secular humanism” of the modern era, which emphasizes reason, science, and human values without reference to religion, is a different kind of movement from the Renaissance humanism. But the two traditions share a common commitment to the dignity of the human being and the use of reason to improve the human condition.

The Common Core of Humanism

Despite the many meanings of the term, there’s a common core to all the humanist traditions. This core includes:

  • A belief in the dignity and the worth of the human being.
  • A commitment to the use of reason to understand the world and to solve human problems.
  • An emphasis on education as the key to individual and social improvement.
  • A willingness to question inherited wisdom and to revise beliefs in light of evidence.
  • A recognition that the human being, while limited and fallible, has the capacity to make a difference in the world.

These convictions, which were first articulated by the Renaissance humanists, have been a major force in Western culture for six centuries. They are at the heart of the modern liberal tradition, the modern scientific tradition, the modern educational tradition, and the modern human rights tradition.

A short reading list is at the end of the page. If you only have time for one book, start with the one you find most readable; almost any of them will give you a fighting chance in conversation.

An honest gap. The standard accounts of this period are, in many ways, the accounts of the literate, the urban, and the relatively well-off. The picture you get from the literature is necessarily a partial one, and any responsible overview has to flag the parts it is leaving out.

Sources & further reading

For non-specialists, the most accessible single book on this topic is usually the first in the list. The other two are denser but more thorough.

  • Charles G. Nauert, Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe (2006)
  • Paul F. Grendler, ed., Encyclopedia of the Renaissance (1999), s.v. ‘Humanism’
  • Ronald G. Witt, In the Footsteps of the Ancients (see Petrarch above)

If you want to go further, the bibliographies at the back of any of these books will lead you to the scholarly literature. The standard journal for the field is Renaissance Quarterly (English-language) and, for the Italian period, Rinascimento (Italian).