ABSTRACT
This chapter thematically works through the problematic of humanism in relation to the question of education, beginning with the Italian Renaissance, passing through Martin Heidegger’s analysis of humanism to Jacques Derrida’s programmatic suggestion as a basis for the “new humanities.” The chapter has three main parts. First, it provides a brief historical narrative that introduces the reader to renaissance humanism and the centrality of the humanist educational ideal that came to distinguish and dominate the culture of modernity. Second, the chapter gives an explication and discussion of Martin Heidegger’s Letter on Humanism which provides a history of the concept of humanism, beginning with the Roman appropriation of Greek literary forms, and seeks, at least on one interpretation, to “go beyond” forms of contemporary humanism to discover its primordial form by examining the essence of Man and Being. Third, and in light of the above, the chapter provides an account of Jacques Derrida’s “humanism” that draws strongly on Heidegger’s views, and an examination of his recent claims concerning the “new humanities” made in a recent paper – “The Future of the Profession or the Unconditional University (Thanks to the ‘Humanities,’ What Could Take Place Tomorrow)” (Derrida 2000).
