ABSTRACT
This chapter looks in greater depth at the notion of the human subject, the relation between humanism, religion and science, the notion of human rights, the emergence of new forms of materialism and the links between posthumanism, postmodernism and poststructuralism. European humanism developed into its strongest version as a form of Enlightenment philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, celebrating humans as creative thinkers and independent actors. One concern is that a posthumanist stance may undo the humanism that has been so important as a counterpoint to religion. For many, humanism is the movement that crucially overcame the dogmas of religious belief and opened up an era of secular science, art and thought that was central to the development of much that is to be praised in Western modernity. Arguably one of the most powerful ideas that emerged from Enlightenment humanism was that of human rights.
