Talk:Humanism (life stance)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

Note: A request to move 'Humanist (belief system)' to 'Humanism (life-stance)' and discussed hereunder, was carried out on 8 Aug 2006

All other comments deleted as per Cabal moderator instructions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2006-02-28_The_Humanist_papacy

Contents

[edit] Vote tally

If you favor the move to Humanism (life-stance), type Favor. If you have no objection to the move, type No objection. If you oppose the move, type Oppose. The result will be determined two weeks after the proposal was made. If there are no "Oppose" votes, the move will be made. Otherwise, the proposal will be tabled. Please sign after your vote.
  • Favor. The move is more consistent with naming conventions, and is easily accomplished with minimal disruptions or extra work. No worries. Rohirok 01:31, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  • No objection. With the caveat - as agreed earlier - that you help with the re-linking of articles to the new page. --Couttsie 02:46, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Favour (sort of) It should agree with the naming conventions but it will need an explanation of what "life-stance" is somewhere. A Geek Tragedy 21:35, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Favor as lifestance without hyphenation. I suspect we should use the compound lifestance rather than the hyphenated life-stance: a quick search reveals no examples of the hyphenated form life-stance. One source uses the unhyphenated form life stance. Other sources speaking specifically about Humanism use the compound word lifestance[1][2] Issues that I had previously suggested would merit a delay no longer apply. -Rhwentworth 18:37, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
  • Favor. Besides the article life stance indicating a difference between 'belief system' and 'life stance' — a philosopher might say 'a life stance can be based on a belief system'; only a fool might say 'a belief system can be based on a life stance', thus there is a clear difference (unless one accepts that every philosopher is a fool). Each belief system is a rather large number of believed items that form a system, a Humanist believes in Humanity and from this single basis onwards rationalizes (a word contraditory to believes) towards a life stance. A Humanist may believe more things as well, but the other believed items are not part of, and not typical for, the Humanist life stance.
    The spelling 'life stance', 'life-stance' or 'lifestance' is an English language matter, in Dutch its is called 'levenshouding' (literally attitude or posture in life) and using the term 'geloof' (belief) related to Humanism is considered improper. One may hear 'overtuiging' (conviction) as a more general word. — SomeHuman 2006-08-04 01:51 (UTC)
  • Query: Is the distinction between "belief system" and "life[]stance" something that Humanists promote, i.e. a POV?  If a disambiguation for the sake of a general encyclopedia might require explanation, then I wonder if it serves as a disambiguation... Regards, David Kernow 04:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Answer (1): 'life stance' is not a POV but a strictly neutral word; calling a humanist (who attempts to live by relying on ratio, the basis of this ratio being a fact not contested by anyone: the existence of Human) a 'believer' is like calling a religious person (who attempts to live by relying on trust in truth of ancient testimonies or dogmae) a 'phantast'. The terms 'believe' and 'phantasy' are POV when wrongly applied (that is, contradictory to what the adherers of a philosophical conviction claim). The general use of 'life stance' came to be, because many people did not know a word that matches the humanist philosophy and sometimes used the word that matches a religion. [For this article mainly secular] humanism is not a religion, but both are points of view that lead to a way of life. Thus the term 'life stance' — which may be used without WP:POV for the viewpoint of a religion and the resulting attitude as well, though perhaps not as preferred term because it neglects mentioning an 'afterlife') — was welcomed by Humanist organisations, simply for its non-POV character. The term has been in use for a long time and was widely accepted (I do not know of anyone or any religion contesting its value or correctness; as is also by this 'vote tally' shown). Now trying to apply a term that was contested as abusively used and therefore got out of use, instead of a term on which consensus was found and then generally applied, is (malignent) WP:POV and not encyclopedic. — SomeHuman 2006-08-04 09:54 (UTC)
Answer (2): Many disambiguation pages have a term between parenthesis that for some readers may need further explanation. The term life stance is not a Wikipedia fabrication or unheard of; it has a proper, short and easily understandable article, and the article that needs renaming as 'Humanism (life stance)' shows the link in its opening sentences. It therefore is a decent disambiguation term (that can hardly be bettered, definitely not by the even more unfamiliar term 'belief system' that could more easily be interpretated as a system constructed from several believes than as a system based on a believe). — SomeHuman 2006-08-04 11:34 (UTC)
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my query. As neither a Humanist nor religious adherent (but intrigued by both) and having read both this and the humanism article, I suppose my impression is that Humanism is a system for humanist beliefs. I also realiz/se that I don't take the phrase "belief system" to imply religion or the like; rather that the latter is a subset of the former. (All religions may use belief systems, but not all belief systems are or are like religions.) I think this is how philosophers tend to use the phrase...?  I agree that referring to someone as a "believer" usually carries religious connotations, but how about someone described as "with beliefs" or "with a belief system"...?  Perhaps for the sake of a general encyclopedia it might be simpler if the article retained the disambiguation "(belief system)" but (a) emphasiz/sed in the opening section that this isn't meant to suggest religion, before (b) introducing the Humanists' take on the phrase "life stance", rather than presenting "life stance" before the article has even begun (i.e. as the title's disambiguation)...?  Regards, David 14:16, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
The intention of disambiguation is precisely not to require the introduction of a phrase that a term is not meant to be interpreted 'that way' but rather 'this way'; thus a disambiguation term that by itself requires such phrase, as you suggest, clearly indicates its inadequacy. Your initial query stated as much. Humanists' take on the term "life[-]stance" is not different from anyone else's (e.g. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]); attention for the article topic must not once more be drawn away by inserting a term that should have been the disambiguation term in the first place: the topic is the humanist life stance. A sidenote about a by experience formed humanists' idea of how well or badly some of the non-humanists may take care to choose a neutral general English language term when referring to humanism, is acceptable for a talk page, not for the article. An article on Islam should not have to start by explaining how terminology some of the Christians use about Islam might hurt the Muslims' feelings; therefore that terminology born from ignorance, prejudice or malicious hypocrisy must be excluded from the article's title.
Anyway, the discussion time for a proposed article renaming is set at a few days but though there had not been a single objection, months later the article had not yet been renamed. Because I may not be best placed to decide on the spelling of the new name (see other votes above), I had posted a reminder 'Forgotten move' (not a 'Request for reopening the discussion on an already decided proposal'). Meanwhile I found 'life stance'[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] to occur on significantly more sites .edu and .ac.uk in English, than either 'lifestance'[21][22] or 'life-stance'[23] though a dissertation title spells it as one word:[24][25][26][27] (two others may be influenced by another source: quoting a humanist organisation, translation of an organisation name), thus contrarily to the vote remark by former user Rhwentworth, the originally suggested spelling of the name change is bettered by 'Humanism (life stance)'. — SomeHuman 2006-08-07 17:42 (UTC)
I'm not intending to oppose the move, as I recogniz/se the connotations "belief system" may have; I guess I'm (a) wondering how trenchant folks' reading of "belief system" to mean "religion" might be; and (b) if trenchant, why pander to it rather than remind folk that "belief system" does not necessarily mean "religion"...?  I suppose I'm wondering how wise it is to use a phrase in which a topic appears to have some investment as the means to disambiguate that topic in a general encyclopedia; I imagine there may be many other candidates I've yet to find or notice. I guess this just happens to be my first instance!  In the meantime, thanks for the links; I wonder if there are (m)any articles on Humanism by philosophers not (self-)identified as Humanists that use a phrase such as "belief system" while presenting "life stance" as a phrase used by Humanists... Best wishes, David 00:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
The use of "belief system" alone was not verified (I wonder about that as well), but such in conjunction with "life stance" should have shown up in the above links, if any would have existed in scholars' texts as typically found in the domains .edu and ac.uk. — Kind regards, SomeHuman 2006-08-08 01:07 (UTC)
Article 'Humanism (belief system)' moved to 'Humanism (life stance)' and the most needed links updated (further updating of links will continue in the next few days) — SomeHuman 2006-08-08 03:14 (UTC)
Article 'Lifestance' moved to 'Life stance' as well (its very few links are updated; except one under 'lifestance' in a quote: it gets properly redirected). — SomeHuman 2006-08-08 18:43 (UTC)

[edit] Issue regarding page descriptions and intentions

I believe there is a problem in the way descriptions of the Humanism (lifestance) and Humanism pages interact with what is said to be the intention of these pages.

(This is a continuation of a conversation started on Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-02-28 The Humanist papacy. However, the text here is intended to be self-contained and likely readers will not find any need to refer to that page.)


I thought by using Rohirok's introductory sentence on the IHEU and Happy Human page that would make it clearer. What do you think? --Couttsie 00:38, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

That introductory sentence was:

This article discusses Humanism as a non-theistic belief system (the term preferred by Humanists is "life stance"). For other uses of the term "humanism", please see Humanism.

No, I'm afraid this doesn't address my concern. It does, however, make explicit some of the assumptions that constitute the problem.

As I see it, one could classify uses of the term "humanism" into several categories:

(A) Humanism as a non-theistic life stance
  (A1) Humanism as a non-theistic life stance as defined by IHEU
       and endorsed by member organizations
  (A2) Humanism as a non-theistic life stance as defined by
       non-IHEU groups
(B) Humanism that is either theistic or not regarded as a life stance

As best I can tell, the beliefs of the humanist subgroup of the Unitarian Universalist Association and the European Humanist Federation (which are not members of IHEU) are accurately described by the words I've labeled A2.

What I am disturbed by is that nowhere in the current articles is the existence of category A2 allowed for.

The Humanism (lifestance) article uses essentially the words I've labeled A to identify what it deals with. It then essentially says, for uses of the term "humanism" other than A see Humanism, implying that the Humanism article is about category B.

If I wanted to add some text about category A2, there is nowhere that I could do so that would be consistent with the current labeling and intent.

  • I can't put text describing A2 on the Humanism (lifestance) page because the intention of that page is restricted to category A1 (though this is nowhere explicitly stated).
  • It doesn't make sense to put text describing A2 on the Humanism page because the text on Humanism (lifestance) and other pages implies that the Humanism page is about category B, and A2 is not a subset of B.

Given this, it would be an error to put text about A2 anywhere on the pages related to humanism. The current wording and declared intentions deny the possibly and reality that category A2 exists.

That is the problem I would like to see solved.

-Rhwentworth 04:02, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


I see two approaches that could be used to fix this problem:

  1. Change the text on the Humanism (lifestance) and humanism pages describing what the Humanism (lifestance) page is about to make it clear that this latter page is restricted to A1.
  2. Alter the intended scope of the Humanism (lifestance) page to encompass all of category A, including both A1 and A2.


My initial suspicion is that the way to resolve this problem that would involve the least awkwardness in wording would be to choose the second option, to expand the intended scope of the Humanism (lifestance) page. However, previous, less clearly articulated, suggestions to this effect have been strongly resisted. I don't know whether that resistance would soften at all given a clearer understanding of what the actual concern is.

The first alternative would in principle be acceptable, though I am concerned that implementing it could result in some awkward wording.

I would be open to either approach, provided it can be done in a way that is worded clearly and without undue awkwardness.

-Rhwentworth 19:23, 10 March 2006 (UTC)


Implementing the first option might look as follows:

This article discusses Humanism as a non-theistic belief system (the term preferred by Humanists is "life stance"). For other uses of the term "humanism", please see Humanism.
to read
This article discusses Humanism as a non-theistic belief system (the term preferred by Humanists is "life stance"), as represented by the IHEU, a global umbrella organization. For other uses of the term "humanism", please see Humanism.
While the broad category of humanism encompasses intellectual currents running through a wide variety of philosophical or religious thought, it is embraced by some people as a complete lifestance. For more on this, see Humanism (lifestance).
to
While the broad category of humanism encompasses intellectual currents running through a wide variety of philosophical or religious thought, it is embraced by some people as a complete lifestance. For more on this, see Humanism (IHEU lifestance). Other variants of this lifestance are represented by, for example, the European Humanist Federation and the humanist subgroup of the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Implementing the second option might look as follows:

On the Humanism (lifestance) page, in the introductory section, before mentioning the Happy Human symbol, add a paragraph:
The Intenational Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) is the world-wide umbrella organization for those adhering to the Humanist life stance. It represents the views of over three million Humanists organized in over 100 national organizations in 30 countries. [28] [29] There are also some more regional groups not belonging to the IHEU, such as the European Humanist Federation and the humanist subgroup of the Unitarian Universalist Association which adhere to variants of the Humanist life stance.

Either of these would work. Personally, I favor the second option. It doesn't artificially dwell on differences between the positions of those in categories 'A1' and 'A2'. At present, I'm aware of no such differences. So it seems silly to identify one page with only the IHEU version of the Humanist lifestance, as if to exclude contamination by the very similar positions of these other organizations. However, others' perspectives on this issue may differ.

Rhentworth, thanks for clarifying your concerns. I am happy to concede that you have a point, but I am exhausted and - like Rohirok - I intend to take a break of a week or two. Thus, I will carefully read your contributions on this talk page then. --Couttsie 23:57, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
I think the exhaustion is pervasive. I need to give energy to other things as well. So, let's resume in a week or two. -Rhwentworth 03:02, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I've implemented the second option as described above. If subsequent discussion arrives at a different solution, this change could be reverted. -Rhwentworth 09:08, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Outstanding issues and proposals

1. For the 3-5 million people who are Humanists (life stance), typing in Humanist or Humanism only takes you to a general page on humanism (lower case h). Buried way down in that article under secular humanism is a sentence or so on Humanism (life stance):

Some secular humanists prefer the term Humanist (capital H, and no adjective), as unanimously endorsed by General Assembly of the International Humanist and Ethical Union following universal endorsement of the Amsterdam Declaration 2002.

I think it would be fairer if some text was added under the heading to make it easier for Humanists to find what they are looking for:

This article discusses humanism in general. For the non-theistic belief system see Humanism.

2. In the secular humanism article itself I couldn't find any reference to Humanism (life stance). I think it would be entirely relevant to include a sentence or two on Humanism (life stance) in the secular humanism article, especially as many Humanists believe many of the same things that secular humanists believe. The sentence from the humanism article would suffice.

--Couttsie 00:51, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

In the humanism article Humanism (lifestance) is mentioned in the first section after the overview, and in secular humanism article Humanism with a link to Humanism (lifestance) is also mentioned in the first section after the overview. So, both pages have existing links. Rather than adding more text to the overview sections, a better solution would be to add Humanism (lifestance) to the Humanism template that shows a list of humanism topics on all humanism-related pages on every humanism related page. That would make the existence of this page prominent everywhere. -Rhwentworth 20:46, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How about "Humanism (IHEU)"?

Historically humanism has been a way of understanding the role of human beings in the universe that has transcended religious traditions. Hence we not only have secular humanists, but also Christian humanists (a much older tradition, as it happens); and then there are Buddhists who would describe themselves as humanists. Those humanists who perceive a large common ground between these traditions would also likely see similar terrain within other traditions, such as Islam, whether or not it is named so. We are actually talking about a very broad church.

The IHEU makes a particular claim to the name "Humanist", but that exclusive claim is not widely recognised outside the IHEU and its adherents. Just as there are many different groups who make a claim to be "true" or "orthodox" upholders of one religious tradition or another, when many of those claims are based on a selective and limited grasp of those traditions -- close observation of formalities, narrow interpretation of doctrine or the favouring of one type of personal prejudice above others -- so the IHEU makes its claim. The excuse that, while they have the "H", the "h" is still available for the rest of us is rather insulting... and particularly silly in the case of wikipedia, where all article names start with a capital letter. "Life-stance" is not a very helpful term in this case because it implies that others who regard themselves, or are regarded, as humanist aren't putting their life into their belief. It implies that they are all mere dabblers. Again this is both false and insulting.

Furthermore, if Richard Dawkins is taken to be a leading example of a (big-H) Humanist, then (big-H) Humanism is not humanism as many other humanists would understand it. They would say that Dawkins' militantly reductionist materialism is anti-humanist because his universe of clockwork stars and clockwork brains has no space for the inner life of the human being. Ancient humanism was a rejection of abstract spiritual entities as somehow being more important than human beings. Modern ecumenical humanism sets itself against ruthless materialism. From that point of view, the IHEU is fighting yesterday's battles. It is out of step and unrepresentative.

Therefore, since the Humanism of this article is limited to the doctrines of one particular minority sect, and is by no means representative of humanism as a whole, I propose that this article be named in a way that makes explicit that it represents little more than the standard position of this one sect. I propose that it be retitled Humanism (IHEU). Ireneshusband 20:34, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this move for the reasons in your first two paragraphs. I think you are very uinfair to Richard Dawkins though. While he is certainly ontologically a materialist his writing is often shot through with wonder at and respect for the human imagination. Indeed I think this sense of wonder is only strengthened by his belief that this inner life originates from matter acting under the usual laws of physics. Sorry for that digression. Anyway Humanism (IHEU) yay. A Geek Tragedy 09:45, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Not too fast, please. One may have an article strictly for the views on humanism by a major organisation as the IHEU. Then there is the secular humanism, a philosophy based on which numerous individuals and many organisations have formed their life stance of which the IHEU's is a mere subset. Thus 'Humanism', 'Secular Humanism', 'Humanism (life stance)' and 'Humanism (IHEU)' may be compared with 'Monotheism', 'Christianity', 'Catholicism' and 'Roman Catholicism', and the International Humanist and Ethical Union with the Roman Catholic Church. Just as 'Roman Catholicism' redirects to 'Roman Catholic Church', at most there could be a mere redirect from 'Humanism (IHEU)' to 'International Humanist and Ethical Union' and the already appropriately encompassing content of 'Humanism (life[-|blank]stance)' correctly mentions a link to the largest organisation. On the other hand, the text at top of the IHEU article : "This article discusses Humanism as a non-theistic life stance. For other uses of the term "humanism", please see Humanism" urgently needs to be replaced with:
"This article discusses the non-theistic life stance of a major Humanist organisation.
For the non-theistic humanistic life stance in a broader sense, please see Humanism (life stance).
For secular humanism in general, please see Secular humanism.
For other uses of the term "humanism", please see Humanism."
The article 'Humanism (life stance)' gets this at top:
"This article discusses Humanism as a non-theistic life stance.
For secular humanism in general, please see Secular humanism.
For other uses of the term "humanism", please see Humanism."
SomeHuman 2006-08-07 19:34 - So done 20:48 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../h/u/m/Talk%7EHumanism_%28life_stance%29_5330.html"