Jacques Barzun

From Philosopedia

Barzun, Jacques (30 November 1907 - )

Barzun, the French-born American scholar, once a dean at Columbia, cares little for any categorization of humanism suggested herein. In 1989, The leading historian of ideas, who twice was president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, responded to Warren Allen Smith:

• It is not surprising that the word Humanism means so many different things, some of which contradict each other, since the root idea is Man, and in this generic sense Man contains everything that has been or may be conceived. It is the human habit of trying to corner what is good that has led to the attempts by successive groups to claim the ism for their particular outlook or endeavor. This situation requires, first of all, a distinction between, on the one hand, the label affixed by history to the Renaissance scholars, and on the other all the other labels. The only tolerable extension of that original humanism is to someone who nowadays teaches the Humanities in a humanistic spirit, that is, looking in works of literature for whatever they say about Man. All the other humanisms and humanists need an adjective, and perhaps a further identification. One can imagine a Diabolic Humanism that would find Man’s highest self-expression in witchcraft, the black mass, and other fiendishnesses. I use this in all sorts of ways, which can be grouped in systems to form all sorts of Humanisms.

In 1992, he explained further to Smith:

• The only meanings I, as a student of history, attach to the term Humanism are those given in your definitions number 2 and 3; that is, the two historical definitions. The rest suffer from vagueness in both contents and coverage; they belong to the language of partisanship and polemic, rather than to definition proper. As such, they have their importance, but their use by an historian or critic requires research and explanation before they can be said to denote anything. I should perhaps add that in current talk about the academic humanities, the name “humanist” is given to someone who teaches those subjects and conveys their spirit, but that spirit and those subjects should not be called Humanism.

Correspondence

{WAS, 5 February 1951, 6 March 1989, and 2 June 1992}