Symbols Used

From Philosopedia

Symbols Used

The following works are here acknowledged as having been particularly useful. The symbol on the left refers to bibliographical references {shown in curly brackets, or braces} which are found following the listings of individuals and subjects. All authors’ names have been boldfaced, although elsewhere in the book only freethinkers have been. An alphabetical listing of the symbols is found toward the opening pages of the book.

SYMBOLS, ALPHABETIZED

Symbol Author and Work

AA Alyson Almanac (Boston: Alyson Publications, Inc., 1989). The Alyson Almanac is a source for finding the various sexual proclivities ordinarily omitted in the past by most reference books.

AAH Allen, Norman R. Jr., ed. African-American Humanism, An Anthology (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1991. Allen, an editorial associate at Free Inquiry, has surveyed contemporary African-American humanists and freethinkers, who are included herein.

ACK Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of Love (New York: Random House, 1994). Love has many forms and faces, explains Ackerman, a staff writer for The New Yorker. “Love is the great intangible,” her book commences, whereupon she discusses the historical, cultural, religious, and biological roots of love from a feminine, humanistic viewpoint.

AF Flew, Antony. A Dictionary of Philosophy, Revised Second Edition (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984). Antony Flew, emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Reading and professor of philosophy at York University in Ontario, has been editorial consultant of the revised second edition. A concise dictionary of philosophic terms and a handbook for the general reader, the work has contributions by thirty-three specialists and was edited by Jennifer Speake.

AHD American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1992). Both this dictionary and Webster’s Third New International Dictionary have been used throughout for definitions of words. Neither lists “secular humanism.”

BDF Wheeler, Joseph Mazzini, A Biographical Dictionary of Freethinkers, of All Ages and Nations (London: Progressive Publishing Company, 1889). Wheeler’s work has been called by John M. Robertson the nearest approach “to a general historic treatment” of atheism and freethought, along with Maréchal’s Dictionnaire des Athèes.

CA Lippard, Jim, “Celebrity Atheist List” on the Web: Lippard was webmaster for an Internet page, “Celebrity Atheist List.” He emphasizeed that all his listings are provided by online readers, that there is no intent to misrepresent any person’s beliefs or lack thereof, and that any errors will be corrected when brought to the editor’s attention. His compilation of such information not only is evidence of the newly found worth of the World Wide Web but also has been important in supplying many of the details found herein.

CB Weil, Tom. The Cemetery Book (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1992). Weil describes graveyards, catacombs, and other of his travel haunts around the world.

CE Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Edition, 2000; Columbia Encyclopedia, 5th Edition, 1993; Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition, 1989; Columbia Encyclopedia, 1975 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935, 1993) This scholarly tome, edited in 1975 by William H. Harris and Judith S. Levey, is quoted throughout the present study. The concise edition’s, as well as the 1993 edition’s, editors have been Barbara A. Chernow and George A. Vallasi. The 6th Edition was edited by Paul Lagasse. Of the various reference sources, Columbia Encyclopedia is an outstanding one.

CL Lamont, Corliss. The Philosophy of Humanism, 6th Edition (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1986). Dr. Lamont once taught a course about naturalistic humanism at Columbia University. This book commenced as its text. In 1948, the present author was in that course’s first class.

DCL Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, E. D. Hirsch Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil, eds. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993). A compilation of commonly used terms, the work as the title denotes is a listing of words and phrases generally known by educated individuals.

DGC Appiah, Kwame Anthony and Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Dictionary of Global Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997). Whereas E. D. Hirsch Jr. and his fellow editors in their Dictionary of Cultural Literacy had emphasized terms common in Western culture, Appiah and Gates emphasize the achievement of the non-Western world. By the year 2000, they note, half the world’s people will be Asian and one-eighth will be African. A majority will be non-Christian. Of the world’s twenty largest cities, none will be in Europe nor in the United States. Appiah is professor of philosophy and of Afro-American studies at Harvard, and Gates is professor of humanities and chair of the department of Afro-American Studies at Harvard. The Economist (15 March 1997) echoes the present writer’s view: “The omissions are peculiar. V. S. Naipaul is not listed, either as a British or as a Trinidadian author. Nor, among African writers, are Nadine Gordimer, Doris Lessing and J. M. Coetzee. There are entries for lots of West African people–Mossi, Bambara, Baulé (whose culture, we are told, “is re-emerging”) – but none for Caucasian tribes such as Georgians, Abkhaz, Mingrelians. The Watutsi do not make it, either as perpetrators or as victims of genocide–or as the originators of a one-time American dance craze. . . . As a canon-buster, then, this book is a bit of a failure. Perhaps Messrs. Appiah and Gates were too busy to find time for the lexicographer’s harmless drudgery. Their non-delivery of what they promised is a let-down for them, their university and–what matters more–their students.”

E Esau, Reed, editor of a World Wide Web page listing “Celebrity Atheists, Agnostics, and Other Non-Theists.” Reed] edited an offbeat collection of notable individuals who have been public about their lack of belief in deities. He provides documentation and states that the following homepages are a collaborative effort.

EG Gillis, Elizabeth. People Like Us, Stories About Unitarian Universalists, volumes 1 (1988) and 2 (1991), (72 Peterborough Street, Apt 35, Boston, MA 02215). Gillis is a scholar interested in verifying Unitarian and Universalist memberships. She is of the opinion, which she wrote in the Unitarian publication, World (September-October, 1992), that some who allegedly were members “dabbled in many denominations” and may not have considered themselves 100% Unitarians.

EH Clifton, Charles S. Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics (Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 1992). Clifton, a contributing editor of Gnosis: A Journal of the Western Inner Traditions, includes in his listings an extensive bibliography.

EP Edwards, Paul, ed. Encyclopedia of Philosophy (NY: Macmillan, 1967). This definitive four-volume survey of the entire subject of philosophy is invaluable in any study of various philosophic topics. Featured are articles by some of the most revered names in philosophy. The editor is a major philosopher as well as teacher.

ER Ferm, Vergilius, Encyclopedia of Religion (New York: Philosophical Library, 1945). Working with 190 collaborators, Ferm compiled thousands of facts concerning religion and religionists in the 1940s.

ESDM Slater, Scott, and Alec Solomita. Exits, Stories of Dying Moments and Parting Words (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1980). The volume is a collection of individuals’ purported last words before dying. Non-believers are not known for their last-minute or deathbed confessions of faith, although believers have widely spread the erroneous view that in their dying moments most non-believers “find God.”

EU Stein, Gordon, ed., Encyclopedia of Unbelief with a Foreword by Paul Edwards (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1985). Biographies of prominent individuals associated with freethought, agnosticism, atheism, humanism, skepticism, and unbelief are included in this work, which contains several hundred articles by a variety of experts. No other work goes into such depth, and it is an ideal resource for further research on the subject of unbelief, particularly in its treatment of unbelief in the ancient world, in various countries, in literature, in all aspects of philosophy. As a caveat, it should be noted that a major British rationalist in 1994 described the work as “unreliable,” that, for example, it confused Charles and Charles Albert Watts and contained other mistaken details concerning English entries.

EW Wilson, Edwin H. The Genesis of a Humanist Manifesto (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1995). Wilson, an editor and signer of Humanist Manifesto I, was one of the founders of the American Humanist Association as well as the International Humanist and Ethical Union. He was the first editor of The Humanist. Finished when he was in his 90s, the book gives candid views of the personalities of those who worked with him, particularly Raymond Bragg, on the first humanist manifesto. He also tells of those who did not sign, and why.

FAF Whitehead, Fred and Merle Muhrer, eds. Freethought on the American Frontier (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1992). Contending that the great majority of historians of American philosophy and intellectual life have concentrated on the East as representative of the whole nation, the present anthology of freethought writing from the American Midwest and West aims to correct that situation.

FD Briars, David. “Freethinker’s Directory” (Privately printed. Route 1, B-45, Craftsbury, Vermont 05826). Briars in 1993 issued a second edition of a work that presumably lists all a-theist, freethought, and non-goddist organizations. The work has been liberally quoted herein. Inasmuch as the various chapters that are cited have frequent elections, the officers listed likely have changed since 1993

FI Free Inquiry, a quarterly published by the Council for Secular Humanism Inc. (Box 664, Buffalo, New York 14226). Editor-in-Chief Paul Kurtz has developed what he calls eupraxophy. The magazine includes editorials, interviews, articles, book reviews, and news about current developments in philosophy. The Council for Secular Humanism sponsors many organizations, including the following: African Americans for Humanism; Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER); Inquiry Media Productions; Institute for Inquiry; International Development Committee; James Madison Memorial Committee; Robert G. Ingersoll Memorial Committee; Secular Organization for Sobriety (SOS); Secular Humanist Aid and Relief Effort (SHARE); and Society of Humanist Philosophers. In addition, it sponsors the Alliance of Secular Humanist Societies (ASHS), a network of regional groups in several dozen United States and ten Canadian cities. Also, it has established The International Academy of Humanism, which consists of eminent members from nations around the world.

FO Foote, George William. Infidel Death-Beds (New York: Truth Seeker Press, 1892). Truth Seeker Press published the 1886 version with some additions by A. D. McLaren. The work concentrates mostly upon freethinkers’ final moments.

FUK Stein, Gordon. Freethought in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, A Descriptive Bibliography (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, and London, England, 1981). The work includes the Rise of Deism (1614–1760); the National Secular Society to 1860; the Bradlaugh/Besant/Foote Era; and Freethought After Foote (1915–1981). Included are bibliographic entries concerning Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, etc.

FUS Stein, Gordon and Marshall G. Brown. Freethought in the United States (Westport, Connecticut. Greenwood Press, and London, England, 1978). The work refers to the rise and decline of deism, popular freethought, the Golden Age of Freethought, and Freethought in the 20th Century.

GL Summers, Claude J., ed. The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1995). The extensive work is a reader’s companion to the writers and their works, from antiquity to the present. Many gay writers formerly have been overlooked as being non-theists.

GS Stein, Gordon. God Pro and Con (New York: Garland Publishing, 1990). A short work by the late Gordon Stein, it contains a thorough bibliography of atheism.

HAB Berman, David. A History of Atheism in Britain, From Hobbes to Russell (London and New York: Routledge, 1988). Dr. Berman, a senior lecturer in philosophy at Trinity College of the University of Dublin, explains how atheism was repressed, denied, and suppressed, but how at the surprisingly late date of 1782 covert atheists such as Collins, Hume, and Turner appeared.HM1

HM1 Humanist Manifesto I (which first appeared in The New Humanist, May-June 1933, Vol. VI, No. 3) (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973). Individuals who signed this 1933 document are listed in the present work.

HM2 Humanist Manifesto II (which first appeared in The Humanist, September-October 1973, Vol. XXXIII, No. 5) (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973). Individuals who signed this 1973 document are listed in Philosopedia.

HNS Morain, Lloyd and Mary Morain. Humanism as the Next Step, An Introduction for Liberal Protestants, Catholics, and Jews (Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press, 1954) Lloyd Morain—once president of the American Humanist Association—and his wife, Mary—once a director of the International Humanist and Ethical Union—wrote this book to describe the new and humanistic “Fourth Faith.”

HNS2 Morain, Lloyd and Mary Morain. Humanism as the Next Step (Amherst, New York: Humanist Press, 1998. The work is a second edition, one that contains many personal reminiscences. However, its Appendix One, “The Background of Modern Humanism,” unfortunately is an admixture of names and terms. Typical of its prose: “Philo Judaeus, living at the time of Christ, developed Hellenistic Jewish philosophy.” Furthermore, the Morains, leaders of the American Humanist Association, refer to the Christ and the Buddha rather than to Jesus and Gautama, as one would expect humanists to do. Appendix Two, by Frederick Edwords, is an edited version of an article entitled “The Humanist Philosophy in Perspective.” The index is disappointingly incomplete.

HWP Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1945) Those who praise the Lord usually cite this work by the renowned logical atomist, mathematician, and humanist. His thinking has greatly influenced the rationalist and humanist movements.

ILP Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis: 1948, 1961) (Imprimatur: Fr. Alfonsus C. De Romanis, Ep. Porphyreonen, Vic. Gen. Civitatis Vaticanae). The index, which lasted from 1559 to 1966, includes in its long list of writers such names as Balzac, Cervantes, De Beauvoir, De Unamuno, Descartes, Gide, Hugo, Kazantzakis, Moravia, Pascal, Sartre, and Stendhal. It is a definitive work not only of those works which believers must not read but also of those writers who achieved the distinction of being prohibited. Of the 508 pages of authors and books prohibited, only a sampling is included herein. For example:

Abauzit, Firmin. v. Réflexious impartiales sur les évangiles.
Abbadie, Jacques. Traité de la vérité de la religion chrétienne. Decr. 5 iul, 1695.
_____ Traité de la divinité de notre seigneur Jésus-Christ. Decr. 15 maii 1702. Abominationes papatus, seu invicta demonstratio papam romanum esse no Domini 1666, excuso Londini 1665, Decr. 22 sept. 1692. v. Romae ruina finalis.
Acton, Lord. Zur Geschichte des vaticanischen Concils. Decr. S. Off, 20 sept. 1871
Browsers, even those who are polyglots, will find few works and names which they will recognize in the volume’s 508 mausoleum-like pages. For example, twenty-seven works by Ioannes Launoius (Launoy) were banned from 1662 to 1704, including such off-putting titles as Véritable tradition de l’Église sur la prédestination et la grâce and Explicata ecclesiae traditio circa canonem “Omnis utriusque sexus.”

IM Edwards, Paul, ed. Immortality (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992). The selections herein concern not only the subject of immortality but also the mind-body problem and the nature of personal identity.

ISL Wallace, Irving, Amy Wallace, David Wallechinsky, and Sylvia Wallace, eds. The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People (New York: Delacorte Press, 1981) Over fifty individuals contributed material to this volume, which starts with a quotation by Maurice Nadeau, editor of Les Lettres Nouvelles: “The way in which people make love may tell us more about them than any searching analysis could.”

ISL Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People, edited by Irving Wallace, Amy Wallace, David Wallechinsky, and Sylvia Wallace (New York: Delacorte Press, 1981). Unlike most prudish biographical references, this volume highlights the humanity of individuals by citing their physical problems, their loves, their human strengths, their weaknesses.

JHG Groden, Michael and Martin Kreiswirth. The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism, (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994). A valuable resource book, the guide includes more than two hundred alphabetically arranged entries on critics and theorists, critical schools and movements, and the critical and theoretical innovations of specific countries and historical periods.

JM McCabe, Joseph. A Biographical Dictionary of Ancient, Medieval, and Modern Freethinkers (Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1945). Complaining that Wheeler, John M. Robertson, and others “have too readily admitted liberal members of organized religions,” McCabe proposed narrowing his list. He noted that “all the thinkers during seven centuries of ancient Greece except Plato and Pythagoras rejected the idea of spirit or a personal God and immortality. So did nearly all the writers of ancient Rome. At the other end of the scale it is hardly necessary to record that such men as Haldeman-Julius, McCabe, Bertrand Russell, Joseph Lewis, etc., are atheists.” He also noted that Prof. James Leuba has twice shown, “from their own private assurances, that three-fourths of the 500 leading men of science and history in America ‘disbelieve’ in God, and that is the dictionary definition of atheism.”

JMR Robertson, John M. A Short History of Freethought, Ancient and Modern (London: Watts & Co., 1915). In his two-volume work issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Robertson compiled a phenomenal number of facts concerning freethought. Polytheists, he revealed, once called the early Christians “atheists” because they did not agree with the image-adoring polytheists. “Infidels” referred then chiefly to Jews and pagans. “Deism” and “naturalism” came into use about the middle of the 16th century. In scholarly fashion, Robertson details the ramifications of freethought. According to Gordon Stein in the Encyclopedia of Unbelief, Robertson wrote 115 or more books and “had perhaps the greatest knowledge of freethought of any freethinker who has ever lived.”

JMRH Robertson, John M. A History of Freethought, Ancient and Modern to the Period of the French Revolution (London: Watts & Co., 1936). This is an updating of the two-volume Short History of Freethought, Ancient and Modern. It is a major work, a triumph of research and readable prose.

LEE Leedom, Tim C. ed., The Book Your Church Doesn’t Want You To Read (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall-Hunt Publishing Company, 1993). Leedom was an administrative aide to both the Governor and Lt. Governor of Hawaii. He then worked seven years in the Hawaii State Legislature. This book is an anthology of freethought viewpoints; however, it could have used a careful fact-checker.

OAL Oxford Companion to American Literature, 4th Edition (New York: Oxford University Press. 1965). Editor James D. Hart arranges authors and subjects alphabetically and the entries are generous with details.

OCA Hart, James D. The Oxford Companion to American Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965; 1983). This source is a standard but old reference concerning American authors and their works.

OCP Oxford Companion to Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). The work is a particularly important reference book. A total of 249 contributors, including Dr. Paul Edwards, have provided several thousand alphabetically arranged entries. The editor is Ted Honderich.

OEL Oxford Companion to English Literature, 5th Edition (New York: Oxford University Press. 1985). Editor Margaret Drabble has up-dated Sir Paul Harvey’s 1932 compilation of biographies and facts concerning English literature.

PA Wallechinsky, David and Irving Wallace. People’s Almanac (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1975). Over one hundred individuals have contributed material to this volume, which starts with a quotation by Jean de la Bruyère: “The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth.” Carol Orsag and Shoshana Weschler include a section, “Modern Atheists/Agnostics of the Western World,” all of whom are listed in the present work.

PA2 Wallechinsky, David and Irving Wallace, eds., People’s Almanac #2 (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1978). A follow-up to the 1975 book, the present book tries, say the editors, “when possible, to provide in-depth material on selected topics rather than endless, dry, bare-bones dates and figures on all subjects. This is a volume that attempts to go beyond often repeated, unchallenged data and offer the behind-the-scenes, frequently omitted truths.”

PE Edwards, Paul. Reincarnation: A Critical Examination (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1996). A first, the work critiques reincarnation and concludes that empirical and conceptual objections to reincarnation and karma are so strong that the ideas are sheer nonsense. Edwards is thorough and witty, even riotously funny, and he is pleased if he is described as having an “irrepressible Voltairean sense of humor.”

PGA Fitts, Dudley. Poems From The Greek Anthology (New York: New Directions, 1941). Mr. Fitts’s rendering into English of poems from the Greek, or Palatine, anthology first appeared in a volume published in 1938.

PK Kurtz, Paul, ed. The Humanist Alternative: Some Definitions of Humanism (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973).

PUT Putnam, Samuel P. 400 Years of Freethought (New York: The Truth Seeker Company, 1894). Putnam includes many photos and artistic likenesses of eminent freethinkers from the time of Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Magellan to leaders.

QBR Eisler, Lee. The Quotable Bertrand Russell (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1993). When Lord Russell died in 1970 at the age of 98, he had written eighty-nine books, numerous articles, as well as countless newspaper and magazine stories. Also, he had given many interviews. The late Lee Eisler’s reader-friendly volume makes it easy to locate Russell’s views on a variety of subjects.

RAT McCabe, Joseph. Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists (London: Watts, 1920). Written in 1920 when he was in his forties, the book is a study of modern rationalists up until the 1910s. The word “rationalist” first appeared in English letters about the middle of the seventeenth century, he states, denoting a sect of people who follow “what their reason dictates to them in Church or State.” Somewhat earlier, Bacon applied the term “Rationals” to the philosophers who sought to attain truth by deductions from the first principles which reason was supposed to perceive rather than by induction from the observed facts of nature. “In neither sense,” McCabe writes, did the term pass into general currency at the time; but in the course of the nineteenth century it was adopted as the most fitting name for those who uphold what is vaguely called the supremacy of reason in the discovery and establishment of truth.”

RE McCabe, Joseph. A Rationalist Encyclopedia: A Book of Reference on Religion, Philosophy, Ethics, and Science (London: Watts & Co., 1950). “The distinctive feature of this book,” states the foreword, “is that it challenges the widespread conviction that all that is most precious in our civilization has been derived from Christianity.” In over 600 pages, with alphabetical listings, McCabe names and describes the legends without their halo. It should be noted that many now consider parts of the work obsolete because it contains errors (such as inclusion of the Piltdown Man as being authentic, which fooled many at that time, including Sir Arthur Keith).

REP Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edward Craig, General Editor. (New York: Routledge, 1998). This mammoth survey of the history of philosophy cost $2,495. upon publication, has ten volumes, and is 8,680 pages in length. It was published in 1998 at a time when the present author’s work was just being finished. No references thereunto are included.

RSR Royle, Edward. Radicals, Secularist and Republicans: Popular Freethought in Britain, 1866–1915 (Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield, 1980). Secularists in the England of the period covered held that the evils of contemporary society were attributable to the baneful effects of religion and their aim was to discredit Christianity and those social institutions which depended upon it. They were republicans in a country increasingly devoted to its Queen. They were atheists in a society which, outwardly at least, was profoundly religious. Their hero was Thomas Paine.

SAU Underwood, Sara A. Heroines of Freethought (New York: Charles P. Somerby, 1876). “To-day we stand at the opening of a grand vista of civil and religious liberty,” Underwood prefaced her book in 1876. She concentrated on eleven freethinkers: Madame Roland (Marie Jeanne Phlipon), Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, George Sand, Harriet Martineau, Frances Wright D’Arusmont, Emma Martin, Margaret Chappellsmith, Ernestine L. Rose, Frances Power Cobbe, and George Eliot.

SHD Secular Humanist Declaration, 1980 (Reprinted from Free Inquiry, Vol. 1, #1, Winter, 1980, and available from Prometheus Books, 59 John Glenn Drive, Amherst, New York 14228). Drafted by Paul Kurtz, the declaration is endorsed by fifty-eight prominent scholars and writers from Canada, France, Great Britain, India, Israel, Norway, the United States of America, and the former country of Yugoslavia.

SWW Dahlitz, Ray. Secular Who’s Who, A Biographical Collection of Australasian Humanists, Rationalists, Secularists, and Freethinkers (GPO Box 1555, Melbourne, Victoria, 3001, Australia, 1993). Here is a remarkable compendium of significant Australasians in the last 150 years of their secular history. It contains more than 60 photographs, 200 biographies, 300 organizations, and 2000 references.

TRI Tribe, David. 100 Years of Freethought (London: Elek Books Limited, 1967) “Freethought has no beginning and no end,” Tribe commences. He then mentions some early dates:

1825 Early unitarianism
1833 Mexican secularism
1848 German free-religious movement
1854 Organized Positivism
1856 New Zealand rationalism
1862 Australian secularism
1864 Belgian Ligue de l’Enseignement
1869 Italian anti-clericalism
1871 Voysey’s theistic church
1873 U. S. freethought (based on the Truth Seeker, “now regrettably aiding racism”)
1876 American Ethical Culture
1881 Dutch Dageraad (Dawn) as a national movement
1883 Argentinean secularism
1887 Austrian secularism

TSV Vernon, Thomas S. Great Infidels (m & m Press, PO Box 338, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72702, 1989) Dr. Thomas S. Vernon is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arkansas and author of Unheavenly Discourses and The Age of Unreason.

TYD Haught, James A. 2000 Years of Disbelief, Famous People with the Courage to Doubt (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1996). Haught, editor of the Charleston Gazette, wrote this anthology in which are listed noted disbelievers from the ancient to contemporary times. In addition to citing individuals who will be found listed in the present work, Haught includes a chapter on “Troubled Believers,” in which he cites Vice President Albert Gore Jr. and others. Some of these so-called “troubled” believers have been included in the present work.

U “Unitarian Universalist Religious Education Calendar, 1992” (Unitarian Universalist Association, 25 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108). The calendar lists “individuals

U&U Robinson, David. The Unitarians and the Universalists, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1985). The work lists major Unitarians and Universalists. As for a definition of Unitarianism, James Luther Adams cites the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead: “Unitarianism is belief in up to one God.” In 1962, Pope John XXIII told Dana McLean Greeley, “The Unitarians are the people who made a religion of all our heresies.”

UU Lange, Fred E. Jr. “Famous Unitarians / Universalists” PO Box 274, Garwood, New Jersey 07027, 1987). Unitarians and Universalists are outside the Judeo-Christian groupings and many of the congregations have members as well as ministers who are religious humanists (who often choose to use terms common to other churches) or secular humanists (who are basically interested in philosophy, the humanities, and the sciences rather than in religion). The Unitarians and Universalists whom Lange describes are listed in the present work. Rather than distinguish between the two groups, Unitarian is ordinarily used throughout. A considerable number of contemporary Unitarian Universalists are humanists.

VI Royle, Edward. Victorian Infidels (Totowa, New Jersey, Rowman and Littlefield, 1974). The work describes the origins of the British secularist movement, 1791 to 1866.

VOL (Voltaire). A Philosophical Dictionary from the French of M. DeVoltaire With Additional Notes, Both Critical and Argumentative (Boston: J. P. Mendum, 1856). A book which deserves to be reprinted, for Voltaire is far ahead of most thinkers in the contemporary world, it is advertised as “the first American Stereotype edition.” The two-volumes-in-one work, royal octavo, 876 pages, full bound, sold then for $5.00

VU Gaskin, J. C. A., ed., Varieties of Unbelief: From Epicurus to Sartre (New York: Macmillan, 1988). This collection exhibits in historical sequence the main ideas that have challenged the claims of supernatural religions. The author is a Fellow of Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

WAS Smith, Warren Allen. Humanists on Humanism - An as yet unpublished manuscript, Humanists on Humanism contains correspondence from individuals who were informed by the author that seven humanisms appeared in the current literature of the 1950s. These seven humanisms were described and defined as follows:

1 humanism—to the lexicographer, a term denoting devotion to human interests as well as one referring to the study of the humanities;
2 ancient humanism—to the historiographer, a term pertaining to the collective philosophies of such as Aristotle, Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, Pericles, Protagoras, and Socrates;
3 classical humanism—to the educator, a term referring to the ancient humanist views brought back into vogue during the Renaissance by such as Bacon, Boccaccio, Erasmus, Montaigne, More, and Petrarch;
4 theistic humanism—to the seminarian, a term including both Christian existentialists and those modern theologians who insist upon human values, upon man’s capability of working out his salvation with his God, all within the framework of a supernaturalistic philosophy;
5 atheistic humanism—to the Continental critic, a term describing the philosophy of French playwright and novelist Jean-Paul Sartre and others;
6 communistic humanism—to the political scientist, a term signifying the philosophic beliefs of some Marxists–for example, Cuba’s Fidel Castro; Raya Dunayevskaya, former secretary to Leon Trotsky, averred that Karl Marx was a thoroughgoing naturalist who at first had called his outlook “a new humanism.”
7 naturalistic (or scientific) humanism–to philosophers, an eclectic set of beliefs born of the modern scientific age and centered upon a faith in, or an assumption of, the supreme value and self-improvability of human personality (in the 1970s to 1990s, usually called “secular humanism” or, by a few, “humanistic naturalism”). Individuals were then asked to comment on any or all of the seven humanisms. Their replies are followed by brackets showing the date they replied, from 1948 on. Some were simply asked to go on record as to whether they are theists or non-theists.

WIN Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon (New York: Plume / Penguin Books, 1987). Winokur’s is a collection of irreverent quotations.

WRF Nass, Herbert E. Wills of the Rich and Famous (New York: Warner Books. 1991). A will sometimes reveals an individual’s paramount interests or last-minute changes of mind.

WSS Smith, Warren Sylvester. The London Heretics, 1870–1914 (New York: Dodd, Mead, & Co., 1968). Smith, in addition to listing heretics of the period, includes periodicals of the secularist movement, 1845–1914. He also discusses the non-Christians as well as the new Christians of the 1910–1914 period.

WTND Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Co., 1961). This and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1992) were used in the present study for definitions of words. Neither work includes “secular humanism.”

WWS Gaylor, Annie Laurie, ed. Women Without Superstition: “No Gods—No Masters” (Madison, Wisconsin: Freedom From Religion Foundation). Gaylor has edited the collected writings of women freethinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Anyone wishing more information about eminent women in the freethought movement will find the present work most helpful.

WWTCL Seymour-Smith, Martin. Who’s Who in Twentieth Century Literature (New York: McGraw Hill, 1976). The reference is a standard 1970s study of world literature.

ALPHABETICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Symbol Author and Work

ACK Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of Love (New York: Random House, 1994). Love has many forms and faces, explains Ackerman, a staff writer for The New Yorker. “Love is the great intangible,” her book commences, whereupon she discusses the historical, cultural, religious, and biological roots of love from a feminine, humanistic viewpoint.

AAH Allen, Norman R. Jr., ed. African-American Humanism, An Anthology (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books, 1991. Allen, an editorial associate at Free Inquiry, has surveyed contemporary African-American humanists and freethinkers, who are included herein.

AA Alyson Almanac (Boston: Alyson Publications, Inc., 1989). The Alyson Almanac is a source for finding the various sexual proclivities ordinarily omitted in the past by most reference books.

AHD American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1992). Both this dictionary and Webster’s Third New International Dictionary have been used throughout for definitions of words. Neither lists “secular humanism.”

DGC Appiah, Kwame Anthony and Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Dictionary of Global Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997). Whereas E. D. Hirsch Jr. and his fellow editors in their Dictionary of Cultural Literacy had emphasized terms common in Western culture, Appiah and Gates emphasize the achievement of the non-Western world. By the year 2000, they note, half the world’s people will be Asian and one-eighth will be African. A majority will be non-Christian. Of the world’s twenty largest cities, none will be in Europe nor in the United States. Appiah is professor of philosophy and of Afro-American studies at Harvard, and Gates is professor of humanities and chair of the department of Afro-American Studies at Harvard. The Economist (15 March 1997) echoes the present writer’s view: “The omissions are peculiar. V. S. Naipaul is not listed, either as a British or as a Trinidadian author. Nor, among African writers, are Nadine Gordimer, Doris Lessing and J. M. Coetzee. There are entries for lots of West African people–Mossi, Bambara, Baulé (whose culture, we are told, “is re-emerging”) – but none for Caucasian tribes such as Georgians, Abkhaz, Mingrelians. The Watutsi do not make it, either as perpetrators or as victims of genocide–or as the originators of a one-time American dance craze. . . . As a canon-buster, then, this book is a bit of a failure. Perhaps Messrs. Appiah and Gates were too busy to find time for the lexicographer’s harmless drudgery. Their non-delivery of what they promised is a let-down for them, their university and–what matters more–their students.”

HAB Berman, David. A History of Atheism in Britain, From Hobbes to Russell (London and New York: Routledge, 1988). Dr. Berman, a senior lecturer in philosophy at Trinity College of the University of Dublin, explains how atheism was repressed, denied, and suppressed, but how at the surprisingly late date of 1782 covert atheists such as Collins, Hume, and Turner appeared.

FD Briars, David. “Freethinker’s Directory” (Privately printed. Route 1, B-45, Craftsbury, Vermont 05826). Briars in 1993 issued a second edition of a work that presumably lists all a-theist, freethought, and non-goddist organizations. The work has been liberally quoted herein. Inasmuch as the various chapters that are cited have frequent elections, the officers listed likely have changed since 1993.