WAS

From Philosopedia.org

WAS

Smith, Warren Allen

1 Who's Who in Hell
2 Humanists on Humanism
3 The Humanist, 1951, #5
4 The Author

Who's Who in Hell

Who's Who in Hell, A Handbook and International Directory for Humanists, Freethinkers, Naturalists, Rationalists, and Non-Theists. (NY: Barricade Books, 2000, 1,237 pages, $125.00) - the tome by Warren Allen Smith defines Hell as a theological invention and distinguishes it from hell, how we feel when we're sick. Over 10,000 non-believers are given brief biographies.

It is dedicated to Pierre Sylvan Maréchal (1750-1803), Fernando Rodolfo de Jesus Vargas Zamora (1928 - 1989), and to Innumerable non-believers, who may never before have suspected they were amongst such inspring company as will be found herein.

Humanists on Humanism

Humanists on Humanism - An as yet unpublished manuscript, the M.A. thesis he worked on at Columbia University with his advisor, Lionel Trilling, this contains correspondence from individuals who were informed by the author that seven humanisms appeared in the current literature of the 1950s. It developed into his 2000 volume, Who's Who n Hell.

The 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.

Examples of the letters inviting participation - originals were donated to Harvard's Houghton Library:

The Humanist, 1951, #5

Following are scans of the original article.

Quoted were remarks by

Affiliates

who described their views as being that of Naturalistic Humanism: Conrad Aiken; Newton Arvin; A. J. Ayer; Van Wyck Brooks; Witter Bynner; Stuart Chase; Henry Hazlitt; Granville Hicks; Rupert Hughes; Joseph Wood Krutch; Max Lerner; Sinclair Lewis; Harry A. Overstreet; Herbert W. Schneider; Albert Schweitzer

Associates

who appear to profess Naturalistic Humanism but prefer not to be categorized as such: George Boas; Johan Bojer; James Hearst; Walter Lippmann; Archibald MacLeish; Thomas Mann; Bertrand Russell; George Santayana

Ambiguous or Equivocal

Malcolm Cowley; E. E. Cummings; Howard Fast; Robinson Jeffers; Arthur Koestler; Norman Mailer; John Steinbeck

Anti-Humanists

Faith Baldwin; Alan Dowling; John Dos Passos; Norman Foerster; Robert Graves; Angela Morgan; Lewis Mumford; Reinhold Niebuhr; Arthur Schlesinger; Upton Sinclair; Allen Tate, James Thurber