The ‘Death of Man’: Foucault and Humanism

1 Thus the American Humanist Association defines humanism as ‘a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism and other supernatural beliefs, affirms our ability and responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal fulfilment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.’ (http://www.americanhumanist.org/humanism/). Its British counterpart states that ‘the Humanist view of life is progressive and optimistic, in awe of human potential, living without fear of judgement and death, finding enough purpose and meaning in life, love and leaving a good legacy.’ (http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/). See also S. Puledda, Interpretations of Humanism: Western Humanisms from the Renaissance to the Present, Latitude Press (1997), p. 1 (‘we find the term humanism used to indicate any current of thought that affirms the centrality, value and dignity of the human being or that manifests a primary concern in the life and situation of the human being in the world’) or K. Soper, Humanism and Anti-Humanism, London: Hutchinson and co, 1992, p.1 sq. 2 See for example: ‘you know that this is precisely this humanism which served to justify, in 1948, Stalinism and the hegemony of Christian democracy, that it is the very humanism that can be found in Camus or in Sartre’s existentialism (...). This humanism has constituted, in a certain way, the small prostitute of the whole thought, the whole culture, the whole morals of the last twenty years’ (DE I 615-616 [RC: 99]). Interestingly, Sartre shares some of these views: ‘we have no right to believe that humanity is something to which we could set up a cult, after the manner of Auguste Comte. The cult of humanity ends in Comtian humanism, shut-in upon itself, and – this must be said – in Fascism’ (Sartre 1973: 55).