(1) Div. “Proceedings of the 1st Internatioanl Humanistic Symposium at Delphi – September 25 – october 4, 1969” First volume – Eric Burck, “Gegenwartsprobleme des Humanismus”; “The humanism of the 15th and 16th centuries in Germany was initially, as in the early Middle Ages, thoroughly factual and knowledge-based. The works of the ancients offered in many respects very specific teachings and proven experiences, which were used for practical life management. In the course of the religious controversy, the call ‘ad fontes’ was used in particular for the study of Greek in recourse to the New Testament of elementary violence. In addition, one studied the ancient authors on the fight against the medieval dogmatism of the church and led the philosophy of the Stoa, Epicurus and Neo-Platonism in the field against the scholastically hardened Aristotle. The Reformation was the conviction that a greenish study of the ancient writers would lead to a deeper understanding of the Christian belief. Above all, however, people were enthusiastic about the language of Cicero and the classical Latin authors, in order to get out of the overgrown churches Latin and to create a fluent and expressive Latin colloquial language as the language of the learned. / This predominantly linguistic and Latin character of the first humanism remained a self-evident basis for neo-humanism, about which one hardly discussed any more. The new, deeply exciting epoch for Winckelmann and Wilhelm von Humboldt, un only to name the two cornerstones of that era, was the companionship with Homer, with the Greek tragedians and with Plato. / Here a new humanity was revealed, which, due to its natural disposition and its historical development, seemed to embody human nature in the purest possible way and to have purified it to perfection. The highest aesthetic delight is part of the ethical concern. In the fight against the French classical music and in the struggle to develop a national literature that was demanding in terms of content and form, the Greek classics provided the ideal model.
(2) Passim: Winckelmann’s famous formula of the ‘noble simplicity and quiet greatness’ of the Greeks is to be welcomed as a counter-formula against the loud pathos of Barck and against the statically bound, heroic canon of values of Absolutism. The return to greece meant for the contemporaries the return to Greece meant for the contemporaries the return to an unspoiled, absolutely ideal world. ethical and aesthetic forces to lean into a cohesive, harmonious personality, as he had in mind in the world of the Greeks in noble naturalness. This elevation of Hellenism into a superhistorical sphere represents a period of humanism which was scarcely divided in the Romance countries and in England. There the continuity with the Roman culture was an essential guarantee for a more objective and closer look at antiquity, which in Germany was only in the 19th century and the results of historicism. The steadily advanced historical research of the ancient world has enriched our knowledge of Greece and the Romans to an unimagined breadth, but it had also brought about a critical leveling of the canonical values of ancient times around the centuries. /
(3) Passim: Fifty years ago, under the impression of this development, Werner Jaeger formulated the basic views of the so-called third humanism, although three more the program and the humanitarian beliefs of a great scholar personally as the “conviction of an entire epoch. Jaeger saw his task in the historical principle to develop humanism in its purity. ‘He sought to grasp the idea of the humanitarian bidding, which he was based on the origins of the educational idea among the Greeks This model of the paideai seems to have been the determining force and purpose throughout the entire Greek culture. The charisma of this Paideia and its conscious integration into one’s own culture and history make up the essence of every humanist period, outspoken and in paradigmatic form with the Romans, see later in the epochs of the different European Renaissance. / What can this historical retrospective teach us in our current situation? It is worth pointing out that humanism based on antiquity does not mean that we are dealing with a constant size. This educational idea has changed from epoch to epoch. She repels what does not seem appropriate or meaningful to her for her own time and needs; But it will also retain individual elements and make them productive and educational in a new incorporation. In addition to passages of the high bloods, we determine periods of decline. But in one form or another, antiquity as a humanitarian and educational phenomenon of the Abenland has awakened to new life and new viability after periods of asphyxiation. That might bring us a faint glimmer of hope for today too. /
(4) Passim: Another incident is even more important. We find that the refuge in antiquity has been a silent escape from the present, but that on the contrary, elements and principles built up in order to cope with the present have been taken from the world of antiquity. This is even true in a double sense: firstly, to liberate ourselves from the crippling and overpowering ties of tradition, and secondly, to indicate direction and to build up a spiritual and educational way of being Fought out of the ecclesiastical and gestural stiffening of the Middle Ages and led to a new belief and a new re-enactment. In neo-humanism, the new image of man developed in the struggle against the Enlightenment and absolutism for the freedom and selfrequency of individual and national life. The third humanism fought against it the advancing forces of industrialization, mass society and threatening materialism and wanted to bring about a geest-related renewal of the education of young people by reflecting on the Greek Paideia. “
Marx Caesar Asimov 