Humanitas
General
The ancient Latin term humanitas generally describes being human as well as the norms and behaviors that make up a person. The first literary mention of humanitas can be found in the Heautontimoroumenos of Terence : Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto (translation according to Grimal: “I am human, and nothing human is alien to me”). According to Alexander Bätz , concordia (harmony), fides (trustworthiness), iustitia (justice), audacia (daring) and disciplina (military discipline) belonged to the mos maiorum , “an inventory of customs, rules and values of the forefathers, that acted as a framework for the individual and collective behavior of members of the community ”. If one follows Bätz's account, humanitas is a comparatively late phenomenon in Roman cultural history. Although the concept itself goes back to the ius gentium, the law of aliens, the idea of humanitas only came into its own under the influence of Greek philosophy (cf. paideia ). However, it can be assumed that the different views on humanitas already in antiquity left a great deal of leeway for interpretation. The Latin noun humanitas can stand for humanity, human love and humanity in the sense of a moral and spiritual education (cf. humanity ). Pierre Grimal describes humanitas on the one hand as the idea that “all members of the human sex are related to the members of the same gens ” and on the other hand as a “feeling of a certain solidarity” that describes friendship, but in any case respect for other people. The term humanitas was discussed by some Latin writers who made it the "formula of a universal justice" . According to Grimal, this idea is an extension of the civitas Romana to the civitas humana. The Renaissance humanism reached the value concept of humanitas in the 14th century scratch.
About the Roman concept of value
According to Halthoff , Roman values and concepts of value are to be described on the basis of their "situational character [s]". On the one hand, this means embedding in the social context and, on the other hand, embedding “in a concrete action situation”.
In a social context, values such as pietas , fortitudo or fides have a “regulating function” that is supposed to guarantee identity and legitimacy among the political leadership. According to Halthoff, however, "narrower contexts" can also be used, e.g. B. Client relations, the household or the Roman army. In terms of a concrete action situation, moral values are understood as determining the situation. This situational understanding specifies situations for action, e.g. B. a “pietas situation” or a “fortitudo situation”, which in turn presupposes a “pietas act” or “fortitudo act”. From this point of view, one could venture to claim that Roman humanitas may also have been a value that was accompanied by an expectation. Finally, Aulus Gellius was to describe humanitas as being human through the pursuit of knowledge and education.
Roman authors and writers
Publius Terentius Afer (2nd century BC)
The Heautontimoroumenos of the Carthage- born comedy poet Publius Terentius Afer (more commonly known as Terenz in German-speaking countries ) is the first literary source in which the noun humanitas can be found ("homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto"). According to Büchner, this saying can be cited as an example of the poet's gnomic formulations, which often lived on in winged words. In addition, Büchner described the pioneering role of Terence in the “Greco-Roman [n] spirit pairing”, which is of substantial importance for the development of an independent Latin concept of humanitas.
Aulus Gellius (~ 130 AD)
The Janus face of humanitas was described in the 2nd century AD by Aulus Gellius in his Noctes Atticae (XIII, 17) as follows:
Qui verba Latina fecerunt quique his probe usi sunt, “humanitatem” non id esse voluerunt, quod volgus existimat quodque a Graecis philanthropia dicitur et significat dexteritatem quandam benivolentiamque erga omnis homines promiscam, sed “humanitatem” appellaverunt quod propemodum n, paoside id Graecodum eruditionem institutionemque in bonas artis dicimus. Quas qui sinceriter cupiunt adpetuntque, hi sunt vel maxime humanissimi. Huius enim scientiae cura et disciplina ex universis animantibus uni homini datast idcircoque "humanitas" appellata est.
Wilfried Stroh reproduced Gellius' words as follows:
“Those who created the Latin words and used them correctly did not want humanitas to be understood as what the mob understand it and what the Greeks call φιλανθρωπία, denoting a kind of kindness and benevolence that extends to all people equally [ That would be humanitas in the sense of human love ], they rather called humanitas what the Greeks παιδεία [= education], whereas we, on the other hand, use education and instruction in the valuable sciences (bonae artes). The people who sincerely long for and strive for these are in an excellent way the 'humane' (humanissimi). Because worrying about this knowledge and its learning is only given to humans of all living beings and that is why it was called humanitas (being human). "
Marcus Tullius Cicero (1st century BC)
For Marcus Tullius Cicero , humanitas describes, among other things, both the possibilities and the limitations of humans that distinguish them from animals.
Gaius Iulius Caesar (1st century BC)
In his work Comentarii de Bello Gallico, which consists of 8 books, Gaius Iulius Caesar not only described his campaigns against the various Gallic and Germanic tribes, but also dedicated the introduction of his report (1,1,3) to the situation and population of Gaul. In this context he uses the nouns cultus (way of life, way of life) and humanitas (here: education) to characterize the tribe of the Belgians more closely:
"Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae, propterea quod a cultu atque humanitate provinciae longissime absunt minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant atque ea, quae ad effeminandos animos pertinent, important proximique sunt Germanis, qui trans Rhenum incolunt, quibuscum continenter bellum gerunt."
Edited translation according to Baumstark: “The bravest of all are the Belgians, because they stay away from the finer way of life and education of Roman Gaul and are by no means in frequent contact with foreign merchants, who do not bring them any objects that are suitable are to bring about an effeminate relaxation of strength. They live very close to the Germanic tribes on the right bank of the Rhine and are incessantly waging war with them. "
Concept of Humanitas in National Socialism
In the second, improved edition of Brockhaus 1941, the distinction between human and animal is given under the lemma 'humanity':
Humanity (Latin humanitas 'humanity') the, -, morality, noble education; in the doctrine of morality 1) everything purely human in contrast to animal; 2) the general human raised to the moral level, especially the respect for human dignity and its recognition as self-worth (idea of humanity).
The concept of humanity , derived from the Roman humanitas , was adapted to the state-sponsored racial doctrine under National Socialism :
“ A degenerate view of H. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the leading participation of Judaism, advocated the protection of everything human for its own sake, including the inferior and degenerate. Contrary to such healthy moral views, the völkisch Weltanschauung emphasizes a natural, especially racially conditioned inequality of people and the primacy of God and the state over a general ideal of humanity. "
National Socialism broke with the ancient concept of humanitas in the sense of civitas humana, since its followers only allowed the term humanity, which was now in use, to apply to those who were not considered to be “inferior” as a result of the “racially determined inequality of people” they represented ”Or“ degenerate ”were stigmatized.
literature
- Christoph Horn , Christof Rapp : Dictionary of ancient philosophy . Munich 2002, p. 200f.
- Rudolf Rieks : Homo, humanus, humanitas. On humanity in Latin literature of the 1st century AD . W. Fink, Tübingen 1967.
- Pierre Grimal : Roman Cultural History . Munich 1961, p. 98.
- Wilfried Stroh : The origin of the humanistic thinking in Roman antiquity . Lecture to the Goethe Society on the annual theme The Problem of Humanity in Goethe's Time and Today. Munich 1989, p. 6
- Alexander Bätz : Faith and Calculation . In: Contemporary History 2/14. Augustus: Rome's first emperor, Hamburg 2014, p. 71
- Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus : The New Brockhaus: All book in four volumes . Second, improved edition, second volume (F – K), Leipzig 1941, p. 456
- Christoph Horn , Christof Rapp : Dictionary of ancient philosophy . Munich 2002, p. 200f.
- Maximilian Braun , Andreas Halthoff , Fritz-Heiner Mutschler (eds.): Moribus antiquis res stat Romana: Roman values and Roman literature in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC Chr. In: Contributions to antiquity, vol. 134. Leipzig 2000, p. 24
Individual evidence
- ^ Maximilian Braun , Andreas Halthoff , Fritz-Heiner Mutschler : Moribus antiquis res stat Romana: Roman values and Roman literature in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. Chr. In: Contributions to antiquity, vol. 134. Leipzig 2000, p. 7.
- ↑ Andreas Halthoff : Value Concept and Value Concepts . In: Moribus antiquis res stat Romana: Roman values and Roman literature in the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC Chr. In: Maximilian Braun, Andreas Halthoff, Fritz-Heiner Mutschler (ed.): Contributions to antiquity, vol. 134. Leipzig 2000, p. 24.
- ^ Karl Büchner : Terence in the continuity of occidental humanity . In: Humanitas Romana. Studies of the works and nature of the Romans. Heidelberg 1957, p. 50.
- ^ Karl Büchner : Terence in the continuity of occidental humanity . In: Humanitas Romana. Studies of the works and nature of the Romans. Heidelberg 1957, p. 63.
- ↑ [1] . AVLI GELLI NOCTES ATTICAE: LIBER XIII. Retrieved September 12, 2014.
- ↑ [2] . “The Origin of Humanitarianism in Roman Antiquity” - Lecture. Retrieved September 12, 2014.
- ↑ [3] . 1,1,3: Description of Gaul and its people. Retrieved September 14, 2014.
- ↑ [4] . 1,1,3: Description of Gaul and its people (translation to Baumstark). Retrieved September 14, 2014.
- ^ Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus : The New Brockhaus: All book in four volumes. Second, improved edition, second volume (FK), Leipzig 1941, p. 456