Jörg-Johannes LechnerCODEX HUMANUS – Zur Idee der ›Menschlichkeit‹ in der klassischen Antike im Kontext von Philosophie und Bildungswissenschaft

About this book deutschenglish

The present publication attempts to trace the ʻidea of humanityʼ in Greek and Roman antiquity. The Greek concepts of ʻphilanthrōpíaʼ (φιλανθρωπία) and ʻpaideiaʼ (παιδεία), although originating from completely different sources and quite different in themselves, have certain and concrete relationships to one another from the outset; in the development of the Greek mind a clearly increasing convergence of these terms can be ascertained, in that both ultimately tend towards an ʻidea of humanityʼ. A real ʻidea of humanityʼ – as this publication shows – we find only in Roman antiquity in the ʻconcept of humanitasʼ, so for example in the philosophy of Cicero and Seneca: Cicero expressly establishes the connection between general ideas about the essence of man and the concepts of ʻhumanitasʼ and ʻcultus humanusʼ; Seneca recognizes a ʻcosmopolitan idealʼ in them. In the end, however, an ʻidea of humanityʼ remains unthinkable without a Greek prehistory, yet at the same time a special position of Roman antiquity – in contrast to Greek antiquity – becomes clear.