“Secular humanism is distinct from religious humanism. Is there not a right to freedom of conscience and freedom from religion for those who insist upon it, without being accused of being covertly religious? Surely one who is indifferent to or neutral about religion, or nonreligious or even anti-religious, should not be labeled ‘religious.’ To deny this would mean that something is what it is as well as its opposite—a clear contradiction. … Secular humanism is secular, not religious. The term should not be turned upside down.”
—Paul Kurtz, “On the Misuse of Language,” Free Inquiry, Volume 6, no. 1 (Winter 1985/1986)
Editor’s Note: Paul Kurtz (1925–2012) was the founder of the Council for Secular Humanism and Free Inquiry magazine. In this essay, he responded to a cover feature by religious Humanist and Unitarian Universalist minister Paul Beattie contending that even secular humanism was inherently religious. Beattie died in 1989, aged fifty-two.
25 Years Ago in Free Inquiry
“Nostalgia is unbecoming to pragmatists, who are supposed to look forward. Nonetheless, it is hard to reread John Dewey and Sidney Hook without feeling that there were giants in those days. The scope of both men’s reading and writing, as well as the sheer vitality of their minds, are hard to match among present-day American philosophers—or, for that matter, American intellectuals. Both men resemble such heroic nineteenth-century figures as John Stuart Mill in the sheer quantity of work they managed to get done, in the range of their curiosity, and in their ability to switch back and forth between abstract philosophy and concrete social issues with no sense of strain, and no diminution in intensity.”
—Richard Rorty, “Remembering John Dewey and Sidney Hook,” Free Inquiry, Volume 16 no. 1 (Winter 1995/1996)
Editor’s Note: Richard Rorty (1931–2007) was a prominent American philosopher who taught at Princeton, Stanford, and the University of Virginia. He was widely credited with a revival of American pragmatism in the latter half of the twentieth century. He was a laureate of the Council for Secular Humanism’s International Academy of Humanism. The famed American philosophers whom Rorty mentions, John Dewey (1859–1952) and Sidney Hook (1902–1989), were the principal academic mentors of Free Inquiry founder Paul Kurtz.
“Secular humanism is distinct from religious humanism. Is there not a right to freedom of conscience and freedom from religion for those who insist upon it, without being accused of being covertly religious? Surely one who is indifferent to or neutral about religion, or nonreligious or even anti-religious, should not be labeled ‘religious.’ To deny this would mean that something is what it is as well as its opposite—a clear contradiction. … Secular humanism is secular, not religious. The term should not be turned upside down.”
“Nostalgia is unbecoming to pragmatists, who are supposed to look forward. Nonetheless, it is hard to reread John Dewey and Sidney Hook without feeling that there were giants in those days. The scope of both men’s reading and writing, as well as the sheer vitality of their minds, are hard to match among present-day American philosophers—or, for that matter, American intellectuals. Both men resemble such heroic nineteenth-century figures as John Stuart Mill in the sheer quantity of work they managed to get done, in the range of their curiosity, and in their ability to switch back and forth between abstract philosophy and concrete social issues with no sense of strain, and no diminution in intensity.”