Christian Høgel Humanitas: Universalism, equivocation, and basiccriterion The Western world, or to be more precise the Latinate world, has deeplyembed- ded within its languageand thought anotion of humanitas,ofhumanityor, per- haps better expressed in English, of the humane. Thisnotion covers immense ground, reaches into numerous discussions about human rights, humanitarian aid, humanistic studies or the humanities, and is at the bottom of manyfunda- mental ethical and political arguments. Despite its far-reaching importance,the very concept itself has receivedsurprisingly little academic attention, and in gen- eral onlyfrom the field of philology, the background of the present author,and – to some degree – from scholars in the history of ideas.¹ Fewreal philosophersor political scientists have taken up the concept in its completerange, and the rea- son for this is probablythat the concept is messy:itcontains or revolvesaround what could be labelled an equivocation. Here, equivocation does not implymis- take, but the fact that in the concept of humanitas we find thingsthatare not the same, or not reallythe same, and yetthey appear under the samename. And being acase of equivocation,adiscussion of the concept of humanitas needs to focus in some detail on certain linguistic features and by consequence, due to its Latin origin, alsoonthe ancient notion and use of humanitas,not least as found in the writingsofCicero, if we want to seethe full picture. But,intracing the origins of the concept,weneed to accept from the start that we cannot completelytidyupthe mess and thatwemay end up with accept- ing adivide between conceptual precision on the one hand and getting the best out of atraditionalmanner of speaking on the other.And this traditionalmanner of speaking, so embedded in, e.g., the English language, the languageofthe pre- sent text,isalmost unavoidablyconnected to particular interests despite its ide- alistic and universal claims. In fact,indealing with the concept of humanitas, with its far-reaching influenceinaWestern and, from the twentieth century on- wards also,inaglobal perspective,itiscrucial that we come to realize its fun- damentallyideological aspects. To state this ideological corebriefly – but we shall return to it – the Latin/Western concept of humanitas combines and may denote separately1.acommon referencetoman or mankind, in asort of univer- sal spirit,2.alegal-ethical standard for the correct manner of interaction be- Reitzenstein (1907), Heinemann (1931), Büchner (1961), Klingner (1965), Snell (1975), Koselleck (1979), Bödeker (1982),Veyne (1993), Bauman (2000). OpenAccess. ©2019 Christian Høgel, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110616804-008 130 Christian Høgel tween people, and 3. some notionofthe potentiality of men to reach such astan- dard through education and/or rationalthinking.These threenotions are all to be found in the writings of Cicero, even within the same literary work, and yet they stand in some oppositiontoeach other.How can auniversal reference to mankind at the sametime be an indication of the ethicallycorrect (as opposed to the ethicallywrong)? Arenot all human beingspart of mankindregardless of their behaviour or education?And these are just questions that can be put at the most general level. This, however,isnot to saythat the implied notionsinhu- manitas make no sense. If supported by arguments, fundamental issues concern- ing the nature of mankind, the justification of laws and states,and the basic needs of education mayreceive substantial and crucial attention, and humanitas has since antiquity givenrise to such. But the central problem in the Latin tra- dition is that afull discussion is never givenofthe concept,but is rather implied in the writingsofCicero, the fundamental user and perhaps to some degree in- ventor of the concept for all posterity.Through the centuries, humanitas,includ- ing in its various modern translations, has repeatedlyentered phrasingsand dis- cussions, but with no clear philosophical support.Alack of clarity has accompanied its use,e.g., through employing without clear distinction one and the samewordtorefer to three fundamental spheres (mankind – correct be- haviour – education), and this leads to what Icall an equivocation. Philologists and historians of ideas mayknow this,but despite the centralityofthe concept for modern issues, manyothers do not. And when modern philosophersand political scientists do not question this aspect of humanitas,fields such as human rights,humanitarian aid,and human- istic studies come to be viewed as separate. Even if ahistorical analysis brings youback to the samebasically Stoic origins,with Ciceroasanimportant step in the further development of Greek ideas, the common historicalmeeting point of these fields is hardlyeverdiscussed and problematized. And yetthey have – in aLatinate context – been tied to each other from avery earlypoint. And it should be stressed that the claim here is not thatthe content of human rights, of humanitarian aid,orofhumanisticstudies are in anyspecial way linked to the Latinlanguageortothe Latin tradition. People have been ethical, altruistic, literate, and wise within anylinguistic or culturalsphere on the plan- et.But it is athing peculiartothe Latinlanguagetomake this narrowcombina- tion and to coin one central concept to encompass all these fields and to equate them conceptuallywith mankind in all its universality.Asisoftenstatedin works on humanitas,noequivalent concept ever developed in ancient Greek, or in Greek before the modern period. Greek philosophersasked all the funda- mental questions reflected in humanitas,but they never came upon the idea to make one wordcover all these aspects. Instead they talked of thingssuch Humanitas: Universalism,equivocation, and basic criterion 131 as anthrōpos/anthropotes (‘man/mankind’),philanthropia (‘philanthropy’,e.g.of aruler)orpaideia (‘education/Bildung’). The same goes – per the contention of the present author – for practicallyall other languages preceding the Latin tra- dition.And again it is not the claim that otherlanguages or cultures did not have the notionsimplied in humanitas. What they did not have,asopposed to Latin and the languages that copied Latin, was the combination in one wordofauni- versaldefinition (‘mankind’)with an ideal ethical-legal standard (‘correct hu- mane behaviour’)and anotionoffundamental education (studia humanitatis). This combination is unique to Latinand the languages that took over its manner of expression,that took over the concept of humanitas. In asense, we could simplytakenote of this particular – originallyLatin, later widelydiffused Western – use of one wordand saythat as is known from so many other cases, words maycarry more than one meaning, and it makes little sense to insist on attemptingtomake abridgebetween the mean- ings. The English word ‘kind’ maymean ‘friendly’ (e.g. a kind woman), but it mayalso mean ‘type’ or ‘sort’ (what kind of?what type of?). Thisdoes not lead to an intellectual discussion about the word kind. But in the case of human- itas adiscussion is needed, because one of its meaningsisoften used to support or arguefor another meaning.Itis–to state such an argument in English – quite easy to arguethat human beingsshould treat other human beings ‘humanely’, as this seems to be supported almostinits very wording.Itmay also be argued that the humanities are needed, for if not we lose our humanity,and so on. And these arguments are in no waygroundless.What is being singled out here is the simple fact that since English has inherited the Latin use of ‘humane’, ‘human- ities/humanity’ etc., it is possible in English to construct arguments thatgovery much along the lines of Cicero’srestatement of Stoic thinking, arestatement that inserted the word humanitas (and the related adjective humanus etc.) into strong argumentative positions, thatare also focused on values. In the following,some examples will be givenofthese positions in Cicero’s works,insupport of the claim that it actuallyall goes back to Cicero. Andhere a central reason whythe concept of humanitas has become so central in the West- ern tradition springssimply from the fact that in the more than twenty centuries since his death,Cicero’sworks have had millionsofreaders, and among them manyenthusiastic readers.This is evident in ancient Rome, not least from the opposition thathis writings evoked at the arrival of Christianity. Later,inthe Eu- ropean renaissance,Cicerorose from being apraised stylist to becomingacen- tral literaryfigure, with Ciceronians appearing in manyplaces.Much has been written about his importance among especiallyItalian umanisti,but it will here be the contention that it is in the writings of ErasmusofRotterdam that the full argumentative potentials in the concept of humanitas became revitalized, 132 Christian Høgel and with fundamental consequences for the Latin/Western tradition. Through in- creasingglobalization in our time duringthe lastcenturies, this Latinate tradi- tion has left its marks in discussions all over the world. We willbrieflygothrough some central examples in Cicero’swritings,com- ment upon the reactions of the church father Lactantius, and then jump to Eras- mus. Finally, some words on modern practice and perhaps future dealingswith the concept will round off this presentation. In his De oratore (composed 55 BCE), Cicerodepicts adiscussion taking place between some