Humanism created a consciousness of historical depth that earlier epochs lacked.
Evidence
With the first dawn of humanism, there began to be a sense that the events of classical history and legend and also those of the Bible were not separated from the present simply by an extent of time but also by completely different conditions of life. Humanism with its program of renewal of antique forms of life and expression creates a historical perspective in depth such as no previous epoch known to us possessed: the humanists see antiquity in historical depth, and, against that background, the dark epochs of the intervening Middle Ages. — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 286
Categorization
- XREF: The historicizing ‘depth perspective’ connects to how racialized selfhood and the ‘Other’ get constructed as belonging to a different time — relevant to colonial psychology readings. — connects to: Humanism means dissolving mental fetters through historical, rational understanding.; The mediaeval mind lacked a conception of history as cause and effect — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 82; Capitalism failed to strip social life of historical consciousness embedded in culture (+6 more)
Related
- Humanism means dissolving mental fetters through historical, rational understanding. (similarity 0.91)
- The mediaeval mind lacked a conception of history as cause and effect (similarity 0.80)
Broader Connections
- Capitalism failed to strip social life of historical consciousness embedded in culture
#complicates(0.78) - Eighteenth-century history treated the present as a trough of forgetfulness
#contradicts(0.74) — Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended, 242 - Historical synthesis by a single mind reveals deep connections across eras
#exemplifies(0.72) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 31 - Uncritical worldviews make a single personality a composite of many historical layers
#expands(0.72) - Each major philosophical era mirrors its epoch’s dominant social structure
#expands(0.72) — Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, 2847 - Ignoring determinate conditions produces naive humanism and voluntarist politics.
#qualifies(0.70)