THE HUMANIST INSTITUTE
Class VI

Mentors: Joseph Chuman and Jone Johnson

The approach of the Sixth Class was grounded in a tight reading of a large number of texts. Books were supplemented by journal articles, encyclopedia pieces, etc. There were also five presentations by outsiders, and others given by students. The students wrote papers on select topics and gave oral presentations. informed, reflective and lively discussion was the centerpiece of our experience.

Session I. Contemporary Humanist Philosophy

• John Dewey, A Common Faith
• Erich Fromm, Man for Himself; Marx's Concept of Man
• Humanist Manifestoes I and II
• Julian Huxley, Religion Without Revelation
• Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism
• Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian

Session II. The Emergence of Humanism Out of Western Thought

• Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics
• Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
• Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion; The New Introductory Lectures
• David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
• Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals
• Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
• Plato, Protagoras, The Republic
• St. Augustine, The City of God
• Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Session III. Contemporary Humanist Movements

• Norman Allen, African-American Humanism
• Eugene Borowitz, Choices in Modern Jewish Thought
• Edward Ericson, The Humanist Way
• Horace Friess, Felix Adler and Ethical Culture
• David Robinson, Unitarians and Universalists
• Gordon Stein, Anthology of Humanism and Rationalism
• James Turner, Without God, Without Creed
• Sherwin Wine, Judaism Without God
• Conrad Wright, Three Prophets of Liberal Religion

Session IV. Humanism, Its Neighbors and Challengers

• Robert Bellah, Habits of the Heart
• Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity
• Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice
• William James, The Will to Believe
• Cornel West, Prophetic Thought in Post-Modern Times

Session V. Humanism and Its Adversaries

• Randall Balmer, Mine Eyes Have See the Glory
• Bruce Lawrence, Defenders of God
• Ronald Numbers, The Creationists

Session Vl. Humanism and Science

• Ian Barbour, Ethics in the Age of Technology
• Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis
• Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained
• Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
• Stephen Gould, The Mismeasure of Man
• Philip Kitcher, Abusing Science
• Robert Wright, The Moral Animal
• Samuel Florman, The Existential Pleasures of Engineering

Session VII. Moral Education

• Mihalyi Csikszentmilhalyi, The Evolving Self
• William Damon, The Moral Child
• John Dewey, Democracy and Education
• Arthur Dobrin, Being Right and Doing Good
• Paolo Freire, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed
• James Fowler, Stages of Faith
• Kathleen and James McGinnis, Parenting for Peace and Justice
• Nel Noddings, Caring

Session VIII. World Religions

• Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and The Profane
• William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
• Gerald LaRue, Ancient Myth and Modern Life
• Arvind Sharma, Our Religions
• Huston Smith, The World's Religions
• Robert Van Voorst, Anthology of World Scriptures

Session IX. Social and Political Theory

• John Arthur and William Shaw, Social and Political Philosophy
• Peter Singer, Practical Ethics