SARAJEVO – FROM BIRTHPLACE OF INTEGRAL HUMANISM TO UNIVERSALIST DESERT OF MIND
SARAJEVO – FROM BIRTHPLACE OF INTEGRAL HUMANISM TO UNIVERSALIST DESERT OF MIND

Summary/Abstract: Jacques Maritain was the philosopher who most influenced the fundamental tenets of the life and spiritual philosophy of Karol Józef Wojtyła, later Pope John Paul II. He explained that the misfortune of classical humanism was that it was anthropocentric, not that it was a humanism. Analysis of the “tragedy” of this humanism, which Maritain calls paradoxically inhuman humanism precisely because of its anthropocentrism, refracts along three dimensions: the conception of man, the conception of culture, and our human conception of God. His key finding is that the starting point of such humanism is contingent and limited – so Maritain introduces a contrasting concept of holistic or integral humanism. To achieve the minimum of unity in a pluralistic society, in Maritain’s vocabulary, requires civic tolerance and mutual respect for everyone’s dignity, which, among other things, implies an obligation on the state to respect different forms of conscience.

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