Towards More Humanity

by Christiane Haid

In 1788, the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder declared that the study of the humanities (the “beautiful sciences”) served to educate our minds and hearts “in the interest of humanness and humanity”. Looking at the history of the twentieth century and events that bring so much suffering to people and cultures also today makes the idea of such an education towards greater humanity seem more relevant than ever.

Development of the consciousness soul

The humanities use as their means of education the literary arts, history, the history of consciousness, aesthetics and philosophy. These fields can be seen as speaking each their individual language or as independent disciplines that contribute to education in that they help us develop our humanity if they understand their task in the way outlined above. The Literary Arts and Humanities Section puts this idea into practice by offering conferences, colloquia, lectures, publications and research projects on the various disciplines.

The research into concentration camp literature, for instance, is important for the development of the consciousness soul; I only mention the works of Jorge Semprun and Imre Kertesz. Or the questions of the consciousness soul in connection with the Grail motif in the works of Chretien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach and Richard Wagner.

Christiane Haid is leader of the Literary Arts and Humanities Section of the School for Spiritual Science at the Goetheanum. This note is reprinted from Anthroposophy Worldwide No. 12/2013.