The Humanist Project proposes a humanism for today. Carravetta begins with anti-humanism, that is, attacks on humanism for its alleged faults and limitations by academic philosophers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Then he examines the works of authors from the Middle Ages through the Enlightenment—the majority Italian Renaissance figures—in order to construct a humanism for today. These authors are Dante, Giovanni Boccaccio, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Niccolò Machiavelli, Rudolph Agricola, Petrus Ramus, Tommaso Campanella, and Giambattista Vico. Certain qualities appear repeatedly. Humanism is what is human. It is individuals who possess free will, good judgment, and an understanding of the connection of the individual with society. In addition, Boccaccio was an acute social critic, Machiavelli explained how the will impacts his ideas of the proper way to organize society, Agricola and Ramus explained rhetoric and method, and Campanella realized that temporal and spiritual power cannot be separated. The bibliography on the figures of the past is adequate for Carravetta's purposes. The writing is always clear; Carravetta regularly puts his key ideas into italics. This reviewer sympathizes with the attempt to use history to create humanism for the present. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.

Choice Reviews

In this lively volume, this adept and interesting philosopher employs a set of key texts in the Italian literary and philosophical tradition as a springboard to thinking about meaningful issues in our own day: What is the place of the humanities? How do we discuss and validate the human as a concept and category? Even when one might come to different conclusions, Peter Carravetta is always worth reading.

Chris Celenza, Johns Hopkins University

Is the 21st Century the age when humanism is forced to give way to post- or trans-humanism? Not necessarily, according to Peter Carravetta. This book shows how a series of Italian Renaissance thinkers serve as beacons to guide us through thorny contemporary issues including the nature of responsibility, concepts of society, and the impact of science – and how these thinkers are bound to continue to guide us beyond the 21st century. Carravetta puts humanism, one might say, back in the human.

Robert P. Crease, Stony Brook University