Will the real humanism please stand up?

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Notes

David Burchell teaches History and Politics in the School of Humanities at the University of Western Sydney. He has published extensively in the histories of citizenship and ethics, and also comments on current political debates. His Western Horizon: Sydney's Heartland and the Future of Australian Politics falls into the latter category: it was published by Scribe in 2003. Correspondence to: Dr David Burchell, School of Humanities, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South DC, NSW 1797, Australia. Tel.: [phone]; Fax [phone]; E‐mail: [email protected]

The Latin word intellegentia, from which our ‘intellect’ comes, connotes a capacity for understanding of any of various sorts, from the reasoned to the intuitive to matters of taste and manners. Mens means ‘mind’, but also judgement, disposition, and strength of character. My ingenium includes my mental powers, but also my special character and temperament in any field, from politics to warfare to physical prowess. There is no category ‘the intellectual’ in Latin.

Cicero's strikingly similar discussion of ‘callings’ or personae occurs in his On Duties (De Officiis), I.107–115. See the translation in Griffin & Atkins (1991, pp. 42–45). Cicero has four personae or ‘roles’, rather than two, but the import is roughly the same.

A contemporary of Strachey's observed, fairly enough, that ‘his fundamental fault was a moral one: in the last resort he did not care enough for the truth. Where his portraits are false they are not merely false but falsified’ (Skidelsky, 1983, p. 244).

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David Burchell

David Burchell teaches History and Politics in the School of Humanities at the University of Western Sydney. He has published extensively in the histories of citizenship and ethics, and also comments on current political debates. His Western Horizon: Sydney's Heartland and the Future of Australian Politics falls into the latter category: it was published by Scribe in 2003. Correspondence to: Dr David Burchell, School of Humanities, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South DC, NSW 1797, Australia. Tel.: [phone]; Fax [phone]; E‐mail: [email protected]