Towards a Polycentric Humanism

Abstract

The possibility of a conception of the world that might question western anthropomorphism basically began to be entertained from the second half of the 20th century, though what we could call ‘the intellectual atmosphere of Romanticism’ had already hinted at a similar concept as a reaction to tendencies that were far too one-sided and one-dimensional. A critique of western anthropomorphism has thus been tenuously articulated since Romanticism in the first half of the 19 th century; however, I think the need to give this critique some substance and immediacy, a practical ethical relevance, was identified in the second half of the 20th century when it started to become obvious that certain grand utopian models developed in the West had created antibodies so dangerous they were jeopardizing life itself.