Aims and Scope

Humanology is a biannual international journal dedicated to advancing theoretical and normative philosophical inquiry, as well as fostering a broadly interdisciplinary approach to the study of the human being in the contemporary world. It is particularly inspired by the methodological framework, procedural style, intellectual traditions, research trajectory, and thematic articulations of the work of Milenko Bodin (1964–2026). The journal takes its name from his concept of humanology, understood as a new paradigm in philosophy and the social sciences.

Bodin first announced the idea of humanology and the humanological sciences in a text published in 2002, which, translated into English and with certain modifications, also appeared in the inaugural issue of the journal. He articulates humanology as the project of a new philosophical-scientific paradigm that places the human being and the human world at the center of inquiry. This approach is not entirely unprecedented; it had already been established as authoritative in the early modern period. However, according to Bodin, the difference between humanological humanocentrism and the so-called anthropocentrism of early modernity lies in effort to distinguish, on the one hand, humanum as a rationally constructed notion of human nature, often mobilized for the legitimation of various ideological (mis)uses, and, on the other, the attainment of an adequate concept of the real ontological structure of human being.

Humanology is grounded in a reconceptualization of the distinction between the human being’s status in the so-called natural, pre-social condition and in the social condition. The origin of this distinction can be traced back to early modern social contract theorists. Theories of the social contract aim to justify the existence of civil society and the state by means of the idea of a natural, pre-social condition of humanity, structured in such a way that, given its deficiencies, it must be overcome through a transition into the social, that is, the political condition, effected by the so-called social contract. These are philosophical constructions that do not purport to offer a historically or factually accurate description of some primordial epoch of humanity; rather, they are posited at the level of thought for the purpose of legitimating the order of civil society and the state as the forms within which a dignified human life first becomes possible. Nevertheless, a shared premise among them is that the formation of civil society and state authority must be justified without recourse to God. Instead, such legitimation must be grounded in a this-worldly, rational manner, by appealing to the contractually affirmed will of individuals who voluntarily transfer a portion of their sovereignty—thus, a portion of their freedom—to society, that is, to state authority, in exchange for security, peace, and stability as the three conditions of a dignified life in community.

Humanology reaffirms this distinction between the natural and the social condition through the differentiation between the anthropological and the humanological stages of humanity. At the anthropological level, the human being remains a natural entity endowed with consciousness and sharing many characteristics with other living beings. The fundamental anthropological property of the human being is the drive for survival, followed by interests in property, freedom, and the like. Since, in the anthropological condition, these properties are rendered uncertain in their realization, the interest in transitioning into the human, that is, the social condition arises as an interest of human safety. Classical social contract theories thus interpret this transition primarily at the level of legitimation, while the transition as such remains their least developed element. By contrast, in his conception of a philosophy of human safety and security, Bodin interprets—within a humanological perspective—the very question of transition, guided by the interest of human safety, as fundamental. The reason is that the interest of human safety functions not merely as a “bridge” from the anthropological to the human condition, but also as a defining feature of both conditions, albeit in different ways and at different levels of reflection.