Ma`rifat

Leading to the emergence of various intellectual and political schools, "Humanism" has been one of the major intellectual movements in the history of Western thought and modernity. With the slogan of the revival of human values and the return to the Roman and ancient Greek times, this school which is presented as a point of differentiation between religious and secular thinking has developed in the era of renaissance in the West in the light of the weaknesses of the church in the theoretical and practical areas. With the introduction of new philosophies by Descartes, Kant and other Western scholars, it found its way into philosophy, and eventually, after several stages, it is now present in all Western schools and thoughts. The present research seeks to provide a proper formulation of humanism as a dominant school in the West's civilization, and discuss its historical context and intellectual features in epistemological and ontological areas. The research method is documentive-library based, and its findings include explaining four historical periods of humanism and discussing the contradiction between humanism and religious thinking.