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　　 The term "humanism" has been used to describe only one eastern philosophy: Confucianism. Commentators on Indian philosophy are sometimes emphatic in their judgment that Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism represent the very antithesis of western or Confucian humanism. Heinrich Zimmer is typical: "Humanity ... was the paramount concern of Greek idealism, as it is today of western Christianity in its modern form: but for the Indian sages and ascetics... humanity was no more than the shell to be pierced, shattered, and dismissed." [1] Zimmer goes on to say that the goal of the yogi was "superhuman," even "superdivine," and as such constituted what Zimmer calls the "heresy of Titanism."

　　 My view is that superhumanism is still a humanism, a radical humanism that does not recognize that there are limits to what humans can become and what they should do in the universe. Titanism is humanism gone berserk, it is anthropocentricism and anthropomorphism taken to an extreme. Titans deliberately reverse the positions of human and divinity; they take over divine prerogatives, and as a result of their hubris, they lose sight of their proper place in the universe. Even if there is no God, radical humanists delude themselves if they believe they can themselves become gods. As I have shown elsewhere, [2] in the East this is especially evident in the atheism of Jainism, Samkhya, and other forms of what I call "Yoga" Titanism. Elements of Buddhism and Taoism contain antidotes to Titanism, but in this paper I shall argue that Confucianism offers the most adequate and constructive response.

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　　 The word "Titan" comes of course from a group of older gods, who, under the leadership of Prometheus, stormed Mt. Olympus and battled Zeus and the other Olympian deities for control in the universe. In western intellectual and literary history, much has been written about both the positive and negative elements of the Promethean spirit. Even though I have chosen to give the term "Titanism" a negative connotation, I do not wish to give the impression that more knowledge or even new technology are not necessary, and I certainly do not mean to imply that we do not need heroes or saints. Rather, what I am suggesting is that we do require a new vision of human nature, one that breaks out of traditional western molds. In the West they sometimes say that their heroes are "larger than life," or alternatively they say that "we stand on the shoulders of giants" in relation to them. I contend that these images represent a distortion of how heroes are actually made. These ideas are also most likely responsible for the mistaken view, expressed variously in Hobbes' monarch or Raskalnikov's Napoleon, that some people are beyond our ken and above the law. I propose that we look at the Confucian sage as an alternative to the autonomous selfhood of Jainism, Samkhya, and the West.

　　 The eastern Titanism that I will discuss has expressed itself exclusively in an internal, spiritual way; therefore, one can say that it is a rather benign form of radical humanism. By contrast, western Titanism is considerably more extroverted, and with the aid of technology, a Titanistic spirit can be said to inspire the arms race, environmental pollution, and the possible misuse of genetic engineering. If left unchecked, some predict it might destroy or radically change life as we know it on earth. Even though it is western Titanism that poses the real threat, I believe that it is significant to show that eastern Titans share some of the same basic philosophical axioms as their western counterparts, viz., anthropocentrism and autonomous selfhood.

　　 Humanism arose during the so-called "axial period," and it is commonly observed that while the Chinese and western people generally responded to the discovery of human individuality by externalizing their

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new desires in a positive way, the Indians turned inward in an attempt to reconcile anxieties caused by an increased awareness of the self-world split. But even in their world-denying practices, many Indian thinkers have remained very much attached to the human form. They have made it the prototype for the shape and origin of the universe (the Jains are most explicit on this point); and they have made it the locus of all spiritual liberation. (To be saved the gods must eventually have a human incarnation.) Even if this anthropomorphic cosmos is not taken literally, the image itself is sufficient to indicate a distorted view of human beings and their relation to the world. Not only are the gods supplanted, but nature in general is denigrated in status and value. This becomes an especially serious problem when human beings develop technological means to systematically control and alter nature.

　　 If one looks for Titanism in the West, one might be tempted to say that Nietzsche's Üebermensch is the highest embodiment of radical humanism. I believe that this view is mistaken. Nietzsche's Titan is symbolized as a lion, the second of the Three Metamorphoses of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The lion, Titan-like, battles the dragon called "Thou Shalt," who rules over the miserable camels, the first metamorphosis. The lion takes every "It was" or "it happened to me" and transforms it into a "Thus I willed it and shall will it for eternity." Even though necessary and liberating, the lion's work is ultimately negative and destructive. The Promethean "No" of the lion must be replaced by the sacred "Yes" of the child, the third metamorphosis, which I believe is Nietzsche's answer to Titanism. "The child," as Nietzsche says, "is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred 'Yes.'" [3]