Every line is packed with common sense, compassion, and realism. -- Fortune
The renowned psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm has helped millions of men and women achieve rich, productive lives by developing their hidden capacities for love. In this frank and candid book, he explores the ways in which this extraordinary emotion can alter the whole course of your life.
Most of us are unable to develop our capacities for love on the only level that really counts: a love that is accompanied by maturity, self-knowledge, and courage. Learning to love, like other arts, demands practice and concentration. Even more than any other art it demands genuine insight and understanding.
In this classic work, Fromm explores love in all its aspects--not only romantic love, steeped in false conceptions and lofty expectations, but also love of parents, children, brotherly love, erotic love, self-love, and the love of God.
Every line is packed with common sense, compassion, and realism. -- Fortune
The renowned psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm has helped millions of men and women achieve rich, productive lives by developing their hidden capacities for love. In this frank and candid book, he explores the ways in which this extraordinary emotion can alter the whole course of your life.
Most of us are unable to develop our capacities for love on the only level that really counts: a love that is accompanied by maturity, self-knowledge, and courage. Learning to love, like other arts, demands practice and concentration. Even more than any other art it demands genuine insight and understanding.
In this classic work, Fromm explores love in all its aspects--not only romantic love, steeped in false conceptions and lofty expectations, but also love of parents, children, brotherly love, erotic love, self-love, and the love of God.
If humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. This is the central idea of Escape from Freedom, a landmark work by one of the most distinguished thinkers of our time, and a book that is as timely now as when first published in 1941. Few books have thrown such light upon the forces that shape modern society or penetrated so deeply into the causes of authoritarian systems. If the rise of democracy set some people free, at the same time it gave birth to a society in which the individual feels alienated and dehumanized. Using the insights of psychoanalysis as probing agents, Fromm's work analyzes the illness of contemporary civilization as witnessed by its willingness to submit to totalitarian rule.
Human history began with an act of disobedience, and it is not unlikely that it will be terminated by an act of obedience.--from On Disobedience
One of the great psychological and social philosophers of the twentieth century, Erich Fromm expounded on the importance of disobedience and the authentic voice of the individual in modern culture. As relevant now as when it was first published, On Disobedience is a collection of provocative essays, including the title entry, which suggests the very act of dissent--the choice to refuse to conform, to speak no to those in power--is essential to a humane society, both to ensure humankind's preservation and to allow for one person to reclaim a genuine sense of self.
In times of crisis, the great works of philosophy help us make sense of the world. This book is part of the Harper Perennial Resistance Library, a special five-book series highlighting short classic works of independent thought that illuminate the nature of truth, humanity's dangerous attraction to authoritarianism, the influence of media and mass communication, and the philosophy of resistance--all critical in understanding today's politically charged world.
Renowned psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm examines the causes and effects of people's violent tendencies in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness.
In this provocative book, the distinguished author writes to break the deadlock argued about the roots of human nature by exploring the struggle between the instinctivism of Konrad Lorenz and behavior psychologist B. F. Skinner: are people inherently antagonistic or do people learn hostility from their environment and the actions of those around them? Drawing from neurophysiology and anthropology studies and findings, Fromm presents fascinating ideas about how the human character and condition developed--and continues to develop--in contemporary society. A book by Erich Fromm is always intelligent and contains much of interest and insight, and this one is no exception.--The New York TimesThe Sane Society is a continuation and extension of the brilliant psychiatric concepts Erich Fromm first formulated in Escape from Freedom; it is also, in many ways, an answer to Freud's Civilization and its Discontents.
Fromm examines man's escape into overconformity and the danger of robotism in contemporary industrial society: modern humanity has, he maintains, been alienated from the world of their own creation. Here Fromm offers a complete and systematic exploration of his humanistic psychoanalysis. In so doing, he counters the profound pessimism for our future that Freud expressed and sets forth the goals of a society in which the emphasis is on each person and on the social measures designed to further function as a responsible individual.In publishing Marx's Concept of Man in 1961, Erich Fromm presented to the English-speaking world for the first time Karl Marx's then recently discovered Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. Including the Manuscripts and many other philosophical writings by Marx as well as Fromm's own extended response, many of these writings have since become recognised as important works in their own right. Fromm stresses Marx's humanist philosophy and challenges both contemporary Western ignorance of Marx and Soviet corruptions of his work. Fromm's analysis of Marx's work and his dissemination of these neglected writings by Marx himself fundamentally altered the prevailing discourse about Marxism, revolutionising contemporary thought and providing a formative influence for the development of the New Left.
In Man for Himself, Erich Fromm examines the confusion of modern women and men who, because they lack faith in any principle by which life ought to be guided, become the helpless prey forces both within and without.
From the broad, interdisciplinary perspective that marks Fromm's distinguished oeuvre, he shows that psychology cannot divorce itself from the problems of philosophy and ethics, and that human nature cannot be understood without understanding the values and moral conflicts that confront us all. He shows that an ethical system can be based on human nature rather than on revelations or traditions. As Fromm asserts, If man is to have confidence in values, he must know himself and the capacity of his nature for goodness and productiveness.Many people are unable to love--and thus live--fully. Renowned psychoanalyst Erich Fromm has helped generations of men and women achieve rich and productive lives by developing their capacity to love. This Centennial Edition of his most enduring work, The Art of Loving, salutes the valuable lessons that are Fromm's legacy.
Although Erich Fromm intended to publish his work as a practicing psychotherapist, these plans were never realized in his lifetime. This volume fulfills his wish. Not intended as a textbook about psychoanalytic therapy, these reflections provide welcome new information about Fromm the therapist and the way he dealt with the psychological suffering of his patients. As Fromm envisioned, each chapter is structured to capture the informality and intimacy of his psychoanalytic work so that readers get a new and different sense of Fromm's humanism, honesty and insight. These talks and seminars, given by Fromm between 1964 and his death in 1980, deal with the issues between analyst and analysand that go to the heart of the psychoanalytic process. For Fromm, the analyst is his or her own next patient, as the patient becomes his or her analyst.
Fromm's essential writings, some never before published, in a compact volume. Selections include: Human Alienation, Origins of the Having Mode of Existence, To Have or to Be?, and Essentials of a Life Between Having and Being.
Following the publication of the seminal Fear of Freedom, Erich Fromm applied his unique vision to a critique of contemporary capitalism in The Sane Society. Where the former dealt with man's historic inability to come to terms with his sense of isolation, and the dangers to which this can lead, The Sane Society took his theories one step further. In doing so it established Fromm as one of the most controversial political thinkers of his generation. Anaylsing how individuals conform to contemporary capitalist and patriarchal societies, the book was published to wide acclaim and even wider disapproval. It was a scathing indictment of modern capitalism and as such proved unwelcome to many. Unwelcome because much of what Fromm had to say was true. Today, as we settle into the challenges of the 21st century, Fromm's writings are just as relevant as when they were first written. Read it and decide for yourself - are you living in a sane society?
Any attempt to identify the thread that runs through the late Erich Fromm's writings will soon uncover an unequivocally humanistic world view. From the 1930s on, this was Fromm's guiding principle. It signified Fromm's break with the Frankfurt School: Marcuse, Adorno and Horkheimer. This posthumous volume includes writings from one of Fromm's most fertile periods--the 1960s. These writings concentrate on humanistic science, socialism, religion, and psychoanalysis. They are from lectures, works written for specific occasions, and manuscripts intended as books. Of particular interest is an extended essay on two very different thinkers: Meister Eckhart and Karl Marx.