Erich Fromm

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Erich Fromm (1974)

Erich Fromm (born March 23, 1900 in Frankfurt am Main ; † March 18, 1980 in Muralto , Switzerland ) was a German - American psychoanalyst , philosopher and social psychologist . He had been advocating a humanistic , democratic socialism since the late 1920s . His contributions to psychoanalysis, the psychology of religion and social criticism have established him as an influential thinker of the 20th century, even if he was often underestimated in the academic world. Many of his books became bestsellers, in particular The Art of Loving from 1956 and to have or to be from 1976. His thoughts were also widely discussed outside of the professional world.

Life

Erich Fromm came from a strictly religious Jewish family in Frankfurt from which numerous rabbis had emerged. He too originally wanted to pursue this career. In 1918 he graduated from the Wöhler Realgymnasium and initially studied law at the University of Frankfurt , then switched to studying sociology in Heidelberg , where he did his doctorate in 1922 under Alfred Weber on the Jewish law . During this time he was involved in the KJV , an organizational association of Zionist student associations . He later turned away from the idea of Zionism . Until 1925 he had taken Talmud lessons with Rabbi Rabinkow.

In 1926 Erich Fromm married the psychoanalyst Frieda Reichmann . At the end of the 1920s he began training as a psychoanalyst at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute with a non-medical Freud student, the lawyer Hanns Sachs . During this time, he and his wife gave up their Orthodox Jewish way of life. From 1929, since he was not a doctor, Fromm practiced as a so-called lay analyst in Berlin.

Memorial plaque on the house at Bayerischer Platz  1, in Berlin-Schöneberg , from the series Mit Freud in Berlin

From 1930 he worked for the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research as head of the social psychology department. At the same time he belonged to the Berlin circle of Marxist psychoanalysts around Wilhelm Reich and Otto Fenichel and contributed to the theory of Freudo Marxism with a few publications . In 1931 he separated from Frieda Reichmann, but remained on friendly terms with her (divorce only in 1942).

After the seizure of power of Hitler, he left Germany, first moved to Geneva and emigrated in May 1934, the United States, where he attended the Columbia University worked in New York. At the end of 1939, shortly after the start of the Second World War , he separated from the Institute for Social Research after various conflicts after having been one of the most important employees for many years. He was granted US citizenship on May 25, 1940 . In 1944 he married the German-Jewish emigrant Henny Gurland.

In 1950 he moved to Mexico City and taught at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). After his wife Henny died unexpectedly in 1952, he married the American Annis Freeman in 1953.

From 1957 he took part in the US peace movement . The FBI kept a more than 600 page file on him. In 1965 Fromm retired; In 1974 he moved to Muralto (Canton Ticino, Switzerland).

In 1966, 1977 and 1978 Fromm suffered a heart attack. As a result of another heart attack, he died in 1980, a few days before his 80th birthday and before the publication of the ten-volume complete edition of his works. Erich Fromm was buried in Bellinzona (Switzerland).

In 1979 Fromm was awarded the Nelly Sachs Prize , and in 1981 he was posthumously awarded the Goethe plaque from the city of Frankfurt am Main .

As literary rights and estate administrator, Fromm appointed his last assistant, the psychoanalyst Rainer Funk , who completed his doctorate in 1978 with a thesis on Fromm.

Work and effect

Normative humanism

Even in the 1950s, most humanities scholars followed what is known as sociological relativism : They were convinced that humans were almost infinitely malleable and could live under almost all conditions. From this they drew two conclusions: A society that basically functions is healthy. Faults in the individual are responsible for mental disorders ; those affected are simply not adaptable enough.

Fromm, on the other hand, advocated a normative humanism : According to Fromm, people have not only physical but also psychological basic needs that are rooted in their existence . From this it follows that universal criteria apply to the mental health of humans, which can either be promoted or suppressed by the social system. The state of health of a society can thus be examined. In this context, Fromm drew conclusions from the results of cross- cultural social research in various publications .

Man can actually live under many different conditions, but if these run counter to his human nature, he reacts to this by either changing the existing conditions or by renouncing his rational human abilities, so to speak "dulling" them.

Shaping the individual through society

Fromm asks himself, “How is it possible that the violence prevailing in a society is actually as effective as history shows us” (all quotations from Theoretical Drafts on Authority and Family , 1936). On the one hand, external violence is "an indispensable component for the submission and submission of the masses to this authority," on the other hand, society (Fromm is referring to National Socialism here) can not only be "out of fear of physical violence and physical coercion" function. From this, Fromm developed the theory of authoritarian character in a critical modification of Freud : "The external violence effective in society occurs in the child growing up in the family in the person of the parents and [...] especially that of the father." And: "The family father is the first mediator of social authority towards the child (in terms of time), but is (in terms of content) not their role model , but their image . "

Fromm thus lifts Freud's view of the origin of the psychic apparatus and especially the super-ego from the confines of the small family and derives the creation of the super-ego from the social violence that authorizes the father to erect the child's super-ego . Conversely, for Fromm, the social authorities always also contain personal superego qualities, which can be seen, for example, in the speech of the father of the country or in politicians who demonstratively kidnap children, and the like.

Culturally pre-marked defects

A person suffers from a defect when he lacks a characteristic that is considered specifically human. For example, assuming believe that spontaneity is a goal that everyone should achieve, so suffers from a man who his self can not reveal good and is completely unspontaneous to a defect that as a neurosis can be perceived.

Just as it is possible for society to promote or suppress certain basic human needs, so too can psychological defects be produced by culture. Since the majority of the members of a society now suffer from certain defects, these are perceived as normality, and the individual even sets them as his goal in order to avoid an outsider: "What [the individual] of inner wealth and what is genuine The feeling of happiness may have been lost, is compensated by the security that gives the feeling to fit in with the rest of humanity - as he knows it. "

This sense of belonging prevents the defect from developing into an actually perceived neurosis to a decisive extent. Furthermore, the company provides various "antidotes" to prevent an outbreak of disease. In this context, Fromm speaks of “cultural opiates” such as television, radio or sporting events. If people were suddenly denied these opiates for a longer period of time, the outbreak of mental illness would quickly be observed in the form of nervous breakdowns and acute states of anxiety.

Within the family

The strong influence of society on the individual automatically defines the conditions of the family framework and consequently shapes the climate within the family to a decisive extent .

The close emotional exchange between children and parents has two consequences for influencing society:

  1. On the one hand, the family becomes the most important institution for the continued existence of society. In order to ensure this, certain requirements such as punctuality, orderliness, adaptability, etc. must not only be followed, but also internalized as independent character structures and thus as a will . This so-called social character is reflected in the parents and is thus conveyed directly to the child.
  2. On the other hand, this also transfers to the child what is problematic in the parents' relationship to their environment. Since the individuality emerges in particular from the interactions with the early caregivers or the environment in general, the child's self-development can be seen as a path from the outside to the inside. If these caregivers now feel insecure in some way from the existing social conditions and if they even suffer from a psychological disorder as a result, this is carried over into the child's self. Likewise, parents pass on their defects and the method of compensating for them through cultural opiates to the child. Diseased lifestyles are therefore seen as normal even in childhood.

The situation of man

Animals live in perfect harmony with nature. They live under conditions that they take for granted and can therefore cope with. In contrast to the animal, the reason given to man has developed the ability to transcend his environment and in this way to get beyond the surface of the conditions surrounding him. He has risen above nature and can create and control it to a certain extent.

This highest human gift is also his curse. In a very pragmatic way it can be described as an anomaly of nature, because in humans "life [...] has become self-conscious". So he knows not only about the randomness of his existence, but also about the limitations of his life. Although he is still a part of nature, he is also cast out from it, and harmony with nature is lost forever. This knowledge creates a great feeling of helplessness and powerlessness in people. He has to live independently and make decisions, and every step in a different direction is exhausting because he leaves familiar and therefore safe states. Man's greatest problem is his very existence. (Compare also the being- for-oneself by Jean-Paul Sartre .)

Human life is dominated by an insurmountable polarity between regression and progression: On the one hand there is man's longing for the lost harmony with nature that existed in his once possessed animal existence. On the other hand, he strives for the “achievement of a human existence” which corresponds to his rational abilities and which promises him the solution to the problem of his existence. This state brings him on a constant search for harmony and makes a static existence impossible. If the animal needs (hunger, sleep, sex, etc.) are satisfied, the specifically human needs come to the fore: “All passions and strivings of man are attempts to find an answer to his existence, or one could say they are Try to escape the mental illness. "

The basic psychological needs of humans

Due to the special position of humans towards nature, which condemns them to a certain homelessness, it is particularly important for them to find a way to orient themselves in the world and thus to enter into a new relationship with it. Ultimately, all human passions serve the goal of reducing homelessness.

The basic mental needs are purely psychological in nature and result from the overall human personality and its empirical life practice. In contrast to Freud's libido , they have no physical origin.

In principle, people have two options for satisfying their needs, because from a humanistic point of view, people are not naturally good or bad. Human existence harbors both ways as a possibility of development. Opposing passions such as love and hate are therefore not independent variables, but must be viewed as an answer to the same question. The only difference is that both paths cannot lead to happiness in the same way. In the following, the basic human needs according to Fromm are briefly presented.

Experience identity through individuality or conformity

To perceive oneself as “ I ”, that is, as a separate being from one's environment, is not only a philosophical problem, but also an important prerequisite for mental health. Since humans have to live independently and without strictly determining natural roots, they must be able to form an image of themselves . This is the prerequisite for any transcendence , because only in this way can humans experience themselves as the subject of their actions and be aware of themselves as an independent being.

The need to experience identity is so essential that it is sometimes expressed in the form of an exaggerated conformity , in which a person is even ready to sacrifice his life just to conform to the reference group and in this way to achieve a sense of identity . In this way, however, the experience of identity can only ever be illusory.

Relatedness through love or narcissism

To unite with other people serves the individual as the most important means to be able to regulate the randomness and loneliness of his existence. Developing a feeling of relatedness to oneself and to others is not only a basic human need, but also a prerequisite for mental health.

Love offers the highest fulfillment in this respect: it is the only way to "become one with the world and at the same time to achieve a feeling of integrity and individuality". In love, man unites with another being, but at the same time preserves the integrity of his own self, i.e. his isolation. The love between two people in a partnership is created permanently anew through the transcendent polarity of separation and union. In addition, there is so little individual egoism that the needs of the other are felt to be just as important as your own.

Love is in contrast to secondary narcissism : in this it was not possible for the individual to overcome the primary narcissism of the child, whereby the environment is still used as a mere means of satisfying one's own needs. Narcissists tend to relate to their environment through gaining power over them. However, this only enables them to establish a certain external unity while destroying any feeling of true integration.

Another way to unite with the world is through submission to a group , god, etc. This allows the individual to overcome the feeling of isolation and develop the idea of ​​being part of the great power with which he has united.

Transcendence through creativity or destructiveness

Man has reason and imagination. These characteristics make it impossible for him to take a purely passive role in the world. By taking on the role of the Creator himself, he can overcome his randomness and creature existence. Those who approach what they have created with care and love can transcend themselves and their environment in this way.

The human self can also be transcended in destruction, but destruction can always only be the lesser alternative to creating for people who were unable to productively transcend themselves. Only creative work can lead to happiness, while destructiveness harbors suffering, especially for the destroyer himself.

Rooted in brotherhood; Separation from the mother

Erich Fromm understands “brotherhood” to mean love for one's neighbor after incestuous ties have been overcome in childhood. In order to overcome the loss of natural roots, people need new bonds in order to be able to feel at home in the world again. In this regard, the mother-child relationship offers the highest degree of rootedness possible. The depth of the feeling of security, warmth and protection is so strong here that a longing for it persists even in adulthood. Ultimately, institutions such as the state, the church, the group, etc., in adulthood take on the function of facilitating a feeling of rootedness for the individual, so that the person can perceive himself as part of a unit rather than as an isolated individual.

The detachment from the mother's a scary, but necessary process for the Incarnation of the individual. Only in this way is it possible to make progress on the way to independent judgment and action. In a further development of Freud's thoughts, Fromm interprets the mother bond and the Oedipus complex on an emotional instead of a sexual level. In this regard, the incest taboo takes on a new meaning, as it not only prohibits the child's sexual desire to have a parent, but also a permanent stay in the protective maternal area, which would make cultural development impossible.

The situation of man in modernized capitalism

The change in the character of society

According to Fromm, there has never been a greater degree of freedom in the development of mankind than in the western societies of his time. The people lived in material comfort, had a lot of free time and had a wide range of professions and lifestyles. But as prosperity has increased, so have psychosocial disorders.

The character of society gives people certain structures of thought and behavior. These are adopted by the majority of the members of society as values and norms like a second nature and thus guarantee the continuation of the culture. While in the 19th century the economy was still geared towards characters who exploited others for the greatest possible profit and did not shy away from competition, the ability to work in a team and conformity seem to gain increasing importance in contemporary society .

Although individual responsibility is increasingly in demand, a high degree of flexibility is expected in modernized capitalism due to the rapid economic and technical development. Where there used to be open authorities against which one could rebel, such as the king, the powerful boss, etc., in the 20th century it is often no longer possible to find a personal source of power. Power seems to have become depersonalized and can only be understood as an anonymous market, for whose mode of operation the laws of supply and demand apply and thus no individual can be prosecuted. The mechanically continuous anonymity gives rise to the expectation that one should do what everyone else is doing.

The loss of individuality and identity leads to the highest level of conformity, which is extremely noticeable in modern society . Regardless of whether the individual is more or less intelligent, socially high or low, everyone seems to have the same rhythm of life: everyone reads the same newspapers and books, watches the same films and programs on television. Since the desire for as much profit as possible has given way to the simple desire for a regular income, everyone works at the same rhythm. Above all, however, people produce and consume without asking questions and seem to downright avoid finding out events, origins and overall contexts. Instead of an individual conscience , there is the need to adapt as well as possible and to receive recognition from others for this.

Modern civilization cannot satisfy the deep needs of people, especially with regard to a real experience of identity, and with its excessive amount of individual freedom and prosperity it rather conveys the "feeling of intense boredom" and disorientation. People no longer have to fight for sexual or political freedom; they are “no longer in danger of becoming slaves, but of becoming robots”.

The estranged person - psychosocial disorders in the context of the established social character

In the 19th century, Marx and Engels defined a person as alienated from himself when “his own deed [...] becomes an alien, opposing power that subjugates him instead of dominating it”. Following on from this, Fromm describes the alienation of people from themselves, their actions and thus necessarily also towards their environment as a central problem in modern society.

The human being as an abstract quantity

In society and the economy, the individual person is primarily perceived as an impersonal individual rather than as an individual personality. Regardless of whether in a company or in the consumer world, it has become an abstract quantity that can be expressed in numbers and thus calculated. A good example is the typical bureaucrat . For him, the people whose fate he might decide exist primarily as objects and numbers on paper. This enables him to make decisions about them without sympathy or interpersonal feelings such as sympathy or antipathy. It is the same with the large entrepreneur who can lay off 100 people with just one signature, without ever having met them or knowing about their living conditions. Only whether they meet the requirements or not is decisive.

A decisive cause for the disregard of the concrete individual is the striving for the greatest possible efficiency, which is characteristic of capitalism. Not least because of the increasing economic power of large corporations and the associated disappearance of small businesses, the individual is primarily judged by his " market value " and can be exchanged at will like a broken screw in a machine.

Another effect of the economic conditions, which are oriented towards increased production and profit , is an increasingly branching division of labor , which removes the individual's connection to his work. In the humanistic sense, the work serves the incarnation of the individual. By mastering and shaping nature, he can find a way to unite with it and to achieve more individuality through this continuous development process . Most people in industrialized societies, however, only work to ensure a regular income. Since they only produce a part of any whole, they lose the connection with what they do and the relationship to their own self. In this sense, work cannot be viewed as a meaningful activity, as it does not contain any development opportunities.

Man's narcissistic self-reflection

The urge for conformity and the alienated way of working create a “hole in the self” in people. This is further reinforced by the established social character, which in modern society prescribes a life outwardly as a healthy way of life and refers to the possibility of covering up inner feelings of emptiness or insecurity through the multitude of cultural opiates. The result of this way of life is a narcissistic self-reflection of the individual. Due to the constant distraction from one's inner self, one is not aware of one's inner powers and therefore does not experience oneself as the initiator of one's actions. Rather, one's own actions are controlled by external forces. That way, it's impossible to build a healthy sense of self . Instead, there is a “pseudo-self-confidence” in which the individual tries to build his self-esteem on his socio-economic position. This has resulted in a bizarre marketing orientation in modern society, also in mental terms. For the individual, his existence has become a kind of commodity that has a certain value in the mirror of the social echo: “His body, mind and soul are his capital, and his life's task is to invest them profitably, a profit to pull oneself. ”This can be seen, for example, in the desire for reflective attention in the mass media. Man develops the urge to gain secondary self-esteem by attracting other people's interest.

Based on this, Fromm sees a motive for the increase in suicides . If you view your life primarily as a kind of company in which you have to invest your physical and psychological skills as sensibly as possible, then life fails if the balance sheet is below the hoped-for value. "You commit suicide just like a businessman declares bankruptcy when the losses are greater than the profits."

The modern human can be described as a "passive recipient of impressions, thoughts and opinions". Although man has become considerably more intelligent over the centuries , he has suffered major losses in terms of morally guided reason. He uses his intelligence as a tool to manipulate himself and others . The sensible questioning of circumstances, judging and acting according to well-founded principles is often neglected in favor of conformity.

The mass consumption

The alienated person is guided more by external influences than by internal strivings. In this respect, consumption does not primarily serve to do oneself a favor; it is more about “satisfying artificially stimulated imaginations” that are brought to people primarily through the mass media. Since this apparent satisfaction leaves the actual human needs of the individual unsatisfied, a real consumerism has established itself.

The need for mass consumption creates in the character of society the urge “that every wish must be satisfied immediately and no desire should be frustrated”. As a result, modern man has become largely unable to postpone his wishes, even if these are only dictated by the economy. Rather than grappling with self-affecting conflicts, the individual is constantly exploring new pleasures from the wide range of cultural opiates. So in modern society there is no longer even the need to become aware of yourself.

Effects on interpersonal relationships

The alienated person is mainly characterized by the high degree of manipulation towards themselves and others. The relationship with one's fellow human beings can therefore inevitably only be pathological and is generally permeated with indifference. Behind the imposed friendliness there is only the desire for self-affirmation and the selfish motivation that the other could be of use to you at some point.

Interpersonal relationships have also become another way of avoiding yourself and your thoughts. The mechanism for this is a well-developed verbalism that has become established in modern culture. “Talking about it has become fashionable”: By immediately uttering worrying thoughts, internal pressure is immediately relieved. However, this means that an important step towards self-discovery is lost, as the thoughts on this path do not bear fruit and can lead to new ideas.

In the intimacy of a partnership, people seek the feeling of security and security. However, a person is only capable of loving when he is at peace with himself. The alienated way of life in our society makes it difficult for the individual to build and maintain a healthy partnership. The distinctive self-portrayal requires different roles in order to maintain the required conformity and flexibility. From this point of view, Fromm states that partnerships in modern society are seldom long-lasting or function purely as a community of convenience and interest.

destructiveness

In his work Anatomy of Human Destructiveness , Fromm 1973 (German 1974) describes three forms of society: System A: The life-affirming society, System B: The non-destructive-aggressive society and System C: The destructive society. System C is characterized by two main features; the importance of private property and, in “primitive” societies, “evil sorcery”. Confidentiality is important in this system. The greatest virtue is ruthless practices that reap benefits at the expense of others.

He examines various theories of aggression and goes into the causes of the war. He defines destructiveness as “malicious aggression” and describes it as a human character structure that is in turn solidified by factors influencing capitalist society. He differentiates between three basic forms of destructiveness: spontaneous destructiveness, sadism and necrophilia . He portrays Josef Stalin as a clinical case of non-sexual sadism , Heinrich Himmler as a clinical case of anal hoarding sadism and Adolf Hitler as a clinical case of necrophilia .

Fromm's pioneering work in empirical social psychology

The first volume of the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung , edited by Max Horkheimer , was opened programmatically in 1932 with his essay on the method and tasks of an analytical social psychology . The next issue was followed by a contribution on psychoanalytic character studies. The importance of these articles can hardly be overestimated for the theoretical orientation of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research , for the empirical research approach of the studies on authority and family, and also for the research of Adorno and his colleagues on the authoritarian personality (1950).

Fromm developed the concept of social character and thus designed an essential bridge between sociology, social psychology and differential psychology (character studies). In Escape from Freedom in 1941 he explained the traits that are essential for the psychodynamics of fear and flight from freedom: authoritarianism, destructiveness, withdrawal, self-inflation and automatic conformity, and thus conceived the psychoanalytical-social-psychological concept of the authoritarian character.

In the Berlin workers 'and salaried employees' survey (1929/30), Fromm tried to use the questionnaire method, which was hardly widespread in Germany at the time, to find out from around 700 people how common certain forms of social character were. In the evaluation, he classified the respondents as an authoritarian character , a radical or revolutionary character (who can criticize his society for reasons of reason) or a mixed or ambivalent character (contradicting results, i.e. both the former and the latter typical answers). As the author of this first empirical study on the authoritarian character and the Authoritarian Personality had Fromm an important but often insufficiently acknowledged influence on subsequent research, and in particular the often-cited studies on Authoritarian Personality (The Authoritarian Personality) by Theodor W. Adorno , Else Frenkel-Brunswik , Daniel J. Levinson and R. Nevitt Sanford (1950).

Since the rift between Adorno and Fromm there has been a noticeable tendency of several authors at the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research to ignore Fromm's decisive importance.

International Erich Fromm Society

The International Erich Fromm Society is a non-profit association founded in 1985 on the initiative of Rainer Funk , which aims to make Erich Fromm's work accessible to a wide audience. The aim is to preserve, research, develop and convey his scientific knowledge and humanistic ideas.

It's not just about reflecting on his thoughts. Just as important is the examination of the resulting ways and possibilities of how society can be made more humane and the environment protected in a more sustainable manner.

At the end of 2017, the International Erich Fromm Society had around 700 members worldwide. Almost two thirds of the members come from German-speaking countries. Most of the 50 or so North and Central American and 50 Italian and Spanish members are psychoanalysts; German-speaking members have a broader professional background.

The society awards the Erich Fromm Prize every year .

Publications

literature

  • Hans Peter Balmer : Liberation from Destructiveness? In: Politische Studien 27 (1976) 355-369. Also in: A. Reif (ed.): Erich Fromm, materials for his work. Vienna / Munich 1978, pp. 109–124.
  • Burkhard Bierhoff: Erich Fromm. Analytical social psychology and visionary social criticism. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1993, ISBN 3-531-12265-7 .
  • Burkhard Bierhoff: Critical-Humanistic Education. Pedagogy according to Erich Fromm. Centaurus, Freiburg im Breisgau 2013, ISBN 978-3-86226-186-4 .
  • John Burns: The characterology of Erich Fromms with special consideration of the social character , Verlag für Tiefenpsychologie und Anthropologie, Bad Rappenau 2015, ISBN 978-3-946130-03-1
  • Johannes Claßen (Ed.): Erich Fromm and pedagogy. Social character and upbringing. Beltz, Weinheim / Basel 1987, ISBN 3-407-34013-3 ( full text ).
  • Johannes Claßen (Ed.): Erich Fromm and Critical Pedagogy. Beltz, Weinheim / Basel 1991, ISBN 3-407-34060-5 ( full text ).
  • Marko Ferst u. a. (Ed.): Erich Fromm as a thought leader. Zeitsprung edition, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-8311-3199-6 .
  • Rainer Funk : Courage for people. Erich Fromm's thought and work, his humanistic religion and ethics. DVA, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-421-01858-8 .
  • Rainer Funk (Ed.): Erich Fromm Reading Book. DVA, Stuttgart 1985, ISBN 3-421-06259-5 .
  • Rainer Funk: Erich Fromm - love for life. A picture biography. DVA, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-421-05279-4 .
  • Rainer Funk, Helmut Johach, Gerd Meyer (Eds.): Erich Fromm today - On the topicality of his thinking. DTV, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-423-36166-2 ( full text ).
  • Rainer Funk: Erich Fromm. 8th edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-499-50322-0 .
  • Rainer Funk: Erich Fromm's little school of life. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2007, ISBN 978-3-451-05927-8 .
  • Rainer Funk, Neil McLaughlin (Eds.): Towards a Human Science: The Relevance of Erich Fromm for Today. Psychosozial, Gießen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8379-2535-7 ( table of contents and reading sample (PDF)).
  • Jürgen Hardeck: Religion in the work of Erich Fromm. A study of religious studies (= humanism & society. Volume 1). Lit, Münster / Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-88660-730-5 (dissertation, University of Bonn, 1989).
  • Jürgen Hardeck: Erich Fromm - life and work. Primus, Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-89678-533-8 .
  • Michael Kessler, Rainer Funk (Eds.): Erich Fromm and the Frankfurt School: Files of the International, Interdisciplinary Symposium Stuttgart-Hohenheim, May 31st – June 2nd, 1991. Francke, Tübingen 1992, ISBN 3-7720-1857-2 ( full text ).
  • Alfred Lévy: Erich Fromm - humanist between tradition and utopia . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2001, ISBN 978-3-8260-2242-5 .
  • Wolfgang Pauly : Erich Fromm. Live free - love creatively. Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-95565-259-3 .
  • Josef Rattner : Erich Fromm . In: Josef Rattner: Classics of Psychoanalysis: 32 main representatives of depth psychology . Psychologie-Verlags-Union, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-621-27102-3 , pp. 339-375, kobv.de (PDF).
  • Annette Thomson: Erich Fromm. Explorer of the Human Condition. Palgrave Macmillan, New York / London 2009, ISBN 978-0-230-51655-7 .
  • Helmut Wehr: Fromm for an introduction. Junius, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-88506-852-4 .
  • Helmut Wehr: Erich Fromm read interculturally. Bautz, Nordhausen 2006, ISBN 3-88309-292-4 .
  • Rolf Wiggershaus : The Frankfurt School. History, Theoretical Development, Political Significance. Hanser, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-446-13132-9 .
  • Rolf Wiggershaus: The Frankfurt School (= Rowohlt's monographs ). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-499-50713-7 .

Web links

Commons : Erich Fromm  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Erich Fromm  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alfred Lévy: Erich Fromm: Humanist between tradition and utopia . Königshausen & Neumann, 2002, ISBN 978-3-8260-2242-5 , p. 13.
  2. ↑ Rainer Funk: Erich Fromm - Love for Life: a pictorial biography . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-421-05279-4 , p. 145.
  3. ↑ Rainer Funk: Courage for people. Erich Fromm's thought and work, his humanistic religion and ethics. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1978.
  4. ^ Texts by Erich Fromm online ( Memento from May 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). 1965 manuscript entitled Some Beliefs on Man, in Man, for Man , which was not published by Fromm himself. Published in: Erich Fromm Complete Edition in twelve volumes, Munich (Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt and Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag) 1999, GA XI, pp. 593–596.
  5. ^ Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels: The German Ideology: I. Feuerbach. In: Marx-Engels-Werke, Volume 3, Berlin 1962, p. 33.
  6. ↑ On other aspects, see also Wolfgang Rissling: Creativity and revolutionary character in Erich Fromm . (PDF) In: J. Claßen (Ed.): Erich Fromm and Critical Pedagogy . Beltz, Weinheim / Basel 1991, pp. 127–138.
  7. ^ Website of the Fromm Society , accessed on January 3, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Fromm, Erich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American psychoanalyst, philosopher and social psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH March 18, 1980
Place of death Muralto , Switzerland