Man for Himself: An Inquiry into the Psychology of Ethics

erich fromm

Erich Fromm fought long and hard for the rights and freedoms of the individual. He also recognized that fundamental to this pursuit is the promotion of self-knowledge. In encouraging people to analyze their own behavior, Fromm identified the crucial link between psychology and ethics that underpins all our actions. Moreover, he saw in this a way out of the meaningless impasse which he regarded as the plight of the modern human race. The task that Fromm sets himself, therefore, in Man for Himself is no less than to identify "what man is, how he ought to live, and how the tremendous energies within man can be released and used productively." The resulting book is ample witness to Fromm's success. It makes for exciting, illuminating, even life-changing reading.

Genres psychologyphilosophynonfictionsociologypsychoanalysissocietyspiritualitypoliticssocial scienceessays

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1947

This edition

Format: 272 pages, Paperback
Published: April 24, 2003 by Routledge,Taylor \u0026 Francis Books Ltd imprint
ISBN: 9780415307710
ASIN: B00BG7FIMQ
Language: English

About the author

erich fromm

Erich Fromm, Ph.D. (Sociology, University of Heidelberg, 1922) was a German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the United States. He was one of the founders of The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in New York City and was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory.

Fromm explored the interaction between psychology and society, and held various professorships in psychology in the U.S. and Mexico in the mid-20th century.

Fromm's theory is a rather unique blend of Freud and Marx. Freud, of course, emphasized the unconscious, biological drives, repression, and so on. In other words, Freud postulated that our characters were determined by biology. Marx, on the other hand, saw people as determined by their society, and most especially by their economic systems.