• search hit 38 of 40
Back to Result List

Optimal Marginality: Innovation and Orthodoxy in Fromm’s Revision of Psychoanalysis

  • The sociological study of intellectual innovation has long been polarized between romantic notions of the creative marginal intellectual & competing accounts stressing the benefits of national, organizational, & network centrality in the production of knowledge. I offer the concept of >optimal marginality< as an attempt to move beyond this longstanding but increasingly stale debate. The relationship between a certain type of marginality & intellectual creativity is discussed in the context of a case study on innovation within psychoanalysis. German psychoana-lyst Erich Fromm's contributions to the modern revision of Freudian theory is high-lighted to illustrate the conditions under which marginality is likely to lead to innova-tions within theoretical systems & intellectual organizations. What types of margin-ality lead to innovation? Under what conditions does marginality lead to insight, & when does it lead to marginal ideas? Four ideal types are outlined & a research agenda is called for that operationalizes & tests these theoretical ideas in the con-text of comparative sociological analysis of intellectual creativity.

Download full text files

  • McLaughlin_N_2001a.pdf

    File not available?

        (You will be redirectet to a request-form. You will need the IdNo there.)
    deu

Export metadata

Additional Services

Share in Twitter Search Google Scholar
Metadaten
Author:Neil McLaughlin
Parent Title (English):The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 42 (No. 2, 2001), pp. 271-288.
Document Type:Articles
Language:English
Year of first Publication:2001
Release Date:2012/12/13
Format:PDF-file to download
IdNo:McLaughlin_N_2001a
Writings about Erich Fromm (Secondary Literature):Articles / Artikel
Erich Fromm's Library and Erich Fromm Archive:Articles / Artikel
Licence (German):
Einverstanden ✔
Diese Webseite verwendet technisch erforderliche Session-Cookies. Durch die weitere Nutzung der Webseite stimmen Sie diesem zu. Unsere Datenschutzerklärung finden Sie hier.