Two sources, Lawrence Friedman's recent biography and Michael Maccoby's important 1994 essay on the >two voices< of Erich Fromm, present Fromm as torn between his roles as scholarly >scientist< and as revolutionary >prophet<. Contra Friedman and Maccoby, who see the >prophetic< as impinging on Fromm's scholarly objectivity and rigor, I argue that Fromm's prophetic and scientific sides must be understood as fundamentally linked. Fromm's ethical-prophetic orientation and his theory of >prophetic messianism< are intellectually sophisticated. Fromm draws on philosophical traditions that privilege human flourishing (Aristotle, Spinoza, Marx) as the basis for ethical decision-making. Like Marxist Georg Lukács's >totality<, Fromm's prophetic messianism not only doesn't limit his theoretical work – it opens up new vistas, through an encounter with reality that is both theoretical and practical.