>Erich Fromm’s Humanist Philosophy of the Need to Establish a Science of Man<: Erich Fromm’s concept of the scientific enterprise is characterized by the propounding of a special methodology. His concept of >science< is not in the least bit orientated to the natural or the social sciences. Rather it is based on reflections on the >situatedness< of human beings in the world (the conditio humana itself), reflections that rightly seen as constituting a philosophical anthropology. Moreover, Fromm does not proceed by generalizing and abstracting in either a deductively naturalistic fashion or in one that seeks its point of departure in the findings of the various sciences. Rather Fromm blends together insights derived from the various humanities and social sciences to arrive at his approach to the situatedness of human beings in the world. This he does by harmonizing the biological, social and psychical determinants so that their combined relevance for humanity becomes apprehensible, i.e. whether they are functional or dysfunctional. The rationality of the perceiving subject is always seen by Fromm as persisting in an interrelation with the activity-directed character of the subject. The upshot is that, by drawing on the character conception and its orientation, Fromm is not only able to reflect in his methodology the >interest< of the subject striving for objective knowledge, but he also manages to arrive at a conception of the scientific task that pegs it squarely to value judgements. This means that the science of man, understood as a genuinely human anthropology, is necessarily orientated to the humanistic ideal of love, productive rationality and productive activity. At the same time, Fromm attempts to draw on the science of man in order to demonstrate that humanism can be both humane and scientific at one and the same time.
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(1990)
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(1990)
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(1990)