Conclusion

Abstract

It has been the central contention of this book that the radical humanism that emanates from Erich Fromm’s writing is a unique and valuable con- tribution to social theory. This radical humanist social theory, which was insufficiently formulated as an explicit theory, but which saturates Fromm’s writings nonetheless, is based on a policy of refined continuation in relation to the classical humanist tradition—a policy that enables him to engage in what is a fruitful mixture of essentialism and constructionism that is capable of reclaiming and reappropriating the analytical precepts of human- ism at the same time as accommodating concerns over their naïve and eth- nocentric application. Radical humanism, for Fromm, is a global philosophy grounded on the idea of the oneness of the human race; it emphasizes the capacity of the human individual to develop its own powers for love, reason, productiveness, and to realize the prophetic dream of messianic socialism; and it considers the goal of human life to be independence, in the sense that becoming aware of the origin of the structuring of one’s character and passions enables greater levels of self-realization and freedom from internal and external sources of damaging determinations. As such, Fromm’s radical humanism places a stress on the existence and importance of “man” (or the human being), the self, the subject, and the possibility of perfectibility and flourishing in the historical process. These concerns represent, in effect, the analytical precepts of classical humanist thought, and they exist in Fromm as the implicit and explicit presuppositions of this thinking.