The radical humanism of Erich Fromm

Despite experiencing a limited resurgence of late, the thought of Erich Fromm is still greatly underappreciated and underutilized in the academy today. In this book, Durkin makes the case for the radical humanist social theory which emanates from Fromm’s writings, showing his policy of refined continuation in relation to classical humanist thought (particularly as he saw it as manifested in Judaism, Marxism, and Freudianism) to be potentially greatly instructive in relation to the task of recovering the central categories of humanist thought that have been put out of use over the last fifty years or so. In so doing, Durkin mounts a spirited defense of Fromm against his Frankfurt School colleagues and those working within the influential anti-humanist paradigm that would seek to oppose him. Ultimately, Fromm’s thinking, which consists of combinations of essentialist and constructionist aspects, and which is all-too-often taken as being superficial, is shown to be capable of positioning social theory in such a way that concerns over ethnocentrism and naiveté can be met at the same time as returning to the historical social theoretical goal of facilitating change in the world at large.