To Have Or To Be

TO HAVE OR TO BE? Erich Fromm NO continuu m 111% LONDON • NEW YORK 2008 Continuum The Tower Building 11 York Road London SE1 7NX 80 Maiden Lane New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com Copyright © 1976 by The Estate of Erich Fromm First published in 1997 by Continuum Originally published in The World Perspective Series by Harper & Row All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers. Typeset by Interactive Sciences Ltd, Gloucester Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fromm, Erich, 1900-1980. To have or to be? Bibliography: p. 1. Personality. 2. Ontology. I. Title. BF98.F746 1976 ISBN 0-8264-1738-8 128 Contents World Perspectives—What This Series Means —Ruth Nanda Anshen ix xix Foreword Introduction: The Great Promise, Its Failure, and 1 New Alternatives The End of an Illusion Why Did the Great Promise Fail? The Economic Necessity for Human Change Is There an Alternative to Catastrophe? Part One: Understanding the Difference Between Having and Being I. A First Glance The Importance of the Difference Between Having and Being Examples in Various Poetic Expressions Idiomatic Changes Origin of the Terms Philosophical Concepts of Being Having and Consuming II. Having and Being in Daily Experience Learning Remembering Conversing Reading Exercising Authority 13 24 WORLD PERSPECTIVES Having Knowledge and Knowing Faith Loving III. Having and Being in the Old and New Testaments and in the Writings of Master Eckhart The Old Testament The New Testament Master Eckhart (1260—c. 1327)<