Robert S. Hartman

Robert S. Hartman was born in Berlin, Germany on January 27, 1910.[1] He studied at the German College of Political Science, and also at the University of Paris, the London School of Economics, and at the University of Berlin from which he received an LL.B. degree in 1932.

He started working as instructor in administrative law and the philosophy of law at the University of Berlin, and he also served as Assistant Judge of the District court, Berlin-Charlottenburg. In 1932 he left Germany for Britain and "started working for Walt Disney Productions as a copyright representative in Britain and later opened offices for Disney in Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden where he met and married his wife. The Hartmans moved to Mexico City where he represented Disney Productions in Central America and the Antilles."[3]

Hartman's rejection of Fascism brought him into conflict with the Nazi party and forced him to leave Germany, using a fake passport, in 1932. He legally changed his name, which originally was Robert Schirokauer, to the name on his passport, Robert S. (for Schirokauer) Hartman. In 1938, using a Swedish passport, he, his wife, and son left Europe for Mexico, where they lived until their immigration in 1941 to the United States, where they later became citizens.

In 1941 he migrated to the United States and became a citizen. He did his doctoral work in philosophy at Northwestern University in 1946.[1] He taught at the University of Berlin and at Lake Forest Academy near Chicago. He was a professor of philosophy at the College of Wooster (1945 - 1948) and at Ohio State University (1948 - 1956) and was a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1955 - 1956) and at Yale University in 1966.[1] Hartman was a Research Fellow and Exchange Professor at the National University of Mexico from 1956 - 1957, and from 1957 until his death he was a research professor of philosophy there.[1] From 1968 until his death Hartman also held an appointment as a professor of philosophy at the University of Tennessee.[1] In the late 1950s he was among the first members of the Society for General Systems Research.

From 1950-1957 he was Chairman of the Commission on Peace for the International Council of Community Churches. He served as Executive Director of the Council of Profit-Sharing Industries, and wrote its first manual. He was a founder of the Deutsche Institute fur Social-Wirtschaftliche Betriebsgestaltung (industrial organization). He was a founding sponsor of the American Association for Humanistic Psychology. He has been credited with being the founding spirit behind the prevailing business-retirement plan in the United States today, the 401K Plan. He was the first President of the American Society for Value Inquiry, founded in 1971 by James Wilbur.

He served as consultant for the practical application of Value Theory with AT&T, General Foods, General Electric, and IBM.

Hartman died in Cuernavaca, Mexico on September 20, 1973.[1] He had one child, a son, Jan. Jan Hartman was an Emmy-winning screenwriter, author, and playwright. He died of heart failure in October 2006. He was married to Lorie Hartman for three decades, a professor of literature at NYU, and later remarried to Stacey McNutt, a writer and an editor. He is survived by his two daughters, Katherine Hartman, a writer and professor and Tanya Hartman, an artist and professor.

He was the subject of doctoral dissertations, including that of a former Chairman of the Philosophy Department at the University of Tennessee, Professor John Davis, as well as of Marvin Charles Katz, whose thesis was later published as a book entitled Trends Towards Synthesis.

He has published papers on the phenomenology of group measurement, on universal constants in Physics (in his role as a philosopher of science), on the logic of description and valuation, on the contribution of St. Anselm, and on the Concept of Self in Søren Kierkegaard.

The Robert S. Hartman Institute for Formal and Applied Axiology was founded in 1976[4] and exists for the sole purpose of advancing the axiological work of Robert S. Hartman.[5] The Institute was developed in cooperation with heirs of Robert S. Hartman to advance study relating to Robert S. Hartman's unpublished and unfinished works held in the collections of the graduate library of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.[6]

The Hartman Institute affirms the importance of a diversity of approaches to the formalization, interpretation, and application of Hartman’s theory, and it has no allegiance to any particular business model or organization.[5]

Hartman was a prolific writer with some of his works published and many available in their original manuscript form at the University of Tennessee Knoxville Archives.[10] The Robert S. Hartman Institute is working diligently to bring as many of these manuscripts to publication as possible.

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

• Dictionary Of Modern American Philosophers, edited by John R. Shook, entry HARTMAN, Robert Schirokauer by Rem. B. Edwards, Theommes Continuum (2005) ISBN 978-1843710370
• Robert S. Hartman, Freedom to Live: The Robert Hartman Story. edited by Arthur R. Ellis. Rodolpi Press. ISBN 90-5183-610-4
• Hartman, Robert S. 1967. The Structure of Value; Foundations of Scientific Axiology. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
• Further details about his life and work can be found at http://www.hartmaninstitute.org/RobertSHartman.aspx

• The Robert S. Hartman Institute for Formal and Applied Axiology
• The Robert S. Hartman Collection, 1910-1973 at the University of Tennessee
• A current bibliography of books by and about Hartman, Formal Axiology, and its applications.