Robert S. Hartman

Robert S. Hartman
Prof. Dr. phil. Hartman
Born	Robert Schirokauer Hartman 27 January 1910 Berlin, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire
Died	20 September 1973 Cuernavaca, Mexico
Nationality	German-American
Education	German College of Political Science, The University of Paris, The London School of Economics, and Berlin University.
Occupation	Logician and philosopher
Years active	1932 - 1973
Known for	Formal Axiology
Notable works	The Structure of Value, Five Lectures on Formal Axiology, The Revolution Against War

Robert Schirokauer, since 1933 Robert S. Hartman (1910–1973) was a German-born philosopher of half-Jewish (Halbjude) origin. He is considered an important representative of values science (axiology, "Science of Value").

Life

Youth and studies

Robert Schirokauer's father, who served as a volunteer in the Imperial German Army from 1914 to 1918 and had converted to Christianity, was of Jewish origin, his mother was Lutheran. Schirokauer, better known as Hartman, was raised Catholic by his stepmother. He studied law in Germany, political science in Paris and economics in London. In 1932, he received the Legum Baccalaureus from Berlin University and briefly taught administrative law and philosophy of law at the University of Berlin and worked as an assistant district court judge. As a young judge, he severely condemned the National Socialists in the early 1930s and also published offensive articles against the NSDAP and their activities.

Emigration

After Hitler was named Reichskanzler, Schirokauer emigrated to France in the summer of 1933 (other sources claim in 1932) with a false passport (as Hartman, later legally changed) and made his way there as a photographer with an image agency, which he continued to operate in London. Subsequently, he worked with Gerhard Zucker, a German rocket engineer who wanted to make this technology available to the British.

In London, he also became acquainted with the representative of Walt Disney in Europe and was commissioned to set up the corresponding business in Scandinavia. The Germans continued to monitor him. In Sweden, he met and married his wife Rita Emanuel in 1936. In 1938, the Hartman, wife and and son left Europe and moved to Mexico City where he represented Disney Productions in Central America and the Antilles.

In 1942, he moved from Mexico to the United States to continue his research on the question "What is good?" and did his doctorate in philosophy at Northwestern University in Illinois in 1946. After numerous lectureships and visiting professorships at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University, he taught and researched biannually until his death in 1973 in México.

In addition to his axiological work, Robert S. Hartman always remained connected to the corporate world through advice and publications. He is considered the father of the profit-share concept in the United States and thus decisively supported the participation of the workforce in company profits, also with the help of pension payments. In the 1960s and early 70s, he was heavily influenced by the Cold War and the risk of human destruction by nuclear weapons. He had been in contact with numerous political figures around the world to promote opportunities for lasting peace.

Chronology

• 1941 Hartman and family immigrated to the United States and became a citizen.
• 1942 Published the essay, “Prime Number and Cosmical Number” in Philosophy of Science.
• 1946 Doctoral work in philosophy at Northwestern University. Published “Can Field Theory be Applied to Ethics?”
• 1945-1948 Professor of philosophy at the College of Wooster in Ohio.
• 1948 Author of Profit Sharing Manual, Columbus, OH: Council of Profit Sharing Industries. Hartman has been credited with being the founding spirit behind the prevailing business-retirement plan in the United States today, the 401K Plan.
• 1948-1956 Professor of philosophy at Ohio State University.
• 1949-1955 Published report on Value Theory for the Institut International de Philosophis.
• 1950-1957 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. A founder of the Deutsche Institute fur Social-Wirtschaftliche Betriebsgestaltung (industrial organization). He was a founding sponsor of the American Association for Humanistic Psychology.
• 1953 (1958) Published: “Die Partnerschaft von Kapital und Arbeit: Theorie und Praxis eines neuen Wirtschaftssystems”, Opladen-Cologne: Westdeiitscjer Verlag.
• 1955-1956 Visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts.
• 1956- 1957 Smith Mundt State Department Research Fellow and Exchange Professor at the National University of Mexico.
• 1957 Presented “The Science of Value” at M.I.T. conference on human values organized by the Research Society for Creative Altruism. Paper published in 1959 in New Knowledge in Human Values, Abraham H. Maslow, ed.
• 1957 Published: Axiologia Formal: La Ciencia de la Valoración, Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
• 1957-1973 Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Mexico.
• 1959-1961 The "Hartman-Cardenas Seminar on Formal Axiology and Humanistic Psychoanalysis." was developed and taught at UNAM. From this seminar evolved the first technical applications of formal axiology employing the forms Hartman developed in collaboration with Cardenas Trigos. This became the value inventory or valuemetric instrument called the Hartman Value Profile (HVP). It was first published in Spanish by El Manual Moderno in Mexico.
• 1959 Published: “La Estructura del Valor: Fundamentos de la Axiologia cientifica” Mexico City-Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
• 1963 Published: “La Participacion de Utilidades en Mexico” Mexico City: Asesores de Pensiones.
• 1963 Hartman published his chapter, “The Measurement of Value,” in Albert Ellis’s Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy.
• 1963-1964 Hartman, ever a proponent of world peace, proposed a “Peace Fund of the Non-Nuclear Nations” and sent letters to Mexico, Ghana, India, Indonesia, The United Arab Republic, Finland, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Poland, and Pope Paul VI. He proposed that nuclear power is under the control of the United Nations to prevent proliferation and worldwide threat.
• 1963 Hartman wrote his autobiographical Freedom to Live: The Robert Hartman Story for use in a management seminar he taught at the Nationwide Insurance Company during 1962 and 1963.
• 1965 Hartman began preparing the values test The Hartman Inventory, a precursor to The Hartman Value Profile.
• 1965 Published: “La Ciencia del Valor” Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico.
• 1965 Published: “El Conocimiento del Bien: Critica de la Razón Axiológica” Mexico City-Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
• 1966 Visiting professor at Yale University.
• 1966 Miller Associates was incorporated to market one of the earliest applications of the HVP.
• 1967/1969 Published The Structure of Value, Foundations of Scientific Axiology in the United States, Southern Illinois University Press at Carbondale, Illinois. A slightly modified softback edition was published in 1969.
• 1967 Published: “El Inventario de Valores Hartman” Mexico City: El Manual Moderno
• 1967 The Hartman Value Inventory published Boston: Miller Associates, 1967, Austin: Axiometrics Incorporated, 1969. Translations in Spanish, German, Swedish, Japanese, and Hebrew.
• 1968 Hartman obtained an appointment as a Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Hartman then divided his time between Knoxville and the University of Mexico in Mexico City, usually teaching six months in Tennessee and six months in Mexico City.
• 1968 Dave Mefford became Hartman’s Teaching Assistant.
• 1968 -1970 Future RSHI Founders and early adopters of the Hartman Value Profile first meet Hartman and began studying with him: Dave Mefford, Wayne Carpenter, Kurt Kaltreider, Richard C. Leggett, Mark A. Moore, Rem B. Edwards, Gary Acquaviva, Art Ellis, Bill Curley, John Austin, and Richard Clarke.
• Late 1960s: Hartman served on the board of editors of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology with Viktor Frankl, Sidney M. Jourard, Abraham H. Maslow, Arthur Koestler and Robert Tannenbaum.
• 1968 Hartman chaired a section on “Ethics and the Philosophy of Values” at the Fourteenth International Congress of Philosophy in Vienna where he met Dr. Viktor Frankl. Hartman and Dr. Frankl discussed establishing an Institute for Value Analysis and Logotherapy in the United States, but the Institute never materialized.
• 1969 Hartman conducted off-campus HVP classes using his early Manual of Interpretation. David Mefford, Gary Acquaviva, Art Ellis, and Bill Curley were given certificates by Hartman that sanctioned them as thor­oughly trained and qualified to interpret the HVP.
• 1969 Hartman established Axiometrics, Inc. in Texas which became Axiometric Testing Service in Tennessee. At this time, Hartman authorized Research Concepts to market HVP.
• 1970 A memo submitted to the National Institute of Mental Health suggested that the Hartman Value Profile could be used as a predictor of violent behavior and useful as a screening test.
• 1970 Published: The Hartman Value Profile. Alcoa, Tenn.: Axiometric Testing Service.
• 1970 Published: Research Manual of the Hartman Value Profile. Alcoa, Tenn.: Axiometric Testing Service.
• 1970 Published: “Manual de Interpretación del Inventario de Valores Hartman” Mexico City: Servicios Psicoaxiológos.
• 1971 Hartman submitted a proposal to the Rehabilitation Services Administration to utilize the Hartman Value Profile as an assessment for vocational rehabilitation clients.
• 1971 First president of the American Society for Value Inquiry (founded by James Wilbur).
• 1972 Value and Valuation, Axiological Studies in Honor of Robert S. Hartman, by John W. Davis published.
• 1972 Published: La Situación Moral: Fundamentos de la Teleologia Cientifica. Mexico City-Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
• 1972 Published: La Estructura del Valor Intrinseco: Introducción Axiológica a la Etica y la Estética. Mexico City-Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
• 1972 The Journal of Value Inquiry published Hartman's article, The Value Structure of Creativity
• 1973 Hartman nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.