Robert Schirokauer Hartman (January 27, 1910 - September 20, 1973) was a logician and philosopher. His primary field of study was scientific axiology (the science of value) and he is known as its original theorist. His axiology is the basis of the Hartman Value Inventory which is used in psychology to measure the character of an individual.
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Hartman was born in Berlin, Germany on January 27, 1910. 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.
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."[1]
In 1941 he migrated to the United States, became a citizen, and did his doctoral work in philosophy at Northwestern University in 1946. He has taught at the University of Berlin, at Lake Forest Academy near Chicago, at the College of Wooster, Ohio State University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before assuming duties in Mexico. In 1955-1956 he was Visiting Professor at Yale University. Robert S. Hartman spent his later days as simultaneously a Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee as well as at the National University of Mexico. 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, 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.[1] He was the first President of the American Society for Value Inquiry, founded in 1971 by Dr. James Wilbur.
He served as consultant for the practical application of Value Theory with AT&T, General Foods, General Electric, and IBM.
Hartman was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973.
Hartman died in Mexico City on September 20, 1973. 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. For the previous 10 years, Jan lived in Hertfordshire, England, with his wife, Stacey McNutt, a book editor.
An Institute has been set up in his honor to explore the implications of his work in formal axiology and value science.
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 Dr. 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 reference book Who Knows What listed Dr. Hartman as one of the two living authorities on value theory (the other was Dr. Charles W. Morris (1903-1979)). Among Hartman's publications are the report on Value Theory for the Institut International de Philosophis 1949-1955, published by UNESCO; his magnum opus The Structure of Value (1967 Southern Illinois University Press); and at the time of his death in 1973 he was working on a manuscript entitled The Measurement of Value.
Another critical work is his Knowledge of Good (Robert S. HARTMAN, Arthur ELLIS and Rem B. EDWARDS, 2002 Rodopi Press) a thorough study of all the philosophical discussions of goodness and what gaps exist in a complete philosophy of value. Hartman shows how his Formal Value Theory fills these gaps.
2. Further details about his life and work can be found at this link: