Your cart is empty.
Keep shoppingIntroduction to Sociology
231 students
Introduction to Sociology
The Psychological and Sociological Understanding of Man within Society.
Created byMaurizio Bisogno
Last updated 5/2026
English
What you'll learn
- You will gain a firm understanding of Erich Fromm's psychoanalytical and sociological approach.
- Why Erich Fromm? For his scientific, nontheological study of religion (elaboration of the categories of humanistic and authoritarian religion; for his theory of social character). For his “mechanisms of escape” or the psychological tools people use to ‘escape their freedom’ to choose (sociological theory)
- Of his own work, Fromm would later explain, "I wanted to understand the laws that govern the life of the individual man, and the laws of society — that is, of men in their social existence. I tried to see the lasting truth in Freud's concepts as against those assumptions which were in need of revision. I tried to do the same with Marx's theory, and finally, I tried to arrive at a synthesis which followed from the understanding and the criticism of both thinkers."
Explore related topics
Course content
4 sections • 10 lectures • 1h 34m total length
Requirements
- Essential texts will be provided during the course.
Description
Why does modern society produce so many people who feel free — and yet feel utterly lost?
That is the question Erich Fromm spent his life trying to answer. And it is the question at the heart of this course.
Fromm occupies a unique position in twentieth-century thought: trained in both Freudian psychoanalysis and Marxist social theory, he set out to understand something neither Freud nor Marx could fully explain alone — why individuals so often flee from their own freedom, why societies produce conformity more reliably than fulfilment, and what genuine human emancipation would actually look like.
This course offers a rigorous and accessible introduction to Fromm's most important sociological ideas, with direct relevance to the world we live in now.
What you will engage with:
Fromm's devastating critique of normalcy — and why a psychologically healthy individual may look like a social misfit
The fundamental human needs that modern society systematically fails to meet: belonging, rootedness, identity, and orientation
The mechanisms of escape — the psychological strategies people use to avoid the burden of genuine freedom, including authoritarianism, conformism, and destructiveness
Fromm's theory of social character and how economic structures shape not just behaviour but personality itself
The distinction between having and being — and what it tells us about consumerism, alienation, and the pursuit of happiness
What Fromm means by positive freedom — and why it remains one of the most important concepts for anyone thinking seriously about human emancipation
This course is for you if:
You sense that something is structurally wrong with modern society — and want a rigorous framework for understanding what and why
You are studying sociology, psychology, philosophy, or critical theory and want to engage seriously with one of the field's most original thinkers
You have read Marx or Freud and want to encounter the thinker who most productively synthesised and critiqued them both
Fromm wrote for people who refused to take the world at face value. This course is designed in the same spirit.
Who this course is for:
- This course will be useful if you are interested in the psychological and sociological approach to question about Human Existence. It will provide you with a deep understanding of this central thinker in the developement of social thought and political philosophy.