To Have or to Be
Wed 29 Apr
|UZH KO2-F-174
A Vedic view on Erich Fromm’s approach to 'Having' and 'Being'
Time & Location
29 Apr 2026, 12:15 – 13:00 CEST
UZH KO2-F-174, University of Zürich, Karl-Schmid-Strasse 4, 8006 Zürich
About the event
In his book To Have or To Be (1976), the German-American psychoanalyst Erich Fromm addresses topics that are as relevant today as they were then, such as the initial expectations of boundless happiness, freedom, material abundance, and mastery over nature that arose from the advent of industrialization, as well as their apparent failure due to radical hedonism, egoism, selfishness, and greed. This ultimately led him to the question of what is good for man as an idividual, and what is good plainly for the growth of the system. What is more important for human kind: to have or to be? A similar approach has been given in the Vedic texts.
Georg M. Hilbi is an alumnus of UZH, holding a PHD in European Art History. During his extensive travels around the globe researching human art legacy and culture he studied the various socio-psychological and philosophical patterns in the respective countries…