From Descartes to Fromm: Intellectual and Moral Degradation

Abstract

The author’s version of the reason for the intellectual and moral degradation of the personality in general is reduced to the rejection of rationality. In particular - in the rejection of the rationality of Rene Descartes. It is argued that oblivion of the Cartesian attitude towards the obviousness of the idea of perfection to a thinking subject, inevitably leads to the fact of the elimination of representing thinking, and hence consciousness as a genetic and constructive source of values. The consequence, illustration, and at the same time the result and evidence of this oblivion, according to the author, is the popular work of E. Fromm «To have or to be»?