Robert Schirokauer Hartman (January 27, 1910 – September 20, 1973 [1]) was a German-American logician and philosopher. His primary field of study was scientific axiology (the science of value) and he is known as its original theorist.

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 …

Dr. Robert S. Hartman was a philosopher, professor, and business professional who pioneered the science of values (”axiology”) as a field of study. Hartman's work in the science of values serves as a tool for understanding human character.

Robert S. Hartman (1910 – 1973) was an American-German philosopher, professor, and businessperson who developed Formal Axiology, the theory of human values. Hartman escaped Germany during World War II, and having seen evil organized on a mass scale, he dedicated his life to exploring and answering the question, “What is good?”

Robert S. Hartman, Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee and the National University of Mexico, died on September 20. 1973 and was buried near his home in Cuernavaca, Mexico. He was born in Berlin on January 27, 1910.

Robert S. Hartman was a German by birth, forced to flee for his life from Nazi Germany in 1933. His fascinating autobiography, Freedom to Live: The Robert Hartman Story, edited by Art Ellis, was published in 1994.2 Throughout this short introduction to Hartman's formal axiology and its applications, I must greatly oversimplify.

Robert S. Hartman, the father of modern value science, axiology, observed that we "have made our world a paradox: artificial satellites whirl around us, yet deep within us we are frozen with the fear of a cosmic explosion."

This book is both a personal and a philosophical autobiography of Robert S. Hartman, the creator of formal axiology. After experiencing first-hand the horrible effects of World War I and the beginnings of Nazism in Germany, Hartman wondered what could be done to organize goodness instead of badness - for a change.