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The Robert S. Harman Institute Elects New Board Members

The institute is pleased to announce its newly elected Board of Directors who will continue to steward the institute's mission and strategies to role-model a community that cooperates for changing the world for the better by developing, applying, and making famous Formal Axiology and Hartman's legacy.

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Recap of the 2023 Archives Trip

Armed with the knowledge and established process from the 2022 trip, the Institute’s VP of Marketing, Catherine Foster, and her husband completed a second trip and digitized 9,078 pages of hand-written notes, letters, documents, and other papers. 

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Where were you born?

Edward Korbal, co-president of the RSHI Board, shares a series of prompting questions on birthplace inspired by a recent board meeting discussion and Chapter 1 of Freedom to Live. These provocative questions could serve as journal prompting or rich discussion. 

"Whether you are a national or a foreigner depends upon the accident of birthplace. I could just as well been born a Russian, an Englishman, or an American. For the state to value the nonessential accident of birthplace higher than the essential of birth itself, one’s life, seemed to me degrading and undignified. It seemed to me that I was born to live for humanity, that the importance of being born was that and nothing else." 
Freedom to Live: The Robert S. Hartman Story; Hartman, 2013, p. 15
I was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA – I am an American. But I could just as well have been born an Australian, a Ukrainian, a Cuban, or a North Korean.
Where was your birthplace?
Does your birthplace determine your value?
Hartman spent his life searching for the answer to the following question. What is the value of a human life?
Recently, I was heartbroken by a comment made by one of our Institute Board Members during our quarterly Board Meeting who shared with us that they will likely face some challenges in getting a travel visa to attend our annual conference here in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, in October.
This caused me to reflect, and I am also posing the following questions for your reflection:
Is their freedom to live of less value than mine?  Than yours?
Who gets to determine this?  The accident of our birthplace?
Does the value of a human life change according to the time, context, and circumstances in which you were born and in which you currently live?
What is the value of your life?

“I Was Born To Die”

Edward Korbal, co-president of the RSHI Board, shares his thoughts on the four questions posed by Dr. Hartman in Chapter 1 of Freedom to Live. These provocative questions are a launch point for generating intrinsic, extrinsic, and systemic value in the world. 

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Focusing on the Self View (Part 2) Side of the HVP

Clifford G. Hurst, PhD shares a commentary regarding board member and axiologist, Sophie Coulthard's, lecture for the 2022 46th Annual Robert S. Hartman Institute Conference. He shares insight into the value of using Rho Scores and shares wisdom from the Dalai Lama regarding focus on the external world.

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Defining "Formal Axiology"

Formal axiology focuses initially upon the most formal features of human values, then upon applications of these formalities to the concrete details of what we value (values) and how we value (valuations). Robert S. Hartman searched for and began to find the most logically abstract (he would say “synthetic”) features of all human values and valuations.

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From the Archives: The April 2022 Document Preservation Trip

In 2021, the board committed to the mission of archival preservation making it one of three core strategies of the mission of the institute. In April 2022, Robert Calabrese and Catherine Foster visited the archives and began the comprehensive digital preservation effort of all 146 boxes of Hartman’s print legacy.

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Announcement of New Board Leadership 2022

The Robert S. Hartman Institute is pleased to announce new board leadership and additional administrative support to continue to advance our mission and vision of changing the world for the better.

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The Timeless Principles of Applying Axiology to Every Person, Situation, and Thing

The 45th Annual Robert S. Hartman Institute Conference theme was Timeless Principles: Thinking Better and Living Fully. The conference spanned three days and multiple sessions throughout the Fall months. Each session featured a vast array of speakers united in the institute’s mission to continue to change the world for the better by transforming value systems to be Relationships (Intrinsic) > Results (Extrinsic) > Strategy (Systemic).

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Value Insights on the Master Axiological Pattern

Vera Mefford shares with the Robert S. Hartman Institute her reflections and insights on value based on the master axiological pattern. This guest post was submitted as a reflection after a Hartman Happy Hour session.

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Remembering Alfonso Lozano González

The Robert S. Hartman Institute remembers Professor Alfonso Lozano González, the first disciple of Hartman. He dedicated himself to spreading Formal Axiology in Mexico in all possible ways.  Professor Lozano was the main promoter of Formal Axiology in Mexico. He participated in the Board of Directors of the RSHI;  in the RSHI annual meetings of 1981, 1982, and 1985 he presented various works related to Education. One of his works was published in the book "Forms of Value and Valuation" edited by Rem Edwards and John Davis. He died on October 29, 2021, in Mexico City.

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Why We Published Wit & Wisdom

Clifford G. Hurst, PhD (Hartman Institute VP of Research) shares why and how we published Wit & Wisdom the most accessible, easy to read, and enjoyable collection of Robert Hartman's thought to date.

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Reflections about the Situation We Are In

Clifford G. Hurst (VP of Research at the Robert S. Hartman Institute) reflects on the current global situation with COVID-19 declared a pandemic and brings Robert S. Hartman's words to life from unpublished manuscript "A Revolution Against War."

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February Newsletter: Letter from the President

K.T. Connor, PhD, RSHI President, provides a letter sharing the spirit of Hartman’s insight into the evil of dividing—and the goodness of collaborating—to encourage us all to continue the work of bringing people together.

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January Newsletter: Letter from the President

K.T. Connor, PhD, RSHI President, provides a letter sharing updates from the Institute's work on an all-new website, recaps the 2019 Annual Conference, and shares thanks to all our members.

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