Themenstrang: »Gesellschaft«

Referent_innen: Morten Nissen, Marina Minor

Tag/Zeit: Mittwoch, 12.9.2018, 15:30–17:30 Uhr

When do individuals act in a (genuinely) motivated manner, and when under constraints?

In a talk from the 14th July 2017, Morus Markard raised the following question: In view of the complexity and contradictoriness of social conditions and their interpretations – are individuals able to determine their own decisions and actions and to be reasonably certain that these are in line with their own life interests, or at least do not contradict them? This question emerges from the problem of motivated acting within an antagonistic class society: The actual producers are virtually excluded from participation in the planning of production and reality control but still have to adopt to societal requirements and goals as well as to obey societal obligations. The individual may not strive for their own goals but, instead, internalize those of societal authorities. So, what does Marxist Subject Science or Critical Psychology contribute to the understanding of humane motivation? Under which circumstances do individuals tend to engage in motivated acting (in terms of critical-psychological conception) within an antagonistic class society; that is, to stand up for an augmentation of control over their own living conditions or to gain a generalized human agency (German: ‘verallgemeinerte Handlungsfähigkeit’)?

Themenstrang: »Forschung«

Referent_in: Morten Nissen

Tag/Zeit: Mittwoch, 12.9.2018, 10:00–12:00 Uhr

In Osterkamp’s (as later in Danziger’s) reconstruction, the history of motivation reveals that the concept hides a power issue – a clash of wills – in the form of a scientific object. On the background of the rise of standardized practices in industry and education, what people are supposed to do is decided before the question arises whether and why they want to do it. The Vygotskians criticized the search for drives within the subject, and instead proposed the acquisition of socially formed motives. This reestablished a social subjectivity, but in a functionalist way that once again ignored relations of power. Weiterlesen »

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