| 1. |
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| 2. |
- Carleheden, Mikael
(författare)
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Alternativ eller rekonstruktion: Om Habermas kritik av Marx
- 1994
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Ingår i: Sociologisk forskning. - : Sveriges Sociologförbund. - 0038-0342 .- 2002-066X. ; 31:3, s. 79-91
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Alternative or Reconstruction? - On Haberm as criticism of MarxShould we understand Habermas’ works in social theory and politics as an alternative to or a reconstruction of Marx? I try in this article to present the possible arguments for both standpoints. It is shown that if we take our point of departure in Habermas’ distinction between ”labour” and ”interaction”, we must treat his writings as an alternative to Marx. If we, however, start out with his distinction between ”life world” and ”system”, then we must understand them as a reconstruction. In the first case it becomes clear that the concepts ”labour” and ”interaction” are opposites and can be used to ground opposite social scientific paradigms, but in the second case it becomes just as clear that Habermas’ criticism of the system’s colonisation of the life world is modelled after Marx’ criticism of political economy. Taken together, Habermas two forms of criticism of Marx leads him to transfer the Marxian form of criticism of modem society from the capitalistic economy to the paternalistic social state. That is, Habermas doesn’t locate reification in the capitalistic mode of production. In society of today reification is the product of the social state.
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| 3. |
- Carleheden, Mikael, 1958-
(författare)
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Askestism, organisation och autenticitet : om den strukturella omvandlingen av modern livsföring i väst
- 2007
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Ingår i: Livsföring. - Malmö : Liber. - 978 9147087273 ; , s. 89-119
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this article a concept of structural transformation is worked out and applied on the history of modernity. It involves a distinction between abstract modernity and epochs of realized modernities. The general theory of a structural transformation of modernity is applied on a special case; the transformation of the modern conduct of life in the West. The Weberian concept 'conduct of life' is today almost forgotten, but the author argues that it is a very useful conceptual tool for grasping crucial aspects of everyday life. These theoretical points of departure are then related to some classical American sociological investigations, but also to recent investigations. The result is a division of the history of conduct of life in Western modernity in three different epochs: the age of asceticism, the age of organization and the age of authenticity.
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| 4. |
- Carleheden, Mikael, 1958-
(författare)
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Bauman on politics : stillborn democracy
- 2008
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Ingår i: The sociology of Zygmunt Bauman. - Aldershot : Ashgate. - 9780754670605 ; , s. 175-192
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 5. |
- Carleheden, Mikael
(författare)
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Debatt : Därför behövs Sociologisk Forskning
- 2001
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Ingår i: Sociologisk forskning. - : Sveriges Sociologförbund. - 0038-0342 .- 2002-066X. ; 38:3-4, s. 202-205
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Carleheden, Mikael, 1958-
(författare)
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Fostran till frihet : skolans demokratiska värdegrund ur ett habermasianskt perspektiv
- 2007
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Ingår i: Utbildning som kommunikation. - Göteborg : Daidalos. - 9789171732491 ; , s. 109-143
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Education has never only been about teaching facts about the world. It has also always been about passing on values to pupils. This aspect of teaching is not fulfilled if pupils only learn the meaning of the favoured values. A teacher should also be able to make his or her pupils believe in them and to act according to them. Thus, teaching is also a kind of political socialisation. The values taught change historically and this change is related to the political history of a society. The point of departure of this article is the fact that it is currently possible to observer signs of such a value transformation. School children are not anymore to become good national patriots, atomistic possessors of negative rights or loyal cogs in the welfare state machinery, but democratic citizens in a radical sense. This article takes Jürgen Habermas’ political theory in Faktizität und Geltung as its point of departure. With the help of Habermas the above-mentioned value transformation will be interpreted and his understanding of democratic citizenship will be discussed. The aim of the article is to use Habermas’ theory to give a general idea of the possibility and meaning of a normative education of democratic citizens.
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| 10. |
- Carleheden, Mikael, et al.
(författare)
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Inledning
- 2006. - 1
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Ingår i: Social interaktion. - Malmö : Liber. - 9789147087471 ; , s. 11-16
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 11. |
- Carleheden, Mikael, 1958-
(författare)
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John Sitton: Habermas and contemporary society
- 2006
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Ingår i: Acta Sociologica. - : Sage Publications. - 0001-6993 .- 1502-3869. ; 49:1, s. 113-114
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Recension (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 12. |
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| 13. |
- Carleheden, Mikael, 1958-
(författare)
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Kritisk teoretisk metodologi eller konsten att bedriva teoretisk och normativ forskning
- 2007
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Inom vetenskapsteorin är sedan länge tesen om faktas teoriberoende väletablerad, men i den vetenskapliga praktiken tenderar snarast teori och empiri att fragmentiseras. För att undvika detta måste vi först närmare undersöka vad som logiskt skiljer dessa verksamheter åt. I grundutbildning lär vi våra studenter å ena sidan vad olika teorier innebär, å den andra hur man går tillväga för att empiriskt nå kunskap om samhället. Vi lär dem däremot sällan något om teoretisk metodologi. I denna artikel vill jag, för det första, undersöka hur man gör när man konstruerar teorier. Vidare är det få som på vetenskapsteoretisk nivå längre hävdar att man kan och bör rensa ut värderingar från vetenskapligt arbete. Vi är mitt uppe i en ”normative turn” inom samhällsvetenskapen. Men även här är det fortfarande ofta oklart hur man gör när man forskar normativt. Det är något vi mycket sällan lär ut till våra studenter. Jag vill i denna artikel, för det andra, undersöka innebörden av normativ forskning i ett samhällsvetenskapligt sammanhang. Min grundläggande tes är att normativ forskning måste ses som en slags underavdelning till teoretisk forskning. Medan empirisk forskning i hög grad bygger på tankeoperationer så som induktion och deduktion så bygger teoretisk och normativ forskning snarare på en annan typ av tankeoperationer, nämligen retroduktion och abduktion. I min argumentation använder jag mig i första hand av Jürgen Habermas och Roy Bhaskar.
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| 14. |
- Carleheden, Mikael, 1958-
(författare)
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Om vetenskapliga allmänningar
- 2009
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Ingår i: Sociologisk forskning. - Uppsala : Sveriges Sociologförbund. - 0038-0342 .- 2002-066X. ; 46:2, s. 79-80
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Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)
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| 15. |
- Carleheden, Mikael, 1958-
(författare)
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Social ojämlikhet och kulturell missaktning : två utmaningar för den deliberativa demokratimodellen
- 2007
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Ingår i: Utbildning som kommunikation. - Göteborg : Daidalos. - 9789171732491 ; , s. 169-204
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The importance of Jürgen Habermas’ theory of democracy has increasingly been recognized also in an educational context. His theory seems to be able to give a convincing answer not only to the question of what contemporary pupils should learn in order to become democratic citizens, but also of how teaching should be structured in order to avoid that the content of citizen education contradicts its methods. Answers inspired by Habermas’ way of thinking are normative, but it is a kind of kind of normativity that takes its point of departure in the current transformation of both political convictions and structures. In this chapter I discuss important criticisms directed against Habermas’ democratic theory, which are relevant in an educational context. I use these criticisms as tools to develop the theory so that it can overcome its weaknesses. Critics of the deliberative model have claimed that it presupposes an idealization of the communicative situation. The model, according to these critics, neglects the fact that we today still live in a society which is characterized by structural discrimination and power relationships of different kinds. I address two of the most central examples of discrimination which in different ways tend to exclude persons from deliberation, that is, social inequality and cultural disrespect. Thus, the main question of this chapter is: Can the deliberative model of democracy handle the fact that we live in a society characterized by inequality and disrespect? My answer is that it has better potentials to do that than other important models of democracy, but only if it is modified in certain ways.
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| 16. |
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| 17. |
- Carleheden, Mikael, 1958-, et al.
(författare)
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Sociologförbundet har ordet
- 2007
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Ingår i: Sociologisk forskning. - Uppsala : Sveriges sociologförbund. - 0038-0342 .- 2002-066X. ; :4, s. 85-86
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Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)
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| 18. |
- Carleheden, Mikael, 1958-, et al.
(författare)
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Sociologförbundet har ordet
- 2006
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Ingår i: Sociologisk forskning. - Uppsala : Sveriges sociologförbund. - 0038-0342 .- 2002-066X. ; :3, s. 89-90
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Tidskriftsartikel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)
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| 19. |
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| 20. |
- Carleheden, Mikael, 1958-
(författare)
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The transformation of our conduct of life : one aspect of the three epochs of western modernity
- 2007
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Ingår i: Modernity at the beginning of the 21st century. - Newcastle : Cambridge Scholars Publishing. - 1847183026 - 9781847183026 ; , s. 62-88
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this chapter a concept of structural transformation is worked out and applied on the history of modernity. It involves a distinction between abstract modernity and epochs of realized modernities. The general theory of a structural transformation of modernity is applied on a special case; the transformation of the modern conduct of life in the West. The Weberian concept 'conduct of life' is today almost forgotten, but the author argues that it is a very useful conceptual tool for grasping crucial aspects of everyday life. These theoretical points of departure are then related to some classical American sociological investigations, but also to recent investigations. The result is a division of the history of conduct of life in Western modernity in three different epochs: the age of asceticism, the age of organization and the age of authenticity.
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| 21. |
- Carleheden, Mikael, 1958-
(författare)
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The transformation of our conduct of life : One aspect of the three epochs of Western modernity
- 2006
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Ingår i: Distinktion. - Aarhus : Aarhus university press. - 1600-910X .- 2159-9149. ; :13, s. 55-75
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this article a concept of structural transformation is worked out and applied on the history of modernity. It involves a distinction between abstract modernity and epochs of realized modernities. The general theory of a structural transformation of modernity is applied on a special case; the transformation of the modern conduct of life in the West. The Weberian concept 'conduct of life' is today almost forgotten, but the author argues that it is a very useful conceptual tool for grasping crucial aspects of everyday life. These theoretical points of departure are then related to some classical American sociological investigations, but also to recent investigations. The result is a division of the history of conduct of life in Western modernity in three different epochs: the age of asceticism, the age of organization and the age of authenticity.
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| 22. |
- Carleheden, Mikael, 1958-
(författare)
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Towards democratic foundations : A Habermasian perspective on the politics of education
- 2006
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Ingår i: Journal of Curriculum Studies. - Oxfordshire : Routledge Journals. - 0022-0272 .- 1366-5839. ; 38:5, s. 521-543
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A central aspect of education has always been the passing on of norms and values. This task is not fulfilled if pupils only learn the meaning of established norms and values. It is also about making pupils believe in them and to act according to them. Thus, teaching is also a kind of political socialization. The values taught change historically and this change is related to the political history of a society. Western societies currently are in the middle of a normative transformation. The question is which normative significance this general social transformation has for contemporary education. The answer is that schools should make a radicalized understanding of democratic citizenship its normative foundation. Jürgen Habermas’s theory of democracy is the general point of departure.
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| 23. |
- Carleheden, Mikael, 1958-
(författare)
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Är demokrati möjligt i komplexa samhällen?
- 2009
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Ingår i: Fronesis. - Malmö : Tidskriftsföreningen Fronesis. - 1404-2614. ; :29, s. 8-24
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Tidskriftsartikel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 24. |
- Engdahl, Emma, 1969-, et al.
(författare)
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The transformation of alienation within modern society
- 2010
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Sociology arose around 1900 as a response to the general need to understand the ongoing transition from 'traditional' to 'modern' society and the many social problems (anomie, alienation, disenchantment, inequality, exclusion, etc) which had their base in this groundbreaking transformation. While the distinction between 'tradition' and 'modernity' was fundamental for early sociology as a discipline, a number of contemporary social scientists question the sufficiency of such a distinction. One problem is that the distinction implies that the last major transformation of Western societies occurred some hundred years ago and that subsequent social change has only been a question of gradual modifications.These contemporary scholars suggest instead that transformations of social institutions and of cognitive and normative convictions within modernity are so fundamental that the history of modern societies itself must be divided into different epochs. Today, distinctions such as between 'early' and 'late' (or 'high') modernity (Giddens), modern and 'postmodern' society (Lyotard), 'first' and 'second modernity' (Beck), 'solid' and 'liquid' modernity (Bauman) have become widespread. Recently it has also been argued that the history of modernity should been divided into three rather than two epochs (Wagner, Boltanski & Chiapello).In our paper we develop a three part model of structural transformation within modern society on a micro-level. The central aim of the paper is to apply this model on the social significance of self-realization. This includes an investigation of the meaning of failed self-realization in the three different epochs of modernity. We understand alienation here as failed self-realization and thus conceptualize three modern forms of self-alienation as counterparts to the three different forms of self-realization.
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| 25. |
- Heidegren, Carl-Göran, et al.
(författare)
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Habermas in Schweden: Eine Rezeption mit Hindernissen
- 2019
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Ingår i: Habermas global : Wirkungsgeschichte eines Werks - Wirkungsgeschichte eines Werks. - 9783518298794 ; , s. 459-475
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 26. |
- Heidegren, Carl-Göran, et al.
(författare)
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Livsföring – ett sociologiskt grundbegrepp
- 2007
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Frågan hur vi lever är lika gammal som aktuell – och viktig. I takt med att samhället förändras ter den sig bara än mer angelägen. Bokens ambition är att i olika avseenden aktualisera begreppet livsföring inom den sociologiska traditionen och teoribildningen liksom inom andra samhälls- och kulturvetenskaper. Innehåll: Inledning; 1. C-G. Heidegren: Livsstil och livsföring hos Simmel och Weber; 2. B. Isenberg: Moderna moralister. Om livsföring och kontingens som sociologins centrala problem; 3. M. Carleheden: Asketism, organisation och autenticitet. Om den strukturella omvandlingen av livsföring i väst; C-G. Heidegren: Livsföringsforskning; B. Isenberg: Autenticitet och serendipitet. En samtidshermeneutik.
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| 27. |
- Helander, Sofia
(författare)
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From Antagonism to Alienation : Redirecting Radical Democracy
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- How can democratic theory address contemporary problems of alienation? Today, alienation manifests itself primarily in processes of precarization and deprofessionalization. When the subject’s work security or professional autonomy is undermined, her relations – not only to others, but also to herself – can become inhibited. This dissertation argues that while alienation poses a serious problem in today’s democracies, it is a form of social suffering that is particularly difficult for democratic theory – preoccupied by the political – to address. In this dissertation, I seek to address alienation in a radical and open way by taking agonistic democracy as my starting point. Indeed, I assume that a suitable theory of alienation should satisfy two general criteria. On the one hand, it should be radical, engaging with the suffering that people experience in a way that encourages them to contest it. On the other hand, it should be open, avoiding the pitfalls of determinism, human essentialism and the ideal of harmony, all of which risk breeding authoritarianism. In this respect, agonistic democracy seems like the best theory to address alienation. The theory is characterized by its emphasis on transformative social struggle as well as its concern with avoiding what it sees as the authoritarian pitfalls of traditional socialism. However, while agonistic democracy, preoccupied with the struggle against social marginalization, should be able to address alienation, it cannot. This, I argue, is not merely due to the historical conditions from which it emerges – marked by a turn away from traditional socialist concepts towards a focus on antagonism – but also due to a deeper tension in the theory itself. In its attempts to remain both radical and open, agonistic democracy comes to rely on a subject who is flexible, strong and conflict-seeking. For this reason, it fails to include those who cannot thrive in social disorder, those who are left alienated. I therefore seek to reformulate the subject of agonistic democracy in order to address alienation in an open and radical way.
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| 28. |
- Holmberg, Lars, 1970-
(författare)
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Den frånvarande intellektuelle : En diskursteoretisk analys av en kollektiv representation
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- From an institutionalized conception of contemporary intellectuals as silent or absent, the aim of this thesis is to analyse how the representation of the intellectual changed from a hero of reason to a more or less absent actor. Descriptions of intellectuals that were initially analysed which showed that the representation of the intellectual, besides being linked to modernity, contained a relationship between the individual actor and political power, a relationship which could be traced back to ancient myths. Using discourse theory and concepts primarily from Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, the dissertation demonstrates how the discourse of intellectuals changed the representation content in relation to the myth of the postmodern and to the myth of the modern society. In relation to the modern intellectual, the discourse linked the representation with elements as reason, freedom and politics. Texts written after the linguistic turn or the myth of the postmodern describe intellectuals as specific, bourgeois, academic and politicized. This makes the representation impossible in relation to the initial establishment. The main contribution of the thesis to research on the discourse of intellectuals is the myths bearing on how intellectuals can or should act and how the representation can be described. The notion of the intellectuals can only be understood in an already existing discourse based on what an intellectual should do or be.
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| 29. |
- Isenberg, Bo, et al.
(författare)
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Autenticitet och serendipitet. En samtidshermeneutik
- 2007
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Ingår i: Livsföring. Ett sociologiskt grundbegrepp. - : Liber. - 9789147087273 ; , s. 155-197
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Kapitlet tar sin utgångspunkt i föreställningen om ett autentiskt liv. Autenticitet är ett av samtidens mest betydande ideal. Men autenticitet är också en antimodern affekt, ett försvar mot modernitetens abstraktioner och artefaktvärldar. Kapitlet diskuterar den samtida människans och den samtida kulturens villkor och uttryck. Diskussionen kan betecknas som en diagnos av människan (antropologisk diagnos) och av det samhälle hon bebor och som hon gestaltar och formas av (kulturdiagnos). Återkommande stickord är komplexitet, övergång, globalisering, medier, risk, överskridanden, abundans. Helt centrala begrepp är autenticitet och serendipitet: två sätt att förvalta den moderna människans lott, den som handlar om att omsätta frihet i mening. Autenticitet betecknar samtidsmänniskans allt annat överskuggande mål och problem. Serendipitet står för en kritik mot idealiseringen av det autentiska och den jargong som följer, men handlar också om en möjlig livsföring i en kultur kännetecknad av tillfälligheter och motsägelser, provisorier och oöverskådlighet.
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| 30. |
- Isenberg, Bo, et al.
(författare)
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Inledning
- 2007
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Ingår i: Livsföring. Ett sociologiskt grundbegrepp. - 9789147087273 ; , s. 5-15
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)
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| 31. |
- Isenberg, Bo, et al.
(författare)
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Moderna moralister. Om livsföring och kontingens som sociologins centrala problem
- 2007
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Ingår i: Livsföring. Ett sociologiskt grundbegrepp. - : Liber. - 9789147087273 ; , s. 51-87
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Kapitlet diskuterar den grundläggande frågan i det moderna samhället som den om hur man kan och bör leva i en värld där inget är nödvändigt och allt ter sig möjligt. Detta existentiella, sociala och politiska problem blev också en gång sociologins fundamentala frågeställning. Följaktligen har disciplinen utvecklats som en ständigt varierad diskussion om förhållandet mellan kontingens och livsföring. Kapitlet behandlar ett antal sociologiska ståndpunkter inför den moderna varianten av den sokratiska frågan (”Hur bör jag leva?”) med hänsyn till teoretiska, empiriska, ideologiska och moraliska aspekter. Framställningen är ordnad i tre diskurser eller tankestilar, vilka analyserar olika problem och tidsepoker: klassiska moderna moralister, Nya världens moralister och globala moralister. Samtliga behandlade författare, väsentligen sociologer, kan rubriceras som moderna moralister: de kombinerar samhällsanalys med moraliska omdömen på ett sätt som sammanför dem med den klassiska moralistiken hos exempelvis Montaigne.
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| 32. |
- Isenberg, Bo, et al.
(författare)
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Postmodernity and its Archive. The Principle of Insufficient Reason Revisited
- 2001
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Ingår i: The Transformation of Modernity. Aspects of the Past, Present and Future of an Era. - 0754617637 ; , s. 71-82
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this essay, I discuss two major theoretical discourses of modernity, namely, of classical modernity and postmodernity. Moreover, I aim at a proposition of a possible historical relation between those two discourses of crucial importance to modernity’s intellectual history. This historical connection is founded on what I call the principle of insufficient reason. The principle of insufficient reason tells us that a historical process, an event, an action could have been otherwise since it lacks a sufficient, an absolute reason, such as God, tradition, myth, or reason. From what we learn from the discourses of classical modernity and postmodernity, the principle of insufficient reason may be used when outlining the logics of transformation of the modern epoch. In fact, postmodern understanding of modernity appears as a recurrence of classical modern theory and philosophy. Classical modernity - represented by figures like the early Lukács and Kracauer, Simmel and Weber, Freud and Musil, and above all Nietzsche - continues to constitute the horizons of contemporary philosophy and theory. In it, we discover the archive of postmodern thinking, to use an image first outlined by Foucault. In consequence, postmodern theory does not break off that cultural self-understanding expressed and indeed heightened by classical modernity. Rather, it varies themes already discussed.
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| 33. |
- Jezierska, Katarzyna, 1979-
(författare)
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Radical democracy redux : politics and subjectivity beyond Habermas and Mouffe
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis investigates two contemporary theories of radical democracy, Jürgen Habermas’s deliberative and Chantal Mouffe’s agonistic democracy. By bringing the two scholars together and constructing a debate between them, their respective strengths and weaknesses are highlighted and the similarities and differences are pointed out. Habermas and Mouffe are seldom dealt with simultaneously as they represent different theoretical traditions, critical theory and post-structuralism respectively. This thesis argues that we can learn from both of them. The aim of the thesis is to clarify and critically assess Chantal Mouffe’s and Jürgen Habermas’s versions of radical democracy, their disparate visions of democratic politics and subjectivity, in order to clear the ground for a third position that draws inspiration from both of them. The methodological inspiration comes from the deconstructive approach to interpretation, and thus the study aspires to a ‘just reading’ while being conscious of the elements of violence inherent to any instances of reading. The main bulk of the thesis is dedicated to an analysis of the two authors’ theories of democracy and subjectivity, which leads on to the third position situated beyond the two. From Habermas I take the stress on political communication and intersubjectivity, while both these concepts are extensively reformulated. The elements I reject from his position are the orientation to consensus and the strong requirements of coherence and transparency of the subject. From Mouffe I take the accent on the agonistic spirit of democracy, while setting aside the ontological status of antagonism. Her conception of split subjectivity is included, but supplemented with a more explicit theorization of the unity of the subject in the element of intersubjective meetings. The third position on radical democracy embraces the fundamental status of undecidability, which calls for an ethos of questioning.
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| 34. |
- Lundin, Elin, 1970-
(författare)
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Motstånd och kreativitet : George Herbert Meads bidrag till aktör-strukturdebatten
- 2004
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation is about the agency-structure debate. Different ways of comprehending the relationship between agency and structure constitute a watershed between theoretical approaches in sociology. On one side, we have the Weberian social definition paradigm. On the other, we have the Durkheimian social facts paradigm. My overriding focus is, however, not on theories that explain social reality in terms of either agency or structure. But rather, I focus on sociological theories whose aim is to integrate the two explanations or paradigms. How to integrate agency and structure in a satisfying way has become one of the central problems - perhaps even the most central - in social theory today. The vital question is how to create a theory that explains social reality by proceeding from both the notion of people doing things which affect the social relationships in which they are embedded (agency) and the idea of the social context moulding and forming social activity (structure). In the present dissertation, I examine George Herbert Mead's answer to the question by comparing his social pragmatism with the contemporary contributions to the agency-structure debate made by Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu and Jürgen Habermas. Often Mead has been erroneously associated primarily with a concern with agency, rejecting the importance of social structures. By discussing the revisionist, "social behavioristic" critique of Herbert Blumer's "symbolic interactionistic" interpretation my aim is to come to terms with such bias perspectives of Mead's views. His solution of the problem of agency and structure is based on two central ideas: 1) about the situated character of human action and 2) about the primary sociality of human action. I illustrate how Mead considers corporeal social structures of habitual responses to a certain stimuli as a precondition for experiencing inhibitions of the act or problematic social relations. The inhibited social act transforms our social behavior into social interaction where we get consciously aware of meaning and ourselves. He speaks of this as taking the attitude of the (generalized) other from which he means that self-reflexion arises. Giddens, Bourdieu and Habermas had intentions of exceeding the dualism between agency and structure by focusing on social practices. I argue, by emphasizing the importance Mead ascribed to the inhibited social act, his theory gives us better possibilities than the contemporary theories to solve the vital question.
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- Petersen, Anders, 1973-
(författare)
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Depression : vor tidsalders vrangside
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- What are the social conditions that enable depression to play a significant societal role in contemporary Western societies? This is the leading question of the dissertation. As an alternative to those who claim that contemporary depression is constructed by the exorbitant consumption of antidepressants, it is stated that both depression and the consumption of antidepressants is possible due to contemporary social conditions. Inspired by the analysis of modernity by Wagner, and on the basis of the theoretical concept of third modernity as proposed by Carleheden, it is claimed that an ethical conduct of life that demands authentic self-realization has been institutionalised in our historical epoch. By analysing how authentic self-realization is being realized in the new spirit of capitalism (Boltanski & Chiapello), it is being concluded that the socializing parameters of third modernity are those of being able to be active, flexible, polyvalent, adaptable, versatile etc. selves. Hence, authentic self-realization in imbued with these normative demands. In relation to the phenomenon of depression this is interesting, because contemporary depression can be understood, not as a subjective condition, but as a phenomenon of lack. What is being applauded in the society of today is just what depressive individuals lack, namely the ability to act in accordance with the normative claims of self-realization. Depressed individuals are in that sense failed selves (Ehrenberg) who represent and informs us about the “other side” of contemporary normative self-realization requirements. In other words: Within present-day society the institutionalized demands for authentic self-realization and depression have become each others antithesis. This socially demanded form of self-realization – which is put under the scrutiny of normative critique (Taylor) – is thus exactly what allows for depression to play such a significant role in present-day Western societies.
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