The relationship between Socrates and Alcibiades was infamous in antiquity. Alcibiades’ notorious betrayal of the Athenians during the Peloponnesian war helped to bring about Athens’ downfall, and the charges of corrupting the young and impiety for which Socrates was ultimately executed point unambiguously to the misdeeds of his most renowned and treasonous pupil. In Plato’s Alcibiades, Socrates approaches Alcibiades for the first time, claiming to have the power to bring the youth’s grandest and most tyrannical political hopes to a culmination. What does the ensuing conversation tell us about the nature of Alcibiades’ ambition and about Socrates’ intentions in associating with him? In this essay, careful attention is paid to the structure and unity of this underappreciated dialogue in order to uncover Plato’s teaching about the roots of political ambition and the approach of Socratic philosophy. The resulting analysis reveals that Socrates is interested in recruiting politically ambitious students because of how powerfully youthful political ambition seeks the good by means of just, noble, and honorable activity, and that Socrates’ hope is to awaken Alcibiades to the ambiguous and unquestioned character of his belief that the greatest human good can be obtained in the world of politics. Having recognized this as central to the Socratic project, we can consider how and to what extent political ambition relies on some misapprehension about the relationship of the good and the advantageous to the just and the noble. / text

Diss.--Fakultät für Orientalistik und Altertumswissenschaft--Heidelberg--Ruprecht-Karls-Universität, 1994. / Bibliogr. p. 216-236. Index.

Sammanfattning Syfte Syfte är att undersöka hur den svenska ungdoms -och junior eliten inom svensk friidrott presterar i skolan. Frågeställningar undersökningen utgår ifrån är: - Skiljer sig ambitionsnivån och motivationen åt mellan elitfriidrottare och icke-elitfridrottare när det gäller utövandet av den egna idrotten? - Skiljer sig ambitionsnivån och motivationen åt mellan elitfriidrottare och icke-elitfridrottare när det gäller skolarbetet? - Skiljer sig betygsnivån åt mellan elitfriidrottare och icke-elitfridrottare avseende skolans kärnämnen? Metod Föreliggande studie är en kvantitativ studie. Datainsamlingen har skett i form av enkäter. Undersökningen involverar pojkar och flickor 16 - 19 år som är aktiva inom friidrott. Urvalet är slumpmässigt hämtat från svenska friidrottsförbundets årsbästalistor för 2016. I studien deltog totalt 67 stycken personer. All data har hämtats ifrån svenska friidrottsförbundets årsbästa listor som avser tävlingssäsongen 2016. Resultat Motivation och ambitions nivån skiljer sig åt mellan elitfriidrottare och icke-elitfriidrottare, de elitaktiva erhåller en högre grad av motivation och ambition gällande utövandet av den egna idrotten i föreliggande studien. Elitaktiva friidrottare hade en högre grad av motivation och ambition än icke-elitaktiva friidrottare, resultatet är signifikant. Slutsats Det man kunde utläsa av studiens resultat är att elitaktiva presterar bättre i skolan än de som inte är på elitnivå. Detta kan förklaras med bland annat Jonsons modell som pekar på att dessa elever har ett bra självförtroende och vill leverera på en hög nivå inom skolan och sina studier. (Jonsson 1985, s. 22-23). Man ska ta i beaktning att alla resultaten i föreliggande studie inte är signifikant. Detta kan bero på att svarsfrekvensen är alldeles för liten i förhållande till populationen.

Adam Smith is often thought to be an unequivocal advocate of capitalism based on unfettered self-interest. Against this caricature, I argue that his attitudes towards commercial society are, in fact, more ambivalent. To ground this claim, I outline Smith’s account of ambition, a passion responsible for the dynamism of commercial economies but deleterious to individual happiness, and focus on the rhetoric Smith deploys in his portraits of three ambitious characters: the poor man’s son, the ambitious man, and the prudent man. Next, I challenge alternative interpretations. In particular, I contest Samuel Fleischacker’s view that Smith no longer sees ambition, motivated by vanity, as the driving force behind economic growth in commercial society by the time he writes the Wealth of Nations and, thus, is not meaningfully ambivalent. In the last section, I draw on recent work by Amelie Rorty to argue that Smith’s ambivalence towards commercial society is both appropriate and constructive.

Syfte & Hypoteser: Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka sambandet mellan motivationstyp och betygsambitioner hos gymnasieelever i ämnet idrott och hälsa. Samt att analysera eventuella skillnader mellan könen avseende både motivationstyp och betygsambitionsnivå. Hypotes 1: Det finns ett positivt samband mellan autonom motivation och höga betygsambitioner. Hypotes 2: Det finns skillnader mellan könen där killar svarar i högre grad av autonom motivation och tjejer i högre grad av kontrollerad- och amotivation. Teori & metod: Studien utgick från motivationsteorin Self-determination theory. En kvantitativ ansats valdes där datainsamlingen bestod av en webenkät som var uppdelad i två delar. Den ena delen behandlade bakgrundsfrågor och betyg, och den andra delen mätte motivation. Studiens deltagare bestod av 191 gymnasieelever i Stockholms län som gick kursen idrott och hälsa 1 vid deltagandet (58 killar, 121 tjejer och tolv annat). Analysering av data gjordes genom korrelationstesten Pearsons ́r, Spearmans ́rho och multipel linjär regression. Skillnaderna mellan kön analyserades genom independent t-test och Mann- Whitney U test. Resultat: Resultaten visade att det fanns ett positivt signifikant samband mellan autonom motivation och betygsambitioner. Det visade även att det fanns ett negativt signifikant samband mellan amotivation och betygsambitioner. Det fanns även signifikanta skillnader mellan könen där killar svarade i högre grad av autonom motivation och tjejer i högre grad av kontrollerad- och amotivation, samt att killar visade högre betygsambitioner. Slutsatser: Studiens slutsatser är att det är viktigt med en hög grad av autonom motivation för att ha höga betygsambitioner i idrott och hälsa. En hög grad av amotivation har istället visat sig ha ett negativt samband med betygsambitioner i ämnet. Det fanns skillnader mellan könen avseende både motivationstyp och betygsambitionsnivå, dock verkar dessa skillnader inte driva sambandet mellan autonom motivation och betygsambitioner. Framtida forskning skulle kunna utforska metoder och strategier för att skapa autonom motivation hos eleverna. / Aim & hypothesis: The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between motivation type and grade ambitions in high school students in the subject of physical education. As well as analyzing any differences between genders regarding both motivation type and level of grade ambition. - Hypothesis 1: There is a positive correlation between autonomous motivation and high grade ambitions - Hypothesis 2: There is a difference between genders where boys respond with a higher degree of autonomous motivation and girls with a higher degree of controlled andamotivation. Theory & method: The study was based on the motivation theory Self-determination theory.A quantitative approach was chosen where the data collection consisted of a web survey thatwas divided into two parts. One part dealt with background questions and grades, and theother part measured motivation. The study's participants consisted of 191 high schoolstudents in Stockholm County who were taking the course “idrott och hälsa 1” at the time of participation (58 boys, 121 girls and twelve others). Analysis of the data was done throughthe correlation tests Pearsons´r, Spearmans´rho and multiple linear regression. Thedifferences between genders were analyzed by independent t-test and Mann-Whitney U test. Results: The results showed that there was a positive significant correlation between autonomous motivation and grade ambitions. It also showed that there was a negative significant correlation between amotivation and grade ambitions. There were also significantdifferences between genders, where boys answered with a higher degree of autonomous motivation and girls with a higher degree of controlled and a motivation, and that boys showed higher grade ambitions. Conclusions: The conclusions are that it is important to have a high degree of autonomousmotivation to have high grade ambitions in physical education. A high degree of amotivationhas instead been shown to have a negative relationship with grade ambitions in the subject. There are differences between genders regarding both motivation type and level of grade ambition, however, these differences do not seem to drive the relationship between autonomous motivation and grade ambition. Future research could explore methods and strategies to create autonomous motivation in students.

This dissertation investigates the changing relationship of gender and ambition in nineteenth-century American and British culture through analyses of literature by and about women. This project shows that, to avoid social censure, some women used the trappings of True Womanhood—propriety, domesticity, and submissiveness—to achieve the rewards of New Womanhood, including financial independence, education, and power. In a culture that expected women to eschew self-interest, women employed strategies of discretion and manipulation to pursue their individual ambitions. Counterintuitively, their paths to success (particularly those of middle-class white women) often deployed the very norms that sought to confine them to home and family. Their negotiations reveal a central tension in nineteenth-century views of gender: women were expected to understand the needs of those around them but were castigated for employing those same insights for self-interested purposes. Scholars have explored women’s increasing power within the domestic sphere and within collective reform movements. By contrast, this project demonstrates that women’s ambitions did not operate squarely in the home or marketplace, but rather can be found in liminal spaces marked by relational influence. Addressing canonical and understudied literary texts, as well as archival materials such as correspondence, etiquette guides, success manuals, and social commentaries, this dissertation is organized around four female types: authors, coquettes, governesses, and girls. Focusing on Fanny Fern and Constance Fenimore Woolson, Chapter One argues that strategically revising gendered behavior, particularly in relationships with male authors, was essential to female authors’ success. Through readings of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frank Norris, Chapter Two contends that coquettes and wives succeed if they meet society’s expectations for female consumption in the emerging market economy. Chapter Three shows that governesses used their intimate knowledge of employers to advance their individual interests in books by William Thackeray, Louisa May Alcott, and Harriet Jacobs. Chapter Four returns to Alcott to show how girlhood offers temporary latitude to pursue ambition more freely. Uneasiness over women’s ambition was central to the nineteenth century and persists today in ongoing debates about whether women can “have it all” and in the current backlash against women’s autonomy.

Cette recherche interroge la mise en œuvre d’ambitions, chez des adultes suivant une formation professionnelle à l’AFPA. Nous proposons de comprendre comment s’élaborent et se concrétisent, au contact d’une institution, des démarches volontaires visant à infléchir le cours des trajectoires personnelles. Le point de départ de cette recherche réside dans l’interrogation de projets qui, professionnels au premier abord, s’avèrent révélateurs de constructions identitaires en train de s’opérer. Nous proposons de recourir à une analyse sociologique des ambitions, afin de comprendre la structuration, le déroulement et les effets des interactions entre le système de formation et ses publics. De part et d’autre, la formation est un moyen, répondant à des enjeux qui dépassent le seul apprentissage effectué. Nous voulons saisir comment ces enjeux distincts sont mis en relation et travaillés d’une façon conjointe. Observée dans sa concrétisation, l’ambition se révèle une dynamique sociale, produite par le cours des trajectoires et explicitant l’orientation escomptée de la construction biographique des personnes. L’analyse des ambitions éclaire ainsi les modalités de convergences entre les cadres de jugement individuels et les modus operandi de la formation professionnelle pour adultes. La mise à jour de ces phénomènes de convergences et divergences nous permet alors d’étudier comment parviennent ou non à s’accorder l’offre et la demande de formation lorsqu’elles entrent en relation. / This research questions the implementation of ambitions, adults in vocational training. We propose to understand how voluntary approaches develop and concretise to alter the course of personal trajectories, in contact with an institution. The starting point of this research lies in the question of projects, professional at first, that appear to reveal identity construction process. We propose a sociological study of ambitions, to understand the structure, conduct and interaction effects between the training system and its publics. On both sides, the training is a mean to respond to several issues that go beyond the learning achieved. We want to understand how these separate issues are linked and worked in a joint manner. Observed in its realization, ambition reveals social dynamics, produced by the current paths and explaining the expected orientation of the biographical construction. The analysis of ambitions shows how convergence between individual judgment and the adults vocational training program’s modus operandi. The demonstration of these phenomena and differences allows us to study how supply and demand for adults training manage to grant together or not, when they come in contact.

Studiens syfte var att undersöka huruvida arbetsrelaterade identiteter och ambitioner skiljer sig åt beroende på anställningsform, tillsvidareanställning (N = 26) och tidsbegränsad anställning (N = 22). En enkät besvarades av 48 individer, fördelade på fem avdelningar på ett sjukhus i Mellansverige. Respondenterna skattade de arbetsrelaterade identitetsmåtten: organisationsidentitet, professionsidentitet, medarbetaridentitet, identitetsbehov och identitetskonflikt samt ambitionsmåtten: engagemang, framsteg/karriär och konflikt. Resultatet visade att det finns intressanta skillnader i enskilda frågor, exempelvis att tidsbegränsat anställda i högre grad är nöjda med valet av profession än tillsvidareanställda. Samtidigt skulle de tillsvidareanställda förlora vem jag är-känslan mer om de förlorade sitt arbete, än de tidsbegränsat anställda. Utveckling, högre lön och ändrad anställningsform är det som respondenterna mest strävar efter i denna studie. Studien resulterar i slutsatsen att både organisationer och den enskilda individen har behov, gemensamt kan de dra nytta av varandra och tillsammans förverkliga uppställda mål. / The main purpose of this study was to determine whether permanent employees (N=26) and temporary employees (N=22) have different views regarding work-related identities and strivings. A survey was handed out to five different departments at a hospital in Sweden. The participants valued working identity based on: level of organization identity, profession identity, peer identity, need for identity and conflict identity. They also valued personal striving that included: commitment, progress and conflict. The result showed interesting differences in specific questions, e.g. that temporary employees are more satisfied with their choice of profession than permanent employees. Meanwhile the permanent employees would lose their feeling of who I am if they lose their work, more than the temporary employees. Furthermore, this study’s result also shows that personal development, higher wages and a change in their contracts are what the participants mostly strive for. The study results in the conclusion that both organizations and individuals have individual needs and together, they can benefit from each other and implement goals.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate how teachers work to lead and motivate high-performing students, and how these students were defined. The method used was qualitative, more specifically an interview, which was then analyzed with a thematic analysis. Six teachers participated in the survey, and what emerged was that high-performing students were often ambitious, structured and social students. High performing students were also characterized by the fact that they needed challenges, attention and positive feedback on their performances, otherwise they ran a risk of not performing. Structure was also important for the teachers themselves, that they had a goal when teaching and a way of achieving that goal. The most important thing for students, to perform as well as possible, is that they are secure in themselves, get attention, have high ambitions and clear objectives. This increases their self-esteem and their chances of getting a higher grade increases. Self-esteem also depends on which subject you are governed by. If success motive predominates, you put up high, but realistic, goals and pick up positive experiences to enhance your self-image, while if you are controlled by avoiding defeat, you try to avoid risks by setting low goals. It is also important that the desire does not take the upper hand, because of the risk of students burning themselves out. In many cases the resources and priority goes to those who have it more difficult in school, but resources are also needed for high-performing students, otherwise there is a risk that they might lose interest and motivation.

Revenge on the English stage has long been associated with Elizabethan and Renaissance revenge tragedies, and has been all but ignored in Restoration theater history. While the shortage of scholarly work on revenge in Restoration drama might seem to indicate that revenge is not a vital part of Restoration drama, I argue that revenge on stage in the Restoration is connected with important late seventeenth-century anxieties about monarchy and political subjecthood in the period. This dissertation examines how Restoration tragic drama staged during Charles II’s reign (1660-1685) depicts revenge as a representation of an unrestrained passion that contributes to the ‘seditious roaring of a troubled nation’ of which Thomas Hobbes writes in Leviathan. This dissertation suggests that we need to assess Restoration tragic drama’s employment of acts of vengeance in order to better understand how tragic drama of the period narrates crises of kinship, kingship, and political subjecthood. In chapters addressing blood revenge, rape, female passion, and personal ambition, I examine revenge in a number of Restoration tragic dramas written for the stage between 1660 and 1685. This project shows that characters’ claims to redress wrongs committed against the civil notion of justice collapse into private, individual desires that are pathological and destructive of the state. This project on revenge has the potential to shape the way we think about revenge on stage by calling attention to revenge as a sign of self-interest at the end of the seventeenth century, an age in which a shift in thinking about monarchy and personhood was taking place. Just as Hobbes warns against the “excessive desire of Revenge,” this dissertation shows how playwrights stage revenge as a warning about the potentially destructive consequences of revenge: revenge puts not only private bodies in danger but also the public well being of the state.