Zugl.: Hamburg, Universiẗat, Diss., 2008.

Zugl.: Hamburg, Universiẗat, Diss., 2008.

Hochsch. für Musik und Theater, Diss.--Hannover, 2001. / Literaturverz. S. 217 - 231.

Freie Univ., Diss.--Berlin. / Literaturverz. S. 202 - 215.

This thesis forms, in the first instance, a critical examination of labor in relation to the notion of self-realization following Hegelian and Marxian philosophy and their theories of action. In the second instance, it is a preliminary study of the concept of fomo (fear of missing out), which will be explored in more detail in the PhD based on the MA. In the first section, a critique of Andreas Reckwitz's and Hartmut Rosa's notions of self-realization is used to present the common view and contemporary engagements with said notion as relevant but insufficient. Both authors act as a proxy for a deficiency that turns out to be an all too great distance from metaphysical and historical-materialist positions and considerations regarding such notion as that of self-realization. Thus, in the main part, not only an attempt is made, by means of a renaissance of Hegelian and Marxian reflections on the concept of self-realization, to plausibilize and remedy this deficiency; moreover, by virtue of a detailed exegesis of their theories of action and examination of their categories, it is pointed out, above all, that Hegelian and Marxian philosophy intends the complete abolition of self-preservation (d. i. alienated and natural labor) and elevation into self-realization, even if both thinkers use the...

Kreativität – die Generierung und Verwertung von Ideen – und Psychopathologie werden schon seit langem miteinander in Verbindung gebracht. Jedoch wurde der Einfluss interkultureller Faktoren bisher weitgehend in der Fachliteratur ignoriert. Die vorliegende Dissertation zeigt, dass (1) Kreativität und Selbstverwirklichung kaum miteinander assoziiert sind, dass (2) Kreativität allerdings stark mit schizotyper Persönlichkeitsstörung verbunden ist, jedoch zeigen Menschen mit schöpferischen Leistungen verminderte Schizotypie-Symptome und es gibt einen Geschlechterunterschiede. Deshalb zeigt diese Dissertation (3), dass die Assoziation zwischen Kreativität und Schizotypie durch einen kulturellen Faktor (Deutsch, Russisch) moderiert wird. Die Ergebnisse werden diskutiert im Hinblick auf die kultur-unabhängige Validität der Konstrukte Kreativität, Schizotypie und Selbstverwirklichung, hinsichtlich psychometrischer Probleme bei der Erfassung dieser Konstrukte und hinsichtlich der Rolle für die allgemeine und spezifische mentale Gesundheit. Zukünftige Studien sollten eine wie hier vorgeschlagene Unterscheidung zwischen schöpferischen Leistungen und Kreativität als kognitives Konstrukt bzw. als Teil psychopathologischer oder persönlichkeitsrelevanter Aspekte vornehmen. Darüber hinaus sind die Hinzunahme von Aspekten, die Kultur, Geschlecht und Alter unterscheiden, sinnvoll. Unsere Resultate leisten einen Beitrag zur kulturellen Psychologie, indem sie das Wissen erweitern, wie die Kreativität-Schizotypie Assoziation durch kulturelle Faktoren beeinflusst wird und inwieweit schöpferische Leistungen und kognitive kreative Fähigkeiten diesbezüglich divergieren. Dies bedeutet, dass der humanistische Ansatz unterstützt wird, welcher zeigt, dass Selbstverwirklichung und kreative Fähigkeiten nicht unmittelbar auf ähnliche Persönlichkeitseigenschaften zurückzuführen sind. / Creativity – the generation of novel and appropriate ideas – and psychopathology have been associated for a long time. However, the impact of cross-cultural influence has been somewhat neglected in the literature. The present dissertation demonstrates that (1) creativity is barely related with self-actualization and that, nevertheless, (2) creativity has a strong association with schizotypal personality disorder. However, people with real-life creative achievements showed decreased schizotypy and there are gender differences regarding creative capacities. (3) The creativity – schizotypy link is likely to be moderated by cultural differences between Russians and Germans. Results are discussed with regard to culture-independent validity of the constructs creativity, schizotypy, and self-actualization, with regard to the problem of psychometrical assessment of these constructs, and with regard to a role of creativity in good mental health. Future studies might account for how real-life creativity differs from cognitive creative abilities in other psychopathological and personality aspects, how culture influences the creativity – self-actualization association, and whether the association of creativity with schizotypy and self-actualization is consistent in other age groups. Conclusively, these results contribute to cultural psychology of creativity by extending how the creativity – schizotypy association varies between cultures, as well as by pointing out the differences between real-life creative achievements and cognitive creative abilities. Furthermore, the results extend the humanistic approach showing that self-actualization and creative abilities may not rely on similar personality characteristics.

This thesis deals with the sociological conception of the dropout (Aussteiger) figure in Wilhelm Genazino’s Ein Regenschirm für diesen Tag (2001) and, in terms of the history of ideas, his predecessors in Heinrich von Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas (1808) and Franz Kafka’s Die Verwandlung (1913). It discusses if and how Genazino’s protagonist represents a new contemporary dropout model, and discusses the extent to which such figures can be read as dropouts, how their individual dropout characteristics are designed and motivated, and which factors connect these central characters to each other. According to Christian Schüle and his “21 Fragmente über die Identität des Aussteigers” no one can better provide a picture of the state of a society than someone who intentionally exits from it. Thus, the essential process of dropping out is described. If someone is dropping out, he is reacting to circumstances; to what extent he reacts is, however, uneven. There is no prototype of a dropout. To grasp this highly complex and little investigated phenomenon, several sociological concepts are employed, such as assimilation, deviant behaviour, alienation, individualism and the aspect of self-realization. Niklas Luhmann’s Protest serves as another theoretical basis for the concept of dropping-out (Aussteigertum). His book focuses on how protesters choose themes that none of society’s systems would recognize as their own and thereby mirror the state of things in the society as they really are. The thesis then shows how the action of all three protagonists can be associated with these sociological concepts and how Genazino’s character in Ein Regenschirm für diesen Tag is related to previous protagonists such as Kohlhaas and Samsa. Kleist’s “gebrechliche Einrichtung der Welt” becomes the alienated world of Gregor Samsa and turns into Genazino’s “Gesamtmerkwürdigkeit des Lebens” in which melancholia and succussion bring the protagonist near to failing. The experimental setting all three authors use brings to mind the philosophical stream of Existentialism, on which they all seem to verge. Under societal pressure, all three figures begin to protest against their related situations in different ways. Because of having to submit himself to the exigencies of the society, Genazino’s protagonist feels as if he has to degenerate. To escape from these feelings he continuously walks physically through his environment and at the same time applies a philosophy of sight: as a reflective observer in the river of everyday life, as a swimmer against the tide of boredom, he drops out of society in his own way, different from the way Kohlhaas and Samsa did, but still related to them.

This thesis deals with the sociological conception of the dropout (Aussteiger) figure in Wilhelm Genazino’s Ein Regenschirm für diesen Tag (2001) and, in terms of the history of ideas, his predecessors in Heinrich von Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas (1808) and Franz Kafka’s Die Verwandlung (1913). It discusses if and how Genazino’s protagonist represents a new contemporary dropout model, and discusses the extent to which such figures can be read as dropouts, how their individual dropout characteristics are designed and motivated, and which factors connect these central characters to each other. According to Christian Schüle and his “21 Fragmente über die Identität des Aussteigers” no one can better provide a picture of the state of a society than someone who intentionally exits from it. Thus, the essential process of dropping out is described. If someone is dropping out, he is reacting to circumstances; to what extent he reacts is, however, uneven. There is no prototype of a dropout. To grasp this highly complex and little investigated phenomenon, several sociological concepts are employed, such as assimilation, deviant behaviour, alienation, individualism and the aspect of self-realization. Niklas Luhmann’s Protest serves as another theoretical basis for the concept of dropping-out (Aussteigertum). His book focuses on how protesters choose themes that none of society’s systems would recognize as their own and thereby mirror the state of things in the society as they really are. The thesis then shows how the action of all three protagonists can be associated with these sociological concepts and how Genazino’s character in Ein Regenschirm für diesen Tag is related to previous protagonists such as Kohlhaas and Samsa. Kleist’s “gebrechliche Einrichtung der Welt” becomes the alienated world of Gregor Samsa and turns into Genazino’s “Gesamtmerkwürdigkeit des Lebens” in which melancholia and succussion bring the protagonist near to failing. The experimental setting all three authors use brings to mind the philosophical stream of Existentialism, on which they all seem to verge. Under societal pressure, all three figures begin to protest against their related situations in different ways. Because of having to submit himself to the exigencies of the society, Genazino’s protagonist feels as if he has to degenerate. To escape from these feelings he continuously walks physically through his environment and at the same time applies a philosophy of sight: as a reflective observer in the river of everyday life, as a swimmer against the tide of boredom, he drops out of society in his own way, different from the way Kohlhaas and Samsa did, but still related to them.

Universiẗat, Diss--Münster (Westfalen), 2007.

Die vorliegende Untersuchung entwickelt einen Vorschlag für ein neues Verständnis von Erwerbsarbeit vor dem Hintergrund ihres laufenden Wandels als Brennpunkt der gegenwärtigen tiefgreifenden Transformation westlicher kapitalistischer Gesellschaften. Die Bedeutung und Rolle von Arbeit für gelingende Lebensführung sowie für die Konstitution der Arbeitsgesellschaft als solcher sind hier unverständlich geworden; auf praktischer Ebene ergeben sich verschiedene Probleme und Gestaltungsschwierigkeiten von Arbeit als gesellschaftliche Institution und Praxis eines guten, menschenwürdigen Lebens. Diese Bedeutung wird in der Untersuchung als moralischer Wert von Arbeit als Kern eines dauerhaft aneignungsfähigen, formalen Arbeitsverständnisses herausgearbeitet. Ihren Erscheinungen und Bedingungen nach wird die Arbeitsgesellschaft als subjektiviert und – im begrifflichen Anschluss an die nach Hegel entwickelte Beschreibung gesellschaftlicher Krisen Rahel Jaeggis – mithin als krisenhaft qualifiziert. Diese Darstellung ermöglicht es, vor einer Neuinterpretation des Hegelschen Arbeitsverständnisses im Anschluss an Andreas Arndt den wesenhaften normativen Gehalt und die normative Dimension von Arbeit offenzulegen, die auf praktischer Ebene ihren moralischen Wert stiften: Ausgehend von ihrer transformativen Grundstruktur, dialektischen Verfassung und teleologischen Gerichtetheit ist Arbeit Institution und Praxis der Selbstverwirklichung des Subjekts unter ganz bestimmten Bedingungen. Wo deshalb allein Narrative (nicht Begriffe) von Arbeit, die dieses Wesen vermitteln, aneignungsfähig sind, lassen sich diese Bedingungen im Nachvollzug der Genese unseres Arbeitsverständnisses sowie in der kritischen Zusammenführung von aktuellen sozial- und moralphilosophischen Auseinandersetzungen mit Arbeit schließlich so offenlegen, dass das hier formal gefasste Arbeitsverständnis aktuell für die praktischen Belange der Krise und für die interdisziplinären Fragen an Arbeit aufschlussreich ist. / The present study develops a proposal for a new understanding of paid work in view of its current transformation, which is considered as the focal point of the current fundamental transformation of western capitalist societies. The significance and role of work for a Good life and for the constitution of society have become unintelligible here; on a practical level, there are various problems and difficulties of work as a social institution and practice of a Good, Decent life. The present study shows this meaning as the Moral Value of work, which is shown as the core of a permanent approbiatible, formal understanding of work. According to its current manifestations and conditions, western capitalist societies can be qualified as subjectivized and - in the conceptual connection to the description of social crises, which Rahel Jaeggi developed according to Hegel - as crisis-ridden. This diagnosis makes it possible, via reinterpreting Hegel's understanding of work following Andreas Arndt, to reveal the essential normative content and the normative dimension of work; also to show that both creates the Moral Value of work on a practical level: Work is - based on its transformative basic structure, its dialectical constitution and its teleological directionality - the institution and practice of self-realization of the subject under very specific conditions. Where exclusively narratives (not concepts) of work that convey these intrinsic qualities are approbiatible, these conditions can be finally revealed by retracing the evolution of our understanding of work and in discussing the current social- and moral-philosophical argument with work: Finally in a way that the unfolded formally understanding of work is revelatory for the practical and interdisciplinary questions about of work.