Psychology from the Standpoint of the Subject: Selected Writings of Klaus Holzkamp (Critical Theory and Practice in Psychology and the Human Sciences)

This book introduces the groundbreaking work of the German critical psychologist Klaus Holzkamp. In contrast to contemporary psychology's worldlessness, the writings present a concept of psychology based on the individual's relations to the world and open up new perspectives on human subjectivity, agency and the conduct of everyday life. Front Matter....Pages i-viii Introduction: Klaus Holzkamp and the Development of Psychology from the Standpoint of the Subject....Pages 1-15 Front Matter....Pages 17-17 Basic Concepts of Critical Psychology....Pages 19-27 The Development of Critical Psychology as a Subject Science....Pages 28-45 What Could a Psychology from the Standpoint of the Subject Be?....Pages 46-59 Missing the Point: Variable Psychology’s Blindness to the Problem’s Inherent Coherences....Pages 60-74 Front Matter....Pages 75-75 Personality: A Functional Analysis of the Concept....Pages 77-86 Practice: A Functional Analysis of the Concept....Pages 87-111 Front Matter....Pages 113-113 The Fiction of Learning as Administratively Plannable....Pages 115-132 Musical Life Practice and Music Learning at School....Pages 133-150 Front Matter....Pages 151-151 The Concept of Anti-Racist Education: A Critical Analysis of Its Function and an Outline of a Subject Science Alternative....Pages 153-171 Racism and the Unconscious as Understood by Psychoanalysis and Critical Psychology....Pages 172-209 The Colonization of Childhood: Psychological and Psychoanalytical Explanations of Human Development....Pages 210-230 Front Matter....Pages 231-231 Psychology: Social Self-Understanding on the Reasons for Action in the Conduct of Everyday Life....Pages 233-341 Back Matter....Pages 342-360 Klaus Holzkamp (1927-1995) was the founder of German Critical Psychology working on the fundamental renewal of academic psychology. His ideas inspired generations of young scholars discontent with the socio-political function of psychology and the human sciences. Although his approach has been discussed internationally, much of his work is not yet available in English. This selection of Holzkamp's writings provides an introduction to his Psychology from the Standpoint of the Subject. In Holzkamp's approach, the object of psychological research is not the individual, but the world as it is experienced and lived by the individuals in their everyday lives. This change of perspectives requires a scientific language of psychology which allows to recognize the common individualistic reduction of human agency as a powerful instrument of naturalizing subjection to given power-relations. Since the alternative to subjection has to be realized together with others and in accord with them, the concepts of social self-understanding and generalized agency play a key role in a psychology from the subjects' standpoint "Holzkamp (1927-1995) was the founder of German critical psychology, working on the fundamental renewal of academic psychology. His ideas inspired generations of young scholars discontent with the socio-political function of psychology and the human sciences. Although his approach is discussed internationally, most of his work is not yet available in English. This selection of Holzkamp's writings provides an introduction to his ssychology from the standpoint of the subject. In contrast to contemporary psychology's worldlessness, Holzkamp's psychological approach centers on 'human agency' as the individual's practical influence over the conditions of their lives. Instead of seeking to optimize the individual's adjustment to prevailing conditions, the issue here is the justifiability of such an adjustment as well as the danger of reproducing the conditions of one's own powerlessness by adopting ruling self-evidences. 'Social self-understanding' on the societal reality of individual experience and action plays a key role both as the epistemic interest and method of research"--provided by publisher