The influence of Darwinism on philosophy.--Nature and its good: a conversation.--Intelligence and morals.--The experimental theory of knowledge.--The intellectualist criterion for truth.--A short catechism concerning truth.--Beliefs and existences.--Experience and objective idealism.--The postulate of immediate empiricism.--"Consciousness" and experience.--The significance of the problem of knowledge.

This paper draws a picture of how topics related to subjectivity have appeared in different psychological theories, such as psychoanalysis, Gestalt and post-structuralist approaches, discussing in depth a specific proposition from a cultural-historical standpoint. I argue that, in most of these theories, subjectivity has been used to refer to specific processes and phenomena without advancing a more general theory about it. The way in which subjectivity was treated within the Cartesian/Enlightenment tradition, taken together with the individualistic tradition of psychology, led (...) critical psychological theories to reject the concept. In this way, such critical theories have omitted the heuristic value of subjectivity to study processes that can neither be exhausted by language, nor by discourse. A new proposal of subjectivity is highlighted, based on the cultural-historical tradition in psychology. From this perspective, subjectivity is defined by units of emotions and symbolical processes generated throughout human experience. On the basis of such definition, I discuss how institutionalized orders can be subverted by subjective productions that represent new social pathways. Far from being a remnant of Modernity, in this way subjectivity is defined as a human production, capable of transcending the apparent objective limits of human existence. (shrink)

Vygotsky, at the end of his life, advanced a new representation of a psychological system that was ruled by a cognitive-emotional unity, a theorization that remains inconclusive due to Vygotsky's early death. This article discusses the advances made by Vygotsky in the comprehension of human motivation through his concepts of sense and perezhivanie at the end of his work. Through these concepts, he further advanced the discussion of motivation, despite the fact that these concepts have only very recently been considered (...) a relevant part of his legacy in both Russian and Western psychology. This paper discusses the departure from and the historical presentations of the concept of motive in the following two main approaches of Soviet psychology that were mistakenly equated in Western interpretations: Vygotsky's approach, mainly at the first as last moment of his work, and Leontiev's Activity Theory. Based on the final theoretical positions of Vygotsky and of other Soviet authors, and further developing this legacy, this article proposes a new definition of motivation as a specific quality of subjectively configured systems and defines motive as intrinsic to the functioning of all psychological function defines subjective functions as subjectively configured processes. This new proposal of human motivation within a new way of defining subjectivity defines new categories as subjective senses and subjective configurations on which the author bases a specific approach for advancing the topic of subjectivity and motivation within a cultural-historical framework. (shrink)