Beyond the Death-Drive: Psychoanalysis and Social Critique

What is it about?

This paper focuses on an investigation of Sigmund Freud's drive theory that makes room for a critical function of utopia, understood not as a straightforward “fulfillment” of the drives, but rather as a possibility of their maturation, even in adverse socio-political and cultural conditions. In our view, the differentiation that ultimately produces the opposition between Eros and Thanatos in Freud is a site of philosophical reflection not only on the problematic function of the death-drive, but also on the – socially conditioned – possibility of human life as such. Consequently, the ambivalences and tensions found within Freud’s shifting articulations of the drive theory provide resources for rethinking human sociality beyond the bounds of Freud’s own social and political pessimism.

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Photo by Ali Shah Lakhani on Unsplash

Photo by Ali Shah Lakhani on Unsplash

Why is it important?

We offer a new reading of Sigmund Freud's theory of drives, reflecting on the psychoanalytic stakes of a process of human emancipation that is particularly relevant in dire times of social disconnection and political disorientation. We examine the relationship between the so called life-drives and death-drives, highlighting not only their opposition, but also the dialectical process they engage, that impacts human historicity natural transformation alike.