Death Drive and Critical Theory

Much has been said about death drive in Critical Theory. This concept was mainly read as an aggressive and/or destructive drive. As a consequence, there are two ways of finding death drive in critical theories: the classic mode represented by Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, and, more recently, Whitebo...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Inara Luisa Marin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: UNICApress 2024-11-01
Series:Critical Hermeneutics
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/ecch/article/view/6193
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1846143996680732672
author Inara Luisa Marin
author_facet Inara Luisa Marin
author_sort Inara Luisa Marin
collection DOAJ
description Much has been said about death drive in Critical Theory. This concept was mainly read as an aggressive and/or destructive drive. As a consequence, there are two ways of finding death drive in critical theories: the classic mode represented by Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, and, more recently, Whitebook, in which death drive is seen as a factor that gives psychoanalysis its negativity face; or a way that leads to the despise of the nuclear function of death drive in psychoanalytic theory in name of normativity, as it happens in Fromm and Honneth. What I propose here is, from a comparison of both Freud’s texts, “Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through” (1914) and “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920), to present a new way of appropriating the concept of death drive to produce a current critical theory. This means not considering the Wiederholungszwang as simply an imperative for coercion, but also a repetition compulsion. By proposing this reading of death drive (as suggested by Freud in 1920), I believe it is possible to amplify the range of possible connections between psychoanalysis and Critical Theory, keeping the negativity side, but without losing its normativity.
format Article
id doaj-art-370ee40e425844838a1ef1adda898680
institution Kabale University
issn 2533-1825
language English
publishDate 2024-11-01
publisher UNICApress
record_format Article
series Critical Hermeneutics
spelling doaj-art-370ee40e425844838a1ef1adda8986802024-12-02T09:12:24ZengUNICApressCritical Hermeneutics2533-18252024-11-018210.13125/CH/6193Death Drive and Critical TheoryInara Luisa Marin Much has been said about death drive in Critical Theory. This concept was mainly read as an aggressive and/or destructive drive. As a consequence, there are two ways of finding death drive in critical theories: the classic mode represented by Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, and, more recently, Whitebook, in which death drive is seen as a factor that gives psychoanalysis its negativity face; or a way that leads to the despise of the nuclear function of death drive in psychoanalytic theory in name of normativity, as it happens in Fromm and Honneth. What I propose here is, from a comparison of both Freud’s texts, “Remembering, Repeating, and Working Through” (1914) and “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” (1920), to present a new way of appropriating the concept of death drive to produce a current critical theory. This means not considering the Wiederholungszwang as simply an imperative for coercion, but also a repetition compulsion. By proposing this reading of death drive (as suggested by Freud in 1920), I believe it is possible to amplify the range of possible connections between psychoanalysis and Critical Theory, keeping the negativity side, but without losing its normativity. https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/ecch/article/view/6193death drivepsychoanalysisunconsciousaggressivenessrepetition compulsion
spellingShingle Inara Luisa Marin
Death Drive and Critical Theory
Critical Hermeneutics
death drive
psychoanalysis
unconscious
aggressiveness
repetition compulsion
title Death Drive and Critical Theory
title_full Death Drive and Critical Theory
title_fullStr Death Drive and Critical Theory
title_full_unstemmed Death Drive and Critical Theory
title_short Death Drive and Critical Theory
title_sort death drive and critical theory
topic death drive
psychoanalysis
unconscious
aggressiveness
repetition compulsion
url https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/ecch/article/view/6193
work_keys_str_mv AT inaraluisamarin deathdriveandcriticaltheory