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Document Details :

Title: De doodsdrift en het doodse aan het ik
Subtitle: De claustrofobische metafysica van Freud
Author(s): MOYAERT, Paul
Journal: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie
Volume: 75    Issue: 3   Date: 2013   
Pages: 487-523
DOI: 10.2143/TVF.75.3.2990794

Abstract :
In Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud elaborates a critique of a vitalistic notion of the drives. Drives are not only a source of excitation, but forces that resist change. Freud gives a remarkable name to the conservative tendencies of the drives, viz. the death drive. I intend to show that Freud was led to develop a non-vitalistic conception of drives by means of a study of different repetition phenomena. I focus on one particular claim of Freud where he suggests that the ego-drives are the 'myrmidons of death'. To clarify this claim I consider a remark he makes on the viscosity of the drives and melancholia in his short essay ‘On Transience’.

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