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Document Details :

Title: Is herhaling een tijdsynthese?
Subtitle: Freud tegenover Deleuze
Author(s): MOYAERT, Paul
Journal: Tijdschrift voor Filosofie
Volume: 84    Issue: emeritaatsnummer   Date: 2022   
Pages: 15-37
DOI: 10.2143/TVF.84.5.3290710

Abstract :
For Deleuze, repetition is a dynamic synthesis of time. This definition goes back to Bergson’s definition of la durée. The past continues to operate in the present, anticipating its future. Deleuze sees an interesting connection between his own definition of repetition and Freud’s theme in Beyond the Pleasure Principle. This metaphysical treatise, Deleuze says, deals not so much with the exceptions to the pleasure principle as with its antecedents: repetition explains the pleasure principle. According to Deleuze, repetition is not to be thought from the point of view of what remains equal to itself in time. He therefore criticizes Freud, who defines the drive as a mind-numbing compulsion to repeat. I show that Freud’s approach to repetition, contrary to what Deleuze suggests, is not based on an erroneous ontology that disregards the unity of being and time. From his findings on post-traumatic stress disorder, amongst others, Freud draws attention to a special dimension of time: eternity. Eternity stands for what cannot be absorbed into time, for what, in time, stands outside of time.

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