Force, Drive, Desire: A Philosophy of Psychoanalysis

· Northwestern University Press
Ebook
440
Pages

About this ebook

In Force, Drive, Desire, Rudolf Bernet develops a philosophical foundation of psychoanalysis focusing on human drives. Rather than simply drawing up a list of Freud’s borrowings from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, or Lacan’s from Hegel and Sartre, Bernet orchestrates a dialogue between philosophy and psychoanalysis that goes far beyond what these eminent psychoanalysts knew about philosophy. By relating the writings of Freud, Lacan, and other psychoanalysts to those of Aristotle, Leibniz, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, and, more tacitly, Bergson and Deleuze, Bernet brings to light how psychoanalysis both prolongs and breaks with the history of Western metaphysics and philosophy of nature.

Rereading the long history of metaphysics (or at least a few of its key moments) in light of psychoanalytic inquiries into the nature and function of drive and desire also allows for a rewriting of the history of philosophy. Specifically, it allows Bernet to bring to light a different history of metaphysics, one centered less on Aristotelian substance (ousia) and more on the concept of dunamis—a power or potentiality for a realization toward which it strives with all its might. Relating human drives to metaphysical forces also bears fruit for a renewed philosophy of life and subjectivity.
In Force, Drive, Desire, Rudolf Bernet develops a philosophical foundation of psychoanalysis focusing on human drives. Rather than simply drawing up a list of Freud’s borrowings from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, or Lacan’s from Hegel and Sartre, Bernet orchestrates a dialogue between philosophy an...

About the author

RUDOLF BERNET is a professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Leuven in Belgium and former director of the Husserl Archives. He is the editor of Edmund Husserl’s Texte zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness) and Die Bernauer Manuskripte über das Zeitbewusstsein (The Bernau Manuscripts on Time-Consciousness), the coauthor of An Introduction to Husserlian Phenomenology, and the author of La vie du sujet: Recherches sur l’interprétation de Husserl dans la phénoménologie (The Life of the Subject: Investigations on the Interpretation of Husserl in Phenomenology) and Conscience et existence: Perspectives phénoménologiques (Consciousness and Existence: Phenomenological Perspectives).
RUDOLF BERNET is a professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Leuven in Belgium and former director of the Husserl Archives. He is the editor of Edmund Husserl’s Texte zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness) and Die Bernauer Ma...

Rate this ebook

Tell us what you think.

Reading information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.