Fong Death and Mastery

Psychoanalytic Drive Theory and the Subject of Late Capitalism
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-0-231-54261-6
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 61, 240 Seiten

Reihe: New Directions in Critical Theory

The first philosophers of the Frankfurt School famously turned to the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud to supplement their Marxist analyses of ideological subjectification. Since the collapse of their proposed "marriage of Marx and Freud," psychology and social theory have grown apart to the impoverishment of both. Returning to this union, Benjamin Y. Fong reconstructs the psychoanalytic "foundation stone" of critical theory in an effort to once again think together the possibility of psychic and social transformation.

Drawing on the work of Hans Loewald and Jacques Lacan, Fong complicates the famous antagonism between Eros and the death drive in reference to a third term: the woefully undertheorized drive to mastery. Rejuvenating Freudian metapsychology through the lens of this pivotal concept, he then provides fresh perspective on Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Herbert Marcuse's critiques of psychic life under the influence of modern cultural and technological change. The result is a novel vision of critical theory that rearticulates the nature of subjection in late capitalism and renews an old project of resistance.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fong, Benjamin

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologie / Allgemeines & Theorie Psychologische Theorie, Psychoanalyse Psychoanalyse (S. Freud)
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologische Disziplinen Religionspsychologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Westliche Philosophie: Transzendentalphilosophie, Kritizismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionssoziologie und -psychologie, Spiritualität, Mystik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments
Introduction: In Defense of Drive Theory
Part One: Dream
1. Death, Mastery, and the Origins of Life: Sigmund Freud's Strange Proposal
Part Two: Interpretation
2. Between Need and Dread: Hans Loewald and the Primordial Density
3. Aggressivity in Psychoanalysis (Reprised): Jacques Lacan and the Genesis of Omnipotence
Part Three: Working Through
4. The Psyche in Late Capitalism I: Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and the Crisis of Internalization
5. The Psyche in Late Capitalism II: Herbert Marcuse and the Technological Lure
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Benjamin Y. Fong is an Honors Faculty Fellow at Barrett, the Honors College of Arizona State University. His work has been published in Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, the Journal of the American Academy of Religion), The Stone (New York Times), and the Philosophical Salon (Los Angeles Review of Books).