A New Perspective on Anxiety: Anxiety Regarding the Theory of Drives in Freud
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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7419734Keywords:
Anxiety, the death drive (qua Thanatos), the life drive (qua Eros), the Oedipus complexAbstract
The phenomenon of anxiety is taken into account by a myriad of philosophical approaches and it is shown that this phenomenon has a crucial role in providing insights into the human being. Although lots of thinkers have their own contributions to the discussion on anxiety, very few have been able to change the course of the history of this discussion with such a ground-breaking thought as Freud’s. He offers a novel approach to central questions concerning the role of anxiety in the construal of the human being. Freud’s account on anxiety has been examined by many scholars but very few of them takes anxiety into account regarding his theory of drives, because the death drive theory seemingly stands out from his understanding of anxiety. This paper claims that there is a connection between anxiety and Freud’s theory of drives. In doing so, I will provide a different perspective on anxiety regards the death drive (qua Thanatos) and the life drive (qua Eros) in order to enrich our understanding of Freud’s account and try to respond some criticism of his understanding by showing how Freud’s understanding of anxiety goes beyond the relation between mother and a child, or the Oedipus complex.
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