A WORD ON “OSTRICH POLITICS”: IS THE CONCEPT OF DEATH DRIVE RELEVANT TO A SOCIAL THEORY?

This paper examines elements of the criticism that Joel Whitebook and Amy Allen address to Axel Honneth with regard to the fact that this philosopher, when claiming the interest of psychoanalysis for a critical theory of society, has, at the same time, rejected the Freudian concept of death drive. It is argued that both Whitebook - in his intellectual position as a more orthodox Freudian - and Allen - in her defense of Kleinian psychoanalysis - lose sight of the breadth of the concept of the death drive as proposed by Freud, compromising themselves, with distinct consequences, with an allegedly Hobbesian characterization of certain Freudian theses on aggressiveness.

Keywords:
Psychoanalysis; Critical theory; Death drive.