The drive in Marc Richir’s philosophy

Abstract

This article aims at showing a surprising

convergence between two thoughts of the drive

-which at first sight seem to be very different-

:Marc Richir’s (philosopher), and Jean

Laplanche’s (psychoanalyst). In

Phénoménologie et institution symbolique,

published in 1988, Marc Richir distinguishes a

drive (Trieb), rethinks in accordance with

Freud but also against Freud’s conception ,

from a tendance that is not yet a drive. What

Marc Richir calls “pulsion” (drive), born of the

failure of a process of phenomenalisation, has

remarkable points of convergences with Jean

Laplanche’s “pulsion”. Richir and Laplanche

defend a traumatic origin of the drive which is

at the same time a traumatic origin of the ego

(le moi, Ich).