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9:17

(In »The syntheist agent and her desires and drives«)

Psychoanalysis, on the other hand, starts from the vantage point that all people are and must be fundamentally pathological creatures; the human being is, and has never been anything but, homo pathologicus. The very fact that the human being believes that she exists as a subject and that she will live and not die attests to a pathological foundation for consciousness that is as powerful as it is necessary. The pathological subject exists in a dialectical tension between the two contracting parties desire and drive. Western philosophy reflects this dialectic as the history of desire from Spinoza and onwards (materialism), pitted against the history of the drive from Hegel and onwards (idealism). The dialectic is essential for both of these forces to be able to survive. Desire is ultimately an attempt to flee from the drive, and the drive is viewed at the most profound level as an attempt to flee from desire.