ABEL DOS SANTOS BESERRA

The present project seeks to investigate how Descartes and psychoanalysis, in their Freudian and Lacanian strands, thought the experience of a finite human being. In this sense, our aim is to discuss whether and to what extent a notion of negativity is necessary for both to think the human experience. Indeed, the proposals of psychoanalysis and Descartes, although separated by approximately two centuries, present common elements that may help elucidate their own positions. Thus, the thesis we defend is that a work of the negativity seems indispensable for the adequate understanding of human experience: firstly, on the part of Descartes in proposing the concept of passions of the soul; and, secondly, on the part of psychoanalysis in formulating the idea of pulsion. Finally, it should be noted that we take primarily Descartes' Treatise on the Passions and the texts on metapsychology, theoreticals, of Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis as a starting point. In this way, we intend to analyze if our hypothesis is valid, and if so, what the consequences of this are; that is, to what extent the human experience could be understood as influenced by a work of the negativity.