On the justification for separating cruelty from the epistemophilic dimension of the drive for empowerment

Abstract

The article presents the epistemophilic dimension of empowerment drive and aspects of cruelty, examining their relationship and differentiations. To support the position, we rely on the work of Sigmund Freud, under the connecting point between cruelty and drive work, illustrating both in the game Fort-da. We start from the German term, Bemächtigungstrieb, translated as empowerment drive, emphasizing its action at the origins of psychic activity. We resume the articulation of such drive describing its apparatus, which is the muscular one, presented in two points: first, the action of the cruelty inherent to the drive; second, that of the impulse to explore the world, presented in its epistemophilic dimension. Here is the illuminating point about such a drive, it is not just an impulse to cruelty, or only indicative of the death drive. As result, we expose the breadth of the working condition of both concepts, glimpsing the action of their trait in the psyche.