Desire and Pleasure for Sigmund

Desire and Pleasure

For Sigmund Freud, everything human beings do is underlain by the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. In defining the pleasure principle, Freud assigns it two components: sexuality, which Freud refers to as Eros, and aggression or Thanatos. These again are governed by the libido, which is again the basic principle of pleasure (Kazlev, 2004, (http://www.kheper.net/topics/psychology/Freud.html).

To further explicate the pleasure principle, Freud distinguishes between the id, the ego and the superego, where the id is the most basic, physical manifestation of existence as a human being. The id is the source of the libido and the only one of the three structures present at birth. It operates on a very basic level, in terms of visual and irrational terms, or what Freud refers to as primary process thinking (Kazlev, 2004, (http://www.kheper.net/topics/psychology/Freud.html).Secondary process thinking develops as the child grows and develops reasoning. For Freud, the pursuit of pleasure is an inherent paradigm, inherent in humanity since birth. It is also through reasoning that the person is able to bind the libido to avoid the possible destructive influence of the id and libido.

For Foucault, pleasure, as inherent in humanity, is exploited as a tool of social power (Felluga, 2002, www.purdue.edu/guidetotheory/genderandsex/modules/foucaultgendersex.html.

Foucault contrasts this paradigm of pleasure as fear with the Greco-Roman system, in which the paradigm of pleasure is more in keeping with Freud's. In these times, according to the philosopher, the self rather than society and its rules, was the focus of pleasure and its mastery (Felluga, 2002, www.purdue.edu/guidetotheory/genderandsex/modules/foucaultgendersex.html.

My own opinion tends to side more towards Freud's paradigm, where desire and pleasure are inherent in the human psyche. Furthermore I also agree with Freud that a large amount of our actions are the result of the pursuit of pleasure. However, I do not agree with either philosopher on their narrow view of the pleasure principle itself.

Pleasure is much more than the basic physical sensation brought about by the senses. Other pleasures can include the mental and/or spiritual satisfaction of performing well at a certain task. Love is a sensation that could bring the pleasure of performing a service that pleases someone else, although not necessarily the self. Self-sacrifice in this sense is about more than simply repressing physical pleasure. Indeed, self-sacrifice as the basis of love rather than fear can bring a sense of pleasure. Seeing the world only in terms of fear, pleasure and its excess is somewhat, as said above, narrow. Furthermore I do not believe that the complexity of the human psyche can be reduced to a few simple regulatory paradigms. Pleasure is therefore much more complex and difficult to define than the above philosophers appear to indicate.