The machinic dimension of the unconscious in Freud

Abstract

This article aims to elucidate what we call the machinic dimension of the unconscious in Freud. However, it is a machine whose functioning encounters limits and oscillations, points of unsolvability that, according to our hypothesis, make Freud's tense affiliation with the positivist and mechanistic ideals he inherits evident. Although fundamentally influenced by the discourse of classical science, we see Freud as a thinker constantly questioned by the singularity of his clinic, by what individualizes the functioning of the unconscious machine. In the end, we highlight the notion of tragedy and associate it with the concept of drive in order to propose that the drive manifests tragically as the insistence of the machinic in everyday life.