The Flesh and the irreversibility of the body in the domain of the drive

Abstract

The methodology of this paper is theoretical. Our main objective is to examine the vision in Merleau-Ponty’s space, in order to interrogate the body beyond the specular structure of the imaginary. The failure of identity between activity and passivity can be used as a ground to analyze the body on the axis drive-phantasy. We examine how the notion of a failed reversibility can be related to the different senses of the Flesh, and we interrogate the body that is determined by the negativity of the drive. That leads us to consider the difference with the ontology of the Flesh deduced in Melanie Klein’s theory by Merleau-Ponty. Afterwards, we examine some crucial distinctions made by Freud and Lacan. They allow us to distinguish, from the point of view of the object, the body in the narcissistic field of love from the body in the domain of the drive: while in the former there is a dissolution of both the dimensions of the Other and the object as cause of desire, in the latter we face the transcendence of the object. Finally, we consider the theoretical importance of the autoerotic limit of the drive, which can be illustrated with the accomplishment of the reversibility of the Flesh.