Symposium on The Space That Separates: A Realist Theory of Art

Abstract

Greeks (Democritus), to Bentham, to Freud and to Skinner. Some of these are strange bedfel-lows, and not just through a critical realist lens. They produce what might be seen as a ‘ lowest common denominator ’ approach to human motivation. Freud, it is true, did write of the ‘ pleasure principle ’ , but he meant by this not the desire for positive stimulus but the desire to be free of all stimuli in the experience of a ‘ Nirvana ’ . While he was writing in these mechanical terms, another way forward was suggesting itself to him through the development of a structural account of human being as based on libido, love or Eros, a life drive leading to love of self and other through ego formation and, what would become in the work of Klein and others, the development of object relations theory. Though not in the Kleinian tradition, Hans Loewald ’ s work also stands out here. From this point of view, approach and avoidance would be governed by the forming of mind and the resulting complex relations between self and other. This is the model of course that Wilson draws upon in thinking through the contribution of psychoanalysts like Winnicott and Bollas to ‘ the space that separates ’ .