DEATH OR POWER: A REASSESSMENT OF HUMAN AGGRESSION THROUGH AN ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON OF THE THEORIES OF NIETZSCHE AND FREUD, AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR CONTEMPORARY PSYCHOLOGY

The increasingly destructive potentials of human violence, together with the obfuscations created by the complexities of modern civilized society, have made the need for understanding the causes of human aggression a central problem for our time. This study, through its comparison of the theoretical conceptions of Freud and Nietzsche, entails a critical analysis of the dominant assumptions and contemporary perspectives taken towards aggression by both psychology and modern social science.;While noting the significance of Freud's biological considerations and the uniquesness and value of his global approach to the problem, this study questions the dichotomy which characterizes Freud's conception of "Thanatos" and his consideration of aggression, as derived from an instinctive base that is separate and apart from the criteria established by Darwin in his conception of evolution. This analysis indicates how Freud's consideration of aggression can be shown to emerge from a specific, ideological framework dominating his theories, in which the dualistic tradition inherent in the Western religious as well as philosophic and intellectual thought played more of a role than science and biological evidence. It also illustrates how such a reified dualism came to dominate the uncritical, contemporary considerations of aggression. The revisions of Freud's theories noted by this study have largely preserved the dualism which itself was derived from an implicit moralistic premise in Freud's metapsychology, while abandoning the more radical instinctivist implications of his thought.;What is indicated by this study's analysis, both in terms of the conceptions provided by Nietzsche and the use of evolutionary criteria for its critical ground, is that the dualistic considerations of aggression as found in "Thanatos," or those perspectives derived from but purged of their instinctual content by the neo and post-Freudians, are neither validated by empirical research nor substantiated by the current evolutionary theory found in modern biology. Such validation is also not obtained through a more truly relativistic critical examination.;As a counter to Freud's inclusive but flawed theory, major attention was given to comparing and considering the central conceptions and methods of Nietzsche, giving specific focus to his ideas on the "will to power," as a more consistently scientific and biologically-congruent explanation of human aggression. Nietzsche's thought was then considered in terms of providing a less reified and more relativistic perspective by which to synthesize the diverse evidence concerned with the problem of aggression.;After an introduction, in which the wide range of issues, extending from the biogenic to the cultural and philosophic, and involved in comprehending and defining aggression, are examined, an analysis is focused upon the origins and theoretical implications of Freud's global and instinctivist conception of an isolated and biologically-determined "death instinct.".;The implications of Nietzsche's conceptions of power and sublimation were also viewed by this study in terms of developing a new psychological perspective in which aggression can be seen not only as a dangerous problem, but also as a natural force that man, like all other species, has used for survival and the extension of his evolutionary destiny.