‌‌‌‌　　英：death drive; 法：pulsion de mort; 德：Todestriebe

‌‌‌‌　　虽然对于“死亡冲动”(Toderstrieb)概念的暗示很早便可见于弗洛伊德的著作，但是这一概念只是在《超越快乐原则》(Freud, 1920 g)一文中才得到充分的阐述。在这部作品里，弗洛伊德在生命冲动（爱欲）与死亡冲动之间建立了一则基本的对立，前者被构想为一种朝向内聚与统合的趋向，而后者则在消解联结与毁灭事物的相反方向上运作。然而，生命冲动与死亡冲动却从来都不可见于一种纯粹的状态，而是始终按照不同的比例被混合/融合在一起。实际上，弗洛伊德就曾指出，倘若不是因为此种与爱欲的融合，死亡冲动便会逃离我们的感知，因为它在其本质上是缄默不语的 (Freud, 1930 a: SE, XXI, 120).

‌‌‌‌　　死亡冲动的概念曾经是弗洛伊德所引入的最具争议性的概念之一，虽然他的很多弟子都曾拒绝过这一概念 (把它看作纯粹的诗意，或者看作对于形而上学的非法入侵)，但是弗洛伊德在其余生中不断地重申这一概念。在众多非拉康派的精神分析理论学派当中，唯有克莱因派精神分析严肃地对待了此一概念。

‌‌‌‌　　拉康遵循弗洛伊德的观点，把死亡冲动的概念重新确认为精神分析的核心所在：“忽视其【弗洛伊德】学说中的死亡本能，即完全误解了那一学说。”(E, 301)

‌‌‌‌　　1938 年，在拉康有关死亡冲动的最初评论中，他将其描述为对于丧失之和谐的一种乡愁，即因为母亲乳房的丧失在断奶情结中给精神打下了标记而想要重新回到与母亲乳房的前俄狄浦斯式融合的一种欲望 (Lacan, 1938:35)。在 1946 年，他则把死亡冲动联系于自恋性的自杀倾向 (Ec, 186)。由于把死亡冲动联系于前俄狄浦斯期并且联系于自恋，这些早期的评论大概都是把死亡冲动安置在了拉康日后渐渐将其称作想象界的秩序当中。

‌‌‌‌　　然而，在 1950 年代，当拉康开始发展出他有关想象界、象征界与实在界的三种秩序的概念之时，他并未把死亡冲动定位于想象界，而是将其定位于象征界。例如，在 1954 一 1955 年度的研讨班上，他便指出死亡冲动仅仅是象征秩序借以产生重复（REPETITION)的基本倾向：“死亡本能仅仅是象征秩序的面具”（S 2,326)。这一转变同样标志着与弗洛伊德的一点差异：对弗洛伊德而言，死亡冲动与生物学有着紧密的联系，它代表着所有生物都要归复于一种无机物状态的基本倾向。通过把死亡冲动坚决地定位于象征界，拉康便是将其同文化而非自然连接了起来；他宣称死亡冲动“并非一个生物学的问题”(E, 102), 而且也必须跟归复于无生命状态的生物性本能区分开来。

‌‌‌‌　　拉康的死亡冲动概念与弗洛伊德的另一点差异出现在 1964 年。弗洛伊德曾经把死亡冲动对立于性的冲动，而拉康现在则指出死亡冲动并非是一种单独的冲动，而实际上是所有冲动 (DRVE)当中的一个面向。“只有就生命冲动与死亡冲动之间的区分体现了冲动的两个面向而言，这一区分才会成立”（S 11,257)。因此，拉康写道一“每一冲动实质上都是一个死亡冲动”(Ec, 848), 因为：(1)每一冲动皆在追求其自身的消亡；(2)每一冲动皆会涉及处在重复中的主体；(3)每一冲动皆是一种旨在超越快乐原则而抵达过度享乐 (JOUISSANCE)之领域的企图，享乐在那里被体验为痛苦。

‌‌‌‌　　(pulsion de mort) Although intimations of the concept of the death drive (Todestrieb) canbe found early on in Freud's work, it was only in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920 g) that the concept was fully articulated. In this work Freud established a fundamentalopposition between life drives (eros), conceived of as a tendency towards cohesion andunity, and the death drives, which operate in the opposite direction, undoing connectionsand destroying things. However, the life drives and the death drives are never found in apure state, but always mixed/fused together in differing proportions. Indeed, Freudargued that were it not for this fusion with erotism, the death drive would eludeourperception, since in itself it is silent (Freud, 1930 a: SE, XXI, 120).

‌‌‌‌　　The concept of the death drive was one of the most controversial concepts introducedby Freud, and many of his disciples rejected it (regarding it as mere poetry or as anunjustifiable incursion into metaphysics), but Freud continued to reaffirm the concept forthe rest of his life. Of the non-Lacanian schools of psychoanalytic theory, only Kleinianpsychoanalysis takes the concept seriously.

‌‌‌‌　　Lacan follows Freud in reaffirming the concept of the death drive as central topsychoanalysis: 'to ignore the death instinct in his [Freud's]doctrine is to misunderstandthat doctrine entirely' (E, 301).

‌‌‌‌　　In Lacan's first remarks on the death drive, in 1938, he describes it as a nostalgia for alost harmony, a desire to return to the preoedipal fusion with the mother's breast, the lossof which is marked on the psyche in the weaning complex (Lacan, 1938:35). In 1946 helinks the death drive to the suicidal tendency of narcissism (Ec, 186). By linking thedeath drive with the preoedipal phase and with narcissism, these early remarks wouldplace the death drive in what Lacan later comes to call the imaginary order.

‌‌‌‌　　However, when Lacan begins to develop his concept of the three orders of imaginary, symbolic and real, in the 1950 s, he does not situate the death drive in the imaginary but inthe symbolic. In the seminar of 1954-5, for example, he argues that the death drive issimply the fundamental tendency of the symbolic order to produce REPETITION; Thedeath instinct is only the mask of the symbolic order' (S 2,326). This shift also marks adifference with Freud, for whom the death drive was closely bound up with biology, representing the fundamental tendency of every living thing to return to an inorganicstate. By situating the death drive firmly in the symbolic, Lacan articulates it with culturerather than nature; he states that the death drive 'is not a question of biology' (E, 102). And must be distinguished from the biological instinct to retum to the inanimate (S 7,211-12).

‌‌‌‌　　Another difference between Lacan's concept of the death drive and Freud's emergesin 1964. Freud opposed the death drive to the sexual drives, but now Lacan argues thatthe death drive is not a separate drive, but is in fact an aspect of every DRIVE. Thedistinction between the life drive and the death drive is true in as much as it manifeststwo aspects of the drive' (S 11,257). Hence Lacan writes that 'every drive is virtually adeath drive' (Ec, 848), because (i) every drive pursues its own extinction, (ii) every driveinvolves the subject in repetition, and (iii) every drive is an attempt to go beyond thepleasure principle, to the realm of excess JOUISSANCE where enjoyment is experiencedas suffering.