What is desire? A drive that irretrievably tilts us towards an irrational goal, or perhaps an internal necessity deliberately chosen rational negotiation through? For some, desire is the cause of suffering itself and its annihilation, the secret of happiness. For others, desire gives meaning to life and is mobile of inspiration and productivity. Indeed, appreciations vary subtly at times and strictly so many. We will briefly review these different ideas, following among other sources, the philosophy dictionary of José Ferrater Mora, the different philosophical positions regarding the concept of desire.
If we go back to Aristotle, desire is one of the components of appetite and would not necessarily be irrational, but on the contrary, it could be a premeditated act, which has as its object something to be decided upon. In this sense, what is called “choice” or “preference” would be a “deliberate desire.”
But Plato, makes a very different analysis: first of all, raises a contrast between desire and reason, although strictly, admits the existence of different types of desires, necessary and unnecessary and even considers the possibility that desire belongs exclusively to the nature of the soul. Thus, it is frequent in the philosophy of antiquity, to consider desire as a passion of the soul. Indeed, when the rational character of the soul was accentuated, this could be regarded as an obstacle to the predominance of reason, although in any case the term “passion” should not necessarily be understood in that context in an exclusively derogatory way (for example, Zeno of Cythius spoke of desire as one of the four “passions” - the other three were fear, pain and pleasure -)
For Thomas Aquinas, desire is not just a sensitive appetite. For this medieval philosopher, desire can be sensible or rational and expresses the aspiration for something that is not possessed. However, Thomas will differentiate between desire and love or delectation. Indeed, desire may be good or bad, but this will depend on the object to which it is focused.
Already in modern times, desire usually appears under the concept of “passion of the soul” and in a fairly broad sense appears psychological interest in the term. Descartes will see it as an agitation of the soul caused by the spirits who dispose it to want for the future of the things that are represented as convenient for it. And in the same way, for Locke, desire is the anxiety that arises as a consequence of the absence of something whose present enjoyment includes the idea of delight. For Spinoza, desire is simply appetite accompanied by self-awareness.
Then, according to Hegel, self-consciousness is the state of desire in general, because the condition of desire and work or effort appears in the process in which consciousness returns itself in the course of its transformations as unhappy consciousness.
But for Sartre , desire is not pure subjectivity, but not pure appetite. Indeed, the intentionality of desire is not exhausted in the “towards something” but simultaneously is something for itself and for the desired other. In this general sense and especially in the case of sexual desire, for Sarte, desire has an impossible ideal because it aspires to possess the transcendence of the other as pure transcendence and as a body aspiring to reduce the other to its “simple facticity” and at the same time, it pretends that happiness is a perpetual representation of its anonymizing transcendence - Yeah.
From the psychoanalytic point of view, desire could be interpreted as the drive of life (Eros), which tends to creatvity. This inspiring force contrasts with the death drive. In this sense, there is a kind of balance between the two drives. The anguish of death could originate in the fear of not being able to satisfy the desire, which defines us as finite subjects. And this finitude manifests itself in a self-destructive internal drive whose vicissitudes depend on the other pulsional pair.
In the context of Buddhism, desire is considered the cause of all suffering. In fact, the four noble truths define life as suffering (Dukkha) and desire as the cause of this reality (Samudaya). What follows is that to eliminate suffering it is necessary to eliminate desire (Nirodha) which opens the doors of enlightenment for those willing to follow a spiritual path (Magga). This negative look of desire contrasts with the positive perspective that flies in one way or another over the different Western conceptions. While for the West, even with particular nuances, desire always appears as a driving force, for Buddhism, desire simply paralyzes and hinders spiritual progress.
Carpenter Henry, Eros or the desire of the will
