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By retrieve of a fundamental problem we understand the disclosure of those original possibilities of the problem which up to the present have lain hidden. By the elaboration of these possibilities, the problem itself is transformed and thus for the first time is conserved in its proper context.
All the phenomena Freud used to establish the “death instinct” have been given alternative explanations by subsequent authors (Fenichel, 1945), and Freud's concept of the “death instinct” is probably his least generally accepted and most controversial psychoanalytic idea. It has from its inception generated a substantial literature, characterized by widely differing interpretations and considerable misunderstanding. In the present paper I will attempt to retrieve what Freud was struggling to articulate through this concept, and explore whether there is anything worthwhile to salvage from it in spite of the general tendency to ignore the “death instinct.”
Empedocles of Acragas, who lived from about 492 B.C. to 432 B.C., is described by Guthrie (1978) as a “philosopher, mystic, poet, political reformer and physician, with something of the magician about him and a corresponding touch of arrogance and showmanship” (p. 123). During his boyhood, Acragas was at the height of its fame and was ruled by a tyrant named Theron. After Theron's death Empedocles played an important part in transforming Acragas into a vigorous and prosperous democracy. He was a charismatic man who “liked to walk about with a grave expression, wearing a purple robe with a golden girdle, a Delphic