Philosophy as Melancholia: Freud, Kant, Foucault

Expanding on Freud's characterization of philosophy as “animism”, this essay appeals to the notions of mourning and melancholia as parameters of social criticism. The author considers the idealistic characterization of critique in the work of Kant and Foucault, and argues that such characterization is a symptom of melancholia. The philosophical remedy for social ills – more “thinking” – is seen as another symptom of those ills. In contrast, Freud's notion of the work of mourning allows us to conceive of the critic as one who struggles concretely and consciously with loss.