Instinct

Jacques Lacan -- following Sigmund Freud -- distinguishes the instincts from the drives.

Jacques Lacan -- following Sigmund Freud -- distinguishes instincts from drives.

"Instinct" is a biological concept and belongs to the study, field, of animal ethology, the psychology of animal behavior.

"Instinct"

is a biological concept

and

belongs to

"Instinct"

corresponds to a specific program of action for a species that is genetically transmitted (and theoretically independent of individual experience)

Quotes

"The whole flux of our mental life and everything that finds expression in our thoughts are derivations and representatives of the multifarious instincts [drives] that are innate in our physical constitution."

"[T]he "instinct [drive]" appears to us as a concept on the frontier between the mental and the somatic, as the psychical representative of the stimuli originating from within the organism and reaching the mind, as a measure of the demand made upon the mind for work in consequence of its connection with the body."