ABSTRACT
The fact that in the psychoanalytic theory the instinct is considered to have its source in bodily stimuli is also mentioned by Aristotle about orexis. Under the instinctual appetites and desires, the Stagirite includes what psychoanalysis calls ego-instincts of self-preservation when he says: “Hunger and thirst are also desires”. It is noteworthy that the philosopher having a psychobiological approach adds: “Hence the examination of all these falls within the province of the functions common to body and soul”. “The living organism is naturally endowed with predispositions which treat pleasure as a guiding principle” is the corresponding phrase in The Language of Psychoanalysis. To the question sometimes put by psychoanalysts of whether pleasurable tensions do exist, there is an indirect answer in Nicomachean Ethics that in some people “the desire for pleasure is greedy and insatiable, and even during the active gratification of appetites their innate drive increases”.
