On Levinas’ criticism and misunderstanding of Freud’s view of eros

Under the common premise that consciousness is not the essence of mental life, the difference between Levinas and Freud can be minimised to the question of whether it is the endogenous instinct or the exogenous alterity that is the source of the construction of mental life, whether in a dynamic or a generative sense. It is with this fundamental difference that Levinas' and Freud's views of eros are presented as different paradigms. Levinas sees eros as a movement towards the alterity of the other, and a constant renewal and mutation of itself through the alterity. Conversely, Freud views eros as an activity driven by the endogenous sexual instincts that engage in different object-choices and libidinal cathexes at different stages of psychological life. Led by the memory trace of the original satisfaction, the erotic desire constantly seeks alternative satisfactions without being able to actually recapture the original satisfaction. Therefore, Levinas' criticism of Freud's view of eros was that Freud understoo