"As is known, according to Freud’s optimistic views—views that had previously been nothing more than a contrast between the pleasure principle and the reality principle—the war of 1914 dealt a terrible blow," writes Jacques Rancière (born 1940), a French philosopher, professor at the University of Paris. "However, it may be permissible to think that this explanation does not exhaust the essence of the matter." Turning to Freud’s ideas, he presents various images of the unconscious, including those connected to the notion that the basic instincts of life remain attached to life and are directed toward death; the "keepers of life" are also simultaneously "companions of death." Rancière also studies how the unconscious is reflected in classical and modern works of culture, including cinema and photography—how people create aesthetics that they had not previously recognized. In the PDF A4 format, the publisher’s layout of the book has been preserved.