The Concept of the End: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Film

The basic objective of the proposed project is the articulation of the philosophical concept of the end. The problem has a long tradition in philosophy and is interwoven with many other problems, but no comprehensive and autonomous study of this concept has been conducted so far. In order to achieve this objective, the project proceeds from three starting points. Firstly, from the problem of the end of philosophy and its proclamation in the 20th century. Secondly, from the specific role of the end in psychoanalysis where the concept of the end as the end of analysis has figured as a technical concept from the very beginning. And thirdly, from the problem of the end in film, particularly the shift that the most famous declaration of the end – the The End sign – was subject to in the history of film. By complementarily examining the problem of the end in the three mentioned fields, we endeavour to answer also the following general question: what are the reasons for the 20th century becoming a century of the proclamations of the end in the postmodern era?