Search results for ""author cornelius castoriadis""

This is one of the most original and important works of contemporary European thought. First published in France in 1975, it is the major theoretical work of one of the foremost thinkers in Europe. Castoriadis offers a brilliant and far-reaching analysis of the unique character of the social-historical world and its relations to the individual, to language and to nature. He argues that the most traditional conceptions of society and history overlook the essential feature of the social-historical world, namely that this world is not articulated once and for all but is in each case the creation of the society concerned. In emphasizing the element of creativity, Castoriadis opens the way for rethinking political theory and practice in terms of the autonomous and explicit self-institution of society. Castoriadis' wide-ranging discussion deals with many issues which are currently topical in the English-speaking world: the critique of Marxism; the creative and imaginary character of language; the relations between action and social institutions; the nature of the unconscious and the reappraisal of psychoanalysis; and the role of symbolism on both the individual and the social levels. This book will be of great interest to anyone concerned with social and political theory and contemporary European thought.

Read more less

This collection presents a broad and compelling overview of the most recent work by a world-renowned figure in contemporary thought. Starting from an inquiry that grows out of the specific context of a society that is experiencing uncertainty as to its ways of living and being, its goals, its values, and its knowledge, one that has been incapable, so far, of adequately understanding the crisis it is undergoing, Castoriadis sets as his task the elucidation of this crisis and its conditions. The book is in four parts: Koinonia, Polis, Psyche, Logos. The opening section begins with a general introduction to the author’s views on being, time, creation, and the imaginary institution of society and continues with reflections on the role of the individual psyche in racist thinking and acting and on the retreat from autonomy to generalized conformity in postmodernism. The second part is a critique of those who now belittle and distort the meaning of May ‘68 and other movements of the sixties as well as the French Revolution. The fate of the “project of autonomy” is considered here in the light of the Greek and the modern “political imaginary,” the “pulverization of Marxism-Leninism,” and a recent alleged “return of ethics” (Habermas, Rawls, McIntyre, Solzhenitsyn, Havel). In part three, Castoriadis shows how psychoanalysis, like politics, can contribute to the project of individual and collective autonomy and challenges Lacan, Foucault, Derrida, and others in his report on “The State of the Subject Today.” This section also presents his most current lines of psychoanalytic research and thought on the “human nonconscious” in the body and on the problem of the psychoanalysis of psychotic subjects, where an alternative coherence on the level of meaning offers a constant challenge to the task of psychoanalytic interpretation. Castoriadis’s highly original investigations of the unruly place of the imagination in Western philosophy round out the book. He examines how Aristotle’s original aporetic discovery and cover-up of the imagination were repeated by Kant, Freud, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty.

Read more less

In this posthumous collection of writings, Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997) pursues his incisive analysis of modern society, the philosophical basis of our ability to change it, and the points of intersection between his many approaches to this theme. His main philosophical postulate, that the human subject and society are not predetermined, asserts the primacy of creation and the possibility of creative, autonomous activity in every domain. This argument is combined with penetrating political and social criticism, opening numerous avenues of critical thought and action. The book’s wide-ranging topics include the core worldview of ancient Athens, where the idea of self-creation and self-limitation made democracy possible; the wealth of poetic resources; a deconstruction of the so-called rationality of capitalism and of the current conception of democracy, along with a discussion of what a radical, revolutionary project means today; the role of what he calls the radical imagination in the creation of both societal institutions and history; the roots of hate; a psychoanalytic view of human development torn between heteronomy and autonomy; the role of education in forming autonomous individuals; and notions of chaos, space, and number.

Read more less

Offers in English for the first time philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis's earliest surviving lectures on the ancient Greeks Includes renowned scholar Pierre Vidal-Naquet's essay, 'Castoriadis and Ancient Greece'" (1999), which provides an introduction and memorial to Castoriadis's research Includes Castoriadis's previously untranslated, substantive essay, "'Political Thought'" (1979), which presages many of the key themes in the seminars Includes Castoriadis's thematic reports on his teaching in the 1980-1984 seminars Includes an "Editors' Introduction" plus extensive editorial commentary on the seminars and an Analytic Table of Contents provided by the academic editor of the French edition of the volume (from 2004) Includes a "Foreword" by the translator, which highlights key terms in the seminars This book collects 12 previously untranslated lectures by Castoriadis from 1982 to 1983. Castoriadis focuses on the interconnection between philosophy and democracy and the way both emerge within a self-critical imaginary already in development in the work of early Greek poets and Presocratic philosophers. Displaying both mastery of the relevant scholarship and original interpretation, he reveals the birth of a society that?would place its highest value in?calling itself and its institutions into question.?He argues that this spirit would?develop?directly?into?the twin signatures of the Greek world, namely?radical philosophy, on the one hand, and?radical democratic practices, on the other. ?Like no previous interpreter, Castoriadis allows us to feel the existential need, already present in the earliest Greek thinkers, to question the significance of human existence and to share in shaping its meaning. The Greeks not only did this, he argues, they also began the equally important work of?establishing the institutions to support such a project. "

Read more less