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This article locates Ernesto Laclau's populist reason as a point of departure to understand the contemporary democratic logic and its so-called 'excesses'. It argues that, even if resourceful, Laclau's findings can be supplemented with a theory of the imaginary as developed by Cornelius Castoriadis, as well as with key remarks from a discussion of the theologico-political as this was characterized by Claude Lefort. The aim is to construct an understanding on the political as it is structured by language and the symbolic, presenting thus democracy and populism as two opposing sides of a foundational political myth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite Jean-Paul Sartre and Cornelius Castoriadis placing the imagination centre stage in their respective conceptual theories, little work has been done to bring them into conversation on this issue or, indeed, any other. This is perhaps not surprising given Sartre's early work on this topic has tended to be downplayed in favour of his affirmation of freedom, while Castoriadis not only denigrates Sartre's thinking generally and his account of the imagination specifically but also posits their relationship as one of opposition. In contrast, this article brings them into conversation on the question of the imagination to call into question Castoriadis assessment of their relation. To do so, I outline Sartre's position in The Imaginary, showing that Castoriadis assessment of Sartre's notion is based on a problematic, if common, misunderstanding of Sartre's notion of nothingness and its relationship to creativity. Having overcome the opposition that Castoriadis affirms between their respective positions, I argue that, while there certainly are differences between their positions, there are also important points of agreement and overlap between them, especially regarding the constitutive role that the imagination plays for consciousness, and the relationships between the imagination and freedom and the imagination and creativity, that point to a shared and original approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reexamines the contested status of imagination in contemporary politics by analyzing the disjunction between theorization of "the imagination" and accounts of "the social imaginary" since the mid-1960s. I argue that what is at stake in the separation between the two concepts are different notions about the status of reality and its relationship to agency in imaginative thought and action—a separation that may imperil our ability to make historical and political judgments about emancipatory change. First, I reconstruct the shift from a mimetic to creative concept of imagination in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the implications this transformation had for thinking about the relationship between reality and agency. Next, I show how Marx and Engels, through their critique of "ideology" in nineteenth-century German idealism, sought a unified materialist account of reality and agency, but in terms that were increasingly seen as problematic by many twentieth-century social theorists. Finally, I evaluate the rejection of the Marxist concept of ideology in postwar French social theory and Cornelius Castoriadis's subsequent writings on the putatively emancipatory character of radical imaginaries. In conclusion, I suggest that for all the analytical and political gains that the social imaginary approach offers, the status of reality and the purpose of agency within this approach remain open questions which may require the recovery and reintegration of the insights of older theories of imagination and ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of agency and the position of the speaking subject in interpreting are key for an understanding of the interpreter’s role and the importance of codes of ethics, especially in community interpreting settings. The attempt to address these issues in an effort to establish a higher level of professionalism has been ongoing for many decades, but there is still a lot of controversy both in academic circles and in the practice itself. Scholars are still split between those who propagate a code of ethics which ensures accuracy, confidentiality, and impartiality and those who believe that the practitioner, under a different name (inter/cultural inter/mediator), is a mediator between cultures and thus, as the only agent of knowledge for all cultures involved in the exchange, should play a more interventionist role. And in the midst of this argument, all parties of the interaction (practitioners, users and providers of public services) may be deprived of their agency as speaking subjects. This paper will highlight some of the main arguments in this very sensitive issue and attempt an understanding of the significance of codes of ethics in dis/empowering the speaking subject, by taking a detour through the significance of Shakespearean names and Aristotelean virtues.

Cornelius Castoriadis' The Imaginary Institution of Society and Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's Hegemony and Socialist Strategy are two cornerstones of contemporary political philosophy. Insufficient consideration has been given to the fact that both works show important theoretical coincidences in terms of structure and content. The first part of this article explores the possibility of reading Castoriadis' work in post-foundational terms, following Oliver Marchart's approach. In addition, the respective political ontologies of Castoriadis and Laclau and Mouffe are presented as 'ontologies of signification' in which the imaginary/discursive component is central. Finally, the contributions of the three authors to the emancipatory project through the notions of 'autonomy' (Castoriadis) and 'radical democracy' (Laclau and Mouffe) are considered, highlighting both their common features and their divergences. The latter had to do mainly with their antagonistic conceptions of political representation and its relation to democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortly before the end of his life, Cornelius Castoriadis turned to radical political ecology, which he seemed to consider the only way to de-colonize the technicist, capitalist imaginary (imaginaire), into which the totality of modern philosophy and praxis is, to use a Heideggerian concept, (heteronomously) being-thrown. Castoriadis' critique of the capitalist imaginary, the imaginary of the unlimited extension of rational mastery, is in a state of eclectic affinity with the unsurpassed critique of the autonomous Technique by the French theologian and sociologist Jacques Ellul. Ellul had highlighted the necessity of demythologizing the spirit of technicism since the 1940s, when he was working on the uncontrollability of modern technology, which in his work is depicted as the societal manifestation of the Ge-stell. The Weberian ideal type of formal rationality runs through the critique of both thinkers. For Ellul, technology, or technique, is intrinsically rational. However, when technique is in contact with social and cultural milieus which belong to a non-technical formation and organization, paradoxes and irrationalities are inevitable. In turn, Castoriadis emphasizes the irrationality and autonomy that characterize the modern sphere of techno-science, which leads, with mathematical precision, to the ecological, and also the anthropological, destruction of the Anthropos. Therein lies the central problem of modernity's technology. Is there a way out? Castoriadis envisions the foundation of a true democracy, nowhere near theocratic, which, nonetheless, must learn to limit itself politically and technologically. Ellul, on the other hand, highlights the ethics of non-power, an essentially spiritual and idealistic attitude that Hans Jonas will adopt a few years later, talking about the heuristics of fear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Southern social imaginaries have typically conceived of the North as a frozen and inhospitable area, depriving it of much interest. However, during the first part of the 20th century, the anthropologist and explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson unveiled many mysteries about the Arctic. Throughout his life and writings, he tried to modify many inaccurate and now old-fashioned imaginings and imaginaries about the Arctic. The concept of the Polar Mediterranean Imaginary was thus proposed by him, whereby the Arctic region could be seen as a place similar to the Mediterranean region, i.e., an important socio-cultural, economic and political hub. Past and present events (e.g., global conflicts, scientific and technologic developments) contribute also to determining how the Arctic is shaped and understood today. The contemporary twin trends of globalization and climate change are making the North more and more globally connected and interconnected, especially through the rise of transpolar routes, which represent an opportunity for the affirmation of the Arctic’s central role, precisely along the lines envisioned by Vilhjalmur Stefansson and his Polar Mediterranean Imaginary one hundred years ago.

The hegemonic role of neoliberal ideas in today's political-economic thought and practice has shaped the common way of thinking about freedom in Western society and more generally in the international community. This involves a negative, individualistic and market-centred interpretation of the concept. In contrast, visions of a degrowth society offer a radical alternative based on Cornelius Castoriadis' notion of individual and social autonomy. We present both positions and explain their differences. We then follow this up by reporting on a questionnaire conducted at the 2018 Degrowth Conference in Malmö, Sweden. This empirical study of the degrowth movement probes the extent to which advocates actually follow the Castoriadian as opposed to the hegemonic neoliberal theory. While participants were found to hold positions consistent with the Castoriadian theory, we also identify contradictory and under-conceptualised aspects in their understanding of freedom. This points to the need for the degrowth movement to directly address its theoretical foundations, and elaborate on and strengthen its vision of freedom compatible with a future degrowth society in order to avoid potential co-option and becoming sub-hegemonic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philosophy attributes to mathematics the exclusive capacity of constructing pure knowledge - i.e. the thinking (of ideas) - reserving for itself the modes of its representation. In the first part of the article, we briefly trace the reverberations of representation stemming from mathematics in the thought from Descartes, Kant to Heidegger, and investigate how they unfold and influence the contemporary philosophies of Alain Badiou and Cornelius Castoriadis. Although the two share a common ontological root in Cantor's naïve set theory, this aspect of their thought remains relatively unrelated. In the second part, we closely examine the respective usage of the notion of representation and its transmutation to a mathematical concept of inconsistent multiplicity, consequently arguing for a rare, but particularly important point of convergence of the two thinkers. It is this contradictory inconsistent multiplicity that represents an abstract concept for thinking Magmas (Castoriadis) or the Absolute (Badiou) - both conceiving it as the place in which Truth(s) are either ex-nihilo created or eternally residing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses successive positions of the Frankfurt School, contrasts them to the unfolding ideas of Castoriadis and argues for a critical theory centred on a concept of autonomy, but aware of the obstacles and complications inherent in social–historical reality and its modern configuration. To clarify this perspective, we need a concept of society that distances itself from the Parsonian paradigm, more so than recent theorists of the Frankfurt School have done. The critique of over-integrated images of society, developed by various sociologists in the 1970s and 1980s but not properly assimilated by the mainstream of the discipline and never taken on board by Frankfurt theorists, is an important source of reference, and it can be taken further in the light of Castoriadis's reflections on the social–historical. The result is a definition of autonomy as a capacity of explicit and unlimited interrogation, confronted with its own hubristic temptations in the context of a multidimensional social world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay will discuss the combined seminars presented in the book “The Greek Imaginary: from Homer to Heraclitus” by Cornelius Castoriadis. In these seminars he dissects Ancient Greek culture, politics, and religion in an investigative and analytic way. Through ancient Greek mythology and the Homeric texts a lot of information can be derived regarding the everyday lives, ideology, and philosophy of the time; all of the aforementioned will be explicated as well as the way Castoriadis specifically interprets certain aspects of ancient Greek life in his own unique way. Additionally, we will look into the language of the texts, the meaning of the French vocabulary that was used at the seminars and the ways in which it can be accurately translated in English.

Andrey Rolyenok's conversation/correspondence with David Ames Curtis on Cornelius Castoriadis's legacy, its preservation, promotion, and critical updating in the context of the current socio-political situation took place in January-March 2023. The contribution of the Agora International Association to the development and extension of Castoriadis's work is considered in the interview. The origins of Castoriadis's thought (break with Marxism, revision of psychoanalysis, influence of Martin Heidegger's ideas, return to ancient philosophy, etc.) are evoked. Key ideas of Castoriadis are reconstructed and contextualized (the project of individual and collective autonomy, creativity, and the rising tide of insignificancy). The problem of the reception and critique of Castoriadis's ideas in contemporary social thought is articulated (e.g. in Zygmunt Bauman's theory of liquid modernity). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article raises the question of fundamental identification and difference between the totalitarian regimes of fascism/Nazism and communism, followed by a discussion of their status in the first period of the post-Soviet political transit. The main arguments in favour of identifying both types of totalitarianism and marking fundamental moments of distinction were reflected in the polemic of A. BesanQon and L. Koiakowski. Criticism of the totalitarianism of fascist and communist types in the works of the French philosopher of Greek origin Cornelius Castoriadis allows seeing the features that connect most totalitarian regimes despite the difference in their ideological programs, which can represent a certain threat even for modern societies. It also highlights those points of the Russian (Soviet) project of Communist society that allow differentiating between the Nazi and Communistic types of the Imaginary. Finally, the article considers the main types of public heteronomy, characteristic of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, as well as the neoliberal model of consumption society. According to Castoriadis, they are contrary to the ideas of social emancipation, replacing it with their principles of (pseudo) rational domination, against which his own project of collective social autonomy stands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an extended introduction to the thematic column of Topos dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997), a famous French philosopher of Greek origin. The text aims to critically actualise the intellectual legacy of Castoriadis and justify its significance in the context of the current situation. The author considers such topics as the irrelevance of Castoriadis's ideas in the post-Soviet intellectual context; the multiplicity of his professional identities (philosopher, economist, psychoanalyst, political activist, etc.) and the milestones of his biography; the fragmentary and thematically diverse nature of his work; the unique and radical character of his philosophical project; the complexity of his narrow disciplinary, ideological and methodological identification, etc. Addressing Castoriadis's intellectual legacy in this column is a call to continue philosophical enquiries based on the valuable insights that can be found in his texts, as well as in the whole perspective of the normative horizon of the autonomy project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay will discuss the combined seminars presented in the book "The Greek Imaginary: from Homer to Heraclitus" by Cornelius Castoriadis. In these seminars he dissects Ancient Greek culture, politics, and religion in an investigative and analytic way. Through ancient Greek mythology and the Homeric texts a lot of information can be derived regarding the everyday lives, ideology, and philosophy of the time; all of the aforementioned will be explicated as well as the way Castoriadis specifically interprets certain aspects of ancient Greek life in his own unique way. Additionally, we will look into the language of the texts, the meaning of the French vocabulary that was used at the seminars and the ways in which it can be accurately translated in English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Este texto presenta una visión panorámica y sintética de lo imaginario en Cornelius Castoriadis. Primero, una breve semblanza del autor, su aproximación al psicoanálisis y su vinculación; después, su separación de Jacques Lacan. Enseguida se analizan sus planteamientos sobre lo imaginario en los dos dominios que reconoce como inseparables e irreductibles: el dominio de la psique y el histórico-social. Lo imaginario en la psique, actúa como imaginación radical que es creación incesante de representaciones, afectos y deseos. En el dominio histórico-social se presenta como lo imaginario social, creador de instituciones, que se mantienen en la tensión de la repetición de lo instituido y la diferencia de lo instituyente. Por último, se analizan los conceptos de sujeto y de autonomía.

En este texto se propone pensar de qué manera, un proyecto centrado en una ontología de la creación permite pensar la institución de una nueva manera de conocer: la etnografía. ¿Qué podría conectar los cien años del nacimiento de Castoriadis con el centenario de una obra como Los argonautas del pacífico occidental de Malinowski?, ¿cómo se discuten sus vigencias, qué los conecta hoy, cien años después?, ¿puede una antropología filosófica estar en relación con los dilemas del trabajo de campo etnográfico?

En este ensayo se propone recuperar los aportes que, dispersos en distintas intervenciones, Castoriadis brinda respecto del estudio de los afectos en tanto vector del mundo de sentidos sociales. En primer término, se establecen los lineamientos epistemológicos del autor en la indagación de lo sociohistórico, enfatizando en los aspectos pertinentes a los afectos. En segundo término, se identifican dos modos de aproximación a esta dimensión: el estudio de la creación sociohistórica de nuevos afectos y la perspectiva transaccional sobre las configuraciones afectivas. Para finalizar, se ensaya una breve reflexión al respecto de los afectos predominantes en la época contemporánea, centrada en el pasaje del conformismo y la apatía a la indignación y el resentimiento.

This paper explores John Dewey's debt to Hegel by examining the relationship between his conception of growth and Bildung. Dewey's notion of the progressive subject takes the project of education as unending—it is both a personal and collective process that strives to synthesise competing social values democratically. Despite Dewey's rejection of absolutism and idealism, his teleological commitment to democracy reveals his tendency to revert to Hegel's philosophical ideals. Although Dewey was aware of capitalism's power to eclipse the advance of democracy, the Deweyan subject is no less a rational actor than homo economicus, making educational and democratic growth easily susceptible to market forces. This examination questions the extent to which our contemporary understanding of educational growth, inherited from Dewey, grounds itself in self-limitation—a quality that is central to the degrowth movement. This paper will evaluate whether Dewey's concept of growth is compatible with economic degrowth and its understanding of finite natural resources and the environmental dangers of capitalist expansion. An answer lies in the philosophy of Cornelius Castoriadis, who contended that self-limitation is essential for democracy to thrive and for the character of the social imaginary to shift. As we face a global environmental crisis, this shift is necessary. This article investigates whether Bildung, growth, and Castoriadis' concept of paideia are all the same idea by different names, equally prone to neoliberal 'reconciliation' or able to penetrate the current dominant imaginary towards degrowth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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El presente trabajo tiene como propósito poner en relación las propuestas de dos autores que son herederos del marxismo y la teoría del lenguaje con una fuerte impronta histórico-social: nos referimos a las obras prolíficas de Marc Angenot y Cornelius Castoriadis. Proponemos mostrar relaciones, tensiones y distanciamientos con la hipótesis de que la teoría del discurso social, del primero, y la teoría de los imaginarios sociales, del segundo, son relevantes para seguir pensando una semiótica marxista. Nos centraremos en las nociones de imaginarios sociales, imaginario radical, discurso social, hegemonía, heteronomía, discurso, lo histórico social, entre otras.

In this paper I discuss the relationship between Cornelius Castoriadis and Ancient Greece by focusing on the meaning of tradition and on the possibility to produce new philosophical and political reflections through it. I analyze the general features of his reading and I argue that his interest also develops in many texts and forms. I distinguish different dimensions of this relationship, which does not concern only the analysis of Greek society but also that of philosophers and their works. I clarify that Castoriadis turns to ancient authors' texts in order to philosophize through them and to develop his own thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cornelius Castoriadis's entire work has been all along devoted to pursuing a vehement critique of all kinds of ontological foundation of political institution. His fostering of the radically social-historical characters of collectivity has been constantly played against the aspiration to base contingency upon absolute precepts. Nevertheless, as I attempt to show in this paper, his institutional theory, while freeing itself from ontological absolutes, risks being haunted by another kind of absolutism, one of democratic outline. Such an absolutistic seduction, in my view, takes the form of a strong, all too strong defense of direct democracy and radical autonomy as well as rejection of political representation. As a consequence, Castoriadis's discourse can be viewed as inhabited by a structural contradiction: while the search for an originary purity is discarded at the ontological level, it shows its phantasmatic perpetuation in the realm of politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short article tries first of all to convey the relevance of a philosophy such as the one developed by Castoriadis in a non-systematic and somehow idiosyncratic way and yet deeply coherent in its conclusive sense. It is a patrimony of ideas and theses that have still to be explored, used and elaborated from a perspective that privileges a critical view about the whole of our practice and being. However, Castoriadis' a-systematic system should itself be critically tested. How much the promise of autonomy and truth it is embodying is truly realized and followed in the spires of its argument? There are at least six weak points in Castoriadis' "system" that the article intends to present and cursorily discuss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Castoriadis' attention for the radical and unmotivated creations of the imaginary has always been perceived as a paradigmatic example of anti-naturalism. In recent years, however, some scholars have challenged this assumption and highlighted the crucial role of physis in his later writings. In this essay, I focus on this debate - is Castoriadis a naturalist or an anti-naturalist thinker? - to show how both options risk being one-sided. Against anti-naturalist readings, nature is always a central theme for Castoriadis, from The Imaginary Institution of Society to his ecological writings. In spite of this attention for nature, however, his later treatment of physis does not seem to solve the anti-naturalist tensions of his thought. In what follows, I will at first reconstruct the sense in which the social imaginary "leans on" nature, according to Castoriadis (§1); I will then reflect on some of the essays in which Castoriadis clarifies his conception of living and non-living nature, highlighting a possible tension between two levels (§2); lastly, I will focus on the structural link between capitalism and climate crisis. My claim is that Castoriadis' attention for nature as a political issue exasperates, rather than solving, the tension between physis and nomos (§3). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of epochal events - the 2008 crisis, the pandemic, the war - are pushing us to rethink our institutions. Thus, especially in Italy, there has been a return to the question of what an institution is, how it can be and endure, how a tension lives in it between the "instituted" and the "instituting", and how the instituting element must be valorised to ensure that associated life does not wither. Cornelius Castoriadis is one of the authors rediscovered in this debate, as he gave the category of institution not only a political, economic or social value, but an ontological one. However, his thought is still insufficiently known and its potential is still underestimated. The aim of this essay is to reconstruct the first phase of Castoriadis' thought, from his arrival in France to the publication of his most famous work in 1975. By traversing the years of political militancy, his adherence to and then his critique of Marxism, and by reconstructing his relationship with other intellectuals of the time - Sartre, Lefort, Lyotard, Debord, Merleau-Ponty - one can not only find the roots of the category of institution and grasp the profound significance of his project of autonomy, but also understand the relevance of his analysis and draw insights for today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bernhard Waldenfels devoted to Cornelius Castoriadis' thought two important essays: Der Primat der Einbildungskfraft (1989) and Revolutionäre Praxis und ontologische Kreation (2012). A close reading of these texts, which speak to an intense philosophical and personal engagement, allows one to ascertain the affinities and distances between the conceptual mainstays of their philosophies, namely ontological creation in Castoriadis and responsive phenomenology (as well as phenomenology of the alien) in Waldenfels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay the author devotes a philosophical reading of Castoriadis's ideas of revolutionary praxis and ontological creation. Crucially, a critical appraisal of Castoriadis's notions of «imaginary», «institution» and «autonomy» are developed from the perspective of a phenomenology of alienness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symbolic interactionism has not stalled with the works of major figures such as Goffman. Rather, there is a continuity from symbolic interactionism to post-structuralism / postmodern theory and sociological conflict theory. The paper shows that there has always been an overlap between micro and macro theory, often by intellectuals considered early founders of theoretical approaches at both levels. Furthermore, this evolution demonstrates the viability of symbolic interactionism as critical theory and its applicability for the analysis of inequality from its origins in interactions to the macrostructures that institutionalize stratification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The historiography of Jeddah's tower houses, from the question of their origin to their abandonment by their Saudi owners, serves as an example in this article of how different imaginary institutions of society inform writings on architectural history. Based on a discussion of books, journal articles and Ph.D. theses by Saudi architects from the 1980s and 1990s, as well as a book chapter by Geoffrey R.D. King (1999), this article emphasizes the benefits of drawing on different types of sources and combining both written and oral methods of data collection. It goes on to examine, from a post-foundational perspective, the 'central imaginary significations' (Castoriadis) underpinning these studies of Saudi Arabia's architectural history. Arguing that the institution of an imaginary social unity and collective identity is intrinsic to critical writing on architecture and architectural history in general, the article suggest that the Saudi architects writing in the 1980s and 1990s were concerned about the perceived loss of their society's Muslim identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Marx’s thought, is ‘law of value’ a particular law of capitalism (historicism) or a general law of the economy (naturalism)? To clarify this ambiguity, this article proposes to employ the social ontology of Cornélius Castoriadis. For it, ‘labour’ is not a substance, but a recent historical creation through which, finally, the capitalist mode of production expresses a fundamental truth about all society’s way of being. From this perspective, we explore some consequences of this deconstruction for the theory of value as current neo-Marxist approaches may employ it today in their economic analyses.

Of the various discourses reported by Thucydides, one of the most studied and interpreted is the speech of Diodotus in the Mytilenian debate. The importance of this speech stems from its depth and the fact that it touches on a large number of issues central to any kind of political reflection, such as the role of justice, the place of force and law in a political community, and the relationship between democracy and empire. But do the various studies and interpretations encompass the entire potential for reflection on this subject? The answer is no. Abounding with questions, problems, and reflections, this speech deserves a new reading, one that sets off its deep meaning in the clearest and most precise way. To accomplish this task, the author begins by presenting the context of the discourse, and then describes Leo Strauss's interpretation, centred on the natural right and Diodotus’ supposed authorship of this concept. The article goes on to analyse the Castoriadis seminars on ancient Greece at EHESS, arguing for a very different reading, in which Diodotus is presented as a follower of the traditional Athens thinking. Lastly, the author shows the limits of these interpretations, revealing Diodotus to be a first-rate politician who proposed a new Athenian policy – a policy that seeks to align the empire with democracy by founding a new political institution that goes beyond narrow limits of the city.

Taking inspiration from the vast breadth of Castoriadis' oeuvre, this article provides an ongoing elucidation of the being of human as creation ex nihilo. It does so by engaging with Castoriadis' reflections on the vis formandi pertaining to the human condition and his tentative introduction to the concept of the ' human Nonconscious '. Across many of his essays, Castoriadis refers to the vis formandi of the being of human as an 'a-causal' and as a corporeal power of formation and of creation. Associated with the defunctionalized and the corporeal dimensions of the radical imagination, these two domains of formation and of creation are, for Castoriadis, fundamental to the ontology of the being of human. By exploring Castoriadis' theoretical and practical reflections on the vis formandi of the being of human and the role he accords the two dimensions of the radical imagination, this article offers a new mode of thinking about the being of human as creation ex nihilo – one that addresses the mind body divide by proposing that the human Nonconscious can be envisaged as the dominion of the embodied imagination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital creation is son the defining base of current breaking-off processes which new urban movements star in. In the present protests cycle that began in 2011 -from arab spring at Yo soy 132- it is remarkable how negative processes, rebel imagination and resistence are demanding a new conceptual framework in order to understand the nature of transformations of new social movements. A critical reading of cyberactivism goes through collective imaginaries and contemporary ways of representation of social individual recognizing the radical historicity and the possible vanishing points. On the following pages, we will execute a materialistic review of cyberactivism from some fundamental contributions to develop a socio-critical interpretation of protests and collective action on the Internet Galaxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

El presente trabajo se propone recuperar la reflexión filosófica y psicoanalítica de Cornelius Castoriadis para profundizar en la comprensión de la dimensión representacional de la actividad anímica. En el primer apartado se retoma el modo en que este autor se posiciona al respecto de la obra freudiana y sus planteos acerca de la articulación entre psique, representación e imaginación. Luego, se aborda la capacidad primigenia de representación que Castoriadis postula al nivel de la psique, revisitando los problemas de la delegación de la pulsión y la emergencia de las fantasías originarias en la tradición psicoanalítica freudiana. Finalmente, se propone un modo de abordar las alteraciones de esta capacidad representacional como “modos de organización” estratificados, es decir, como capacidades de “puesta en forma” y “puesta en sentido” cualitativamente diferenciables que se instituyen en la subjetividad durante el devenir psicogenético.

Among the social philosophers Vladimir Fours studied, a special place belongs to Carlos Castoriadis (1922-1997), the French thinker of Greek origin. The article analyzes the intellectual and disciplinary reasons for the relative lack of attention to the legacy of Castoriadis in Russian academic community. His emancipatory interpretations of psychoanalysis was especially unsavory for post-Soviet intellectual conservatism. It was important for Vladimir Fours to see Castoriadis within the framework of Marxism as the antithesis of Althusser's antihumanism -- and, to analyze his ideas in the broader context of the social thought of the early 21st century (A. Giddens, A. Honneth, J. Butler). The article analyzes in details two concepts central to Castoriadis -- "imaginary" (from his 1975 key book) and autonomy. In particular, from the point of view of intellectual history, the imaginary and autonomy were realized in various inverted forms during the "long" twentieth century, taking into account the experience of state socialism and post-Soviet development. Autonomy turns out to be not so much an extension of the old liberty or eternal "human rights" as a concrete set of the problems of civic participation, effective imaginary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper was sparked by comments made by President of Russia Vladimir Putin about the weakness of democracy. It considers the millennia-old notion of paideia and its ancient aspiration towards autonomy as virtues which are necessary for democracy to prevail in the face of authoritarianism. Paideia or the educational instigation of culture is particularly well described by Werner Jaeger. Cornelius Castoriadis has related insights into how democratic culture can be enhanced and defended. After discussing paideia the paper enlists the semiotics of John Poinsot, Charles Sanders Peirce and John Deely as an epistemological basis from which the workings of paideia and the possibilities of autonomy might be assessed. The conclusion discusses education theorist Gert Biesta’s concerns with character, democracy, politics and autonomy. It suggests that Biesta’s notion of subjectification implies a semiotic process of mind which invokes the need for a modern paideia designed to oppose the supposed present deterioration in liberal democracy and its replacement by ‘traditional’ values which is advocated by Mr Putin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]