Talk:Cornelius Castoriadis

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Much as some of Castoriadis' texts and activities have interested me, I feel that "Castoriadis wrote ground-breaking and trail-blazing essays on physics, ..." contains too much of the hyperbole of a publisher's blurb. If a trail has been blazed, at the very least it needs citation of who has followed onto that new ground and in what way? Until then, I've toned-down that assertion. AllyD 20:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jargonistic passage

"One of Castoriadis's many important contributions to social theory was the idea that social change involves radical discontinuities that cannot be understood in terms of any determinate causes or presented as a sequence of events. Change emerges through the social imaginary without determinations, but in order to be socially recognized must be instituted as revolution. Any knowledge of society and social change “can exist only by referring to, or by positing singular entities ... which figure and presentify social imaginary significations.”

This paragraph is extremely difficult for the general reader to interpret - it is in strong need of revision so that a general reader can better understand the ideas of this author. Peter G Werner 01:42, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, and I'm wondering if the paragraph really amount to much more than is encapsulated in the phrase "History as Creation"? (Which was the title of one of the Solidarity (UK) translation pamphlets) AllyD 11:43, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Interest in Creating Entries on His Thought?

I'm curious how many wikipedia users would be interested in working collectively on entries devoted to Castoriadis' thought and concepts. I've added a list of concepts, but no definitions yet. I'd be more likely to begin this work if I knew that there were others out there who would also be interested in participating, and more likely to simply delete the list without such interest. Responses?--Erik.w.davis 22:28, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Imaginary

I'm extremely new to Castoriadis and have only read "Marxism and Revolutionary Theory." The use of the term 'imaginary' in "M. & R. T." seems quite different from the one presented in the entry here. In "M. & R. T." the imaginary is a component of institutions, etc. that sustains their existence and gives them meaning beyond their purely "functional-economic" components. The imaginary is the creative force that allows this sort of meaning to come into being and to cohere in an institution. The entry here seems to simply say that institutions, etc. are themselves 'imaginaries', which seems kind of backwards. Did Castoriadis also use the term in this way? And/or is the entry here in need of clarification? (Perhaps I just haven't read enough)

I think this is an example of why I was calling for others interested in expanding the section on his concepts and thought, rather than trying to pack it all into the 'works' section. Castoriadis does indeed use 'imaginary' in a number of different ways. Offhand and without attempting to be complete, we can talk about a 'radical imaginary,' which is the truly fundamental imaginary of the human being, and to the 'instituted imaginary,' which are those things which have been 'imagined' into being by individuals and society and brought into a reproducing form (with greater or lesser forms of autonomy). You will certainly need to read more than MRT to get a full idea of Castoriadis' thought on this matter. I would recommend finishing the Imaginary Institution of Society (IIS), and then perhaps reading the short essay "Imaginary and Imagination at the crossroads," in Figures of the thinkable, including Passion and Knowledge., pp. 123-152. which is available at http://www.notbored.org: samizdat . Cheers.--Erik.w.davis 19:56, 31 January 2007 (UTC)