Studiekretsar / Krets 8 2007-2009 Projektbeskrivning 

Creation, Rationality and Autonomy/

Projektbeskrivning

Inlagd i augusti 2006

Creation, Rationality and Autonomy

Projektbeskrivning

After a very productive period in the 1980's and 90's, poststructuralist and postmodernist thought now seem to be generating less controversy as well as original insights. The idea of socially constructed knowledge no longer automatically evokes "the table argument" ("You see this table? BANG! How socially constructed is that!?!"). In the humanities and social studies, "truth" is hardly ever conceived as independent of human meaning-making; "politics" is no longer posited as progressing rationality etc.; "power" is convincingly associated with knowledge practices, and no serious study of social meaning - or so it may seem - would fail to point out any hidden notions of "us and them" in its object of study. In short, it may seem that postmodernism and poststructuralism have achieved their goals within the theory of science: to discredit the Grand Narratives of scientific impartiality qua detached objectivism.

This discrediting and its insights are connected to developments in the theory of science during the 20th century. Through a series of "turns" - from the epistemological turn, that demarcated philosophy from (the "metaphysics" of) ontology and defined it basically as theory of science, through the linguistic turn and in some areas, a recent "interpretive turn" - the theorists of science have been sensitized to the importance of language and history even for our scientific conceptions of the world. This awareness does not necessary reject the realist/objectivist position - the world might still be out there - but it definitely posits a relativist/constructivist epistemological stand: truth is what we expect to observe within a language game or within a life world.

The question now is whether we should be theoretically content at this point? Or are there yet uncharted theoretical landscapes to be explored; beyond postmodernism and poststructuralism, or perhaps in a parallel theoretical universe? This study circle contends that there is indeed such a terrain, springing from the complex philosophical, political and psychoanalytical thought of Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997), and the theoretical disputes and issues he shared with his contemporaries; many of which are still pressing. The study circle will be discussing themes from Castoriadis's own rich oeuvre - e.g. political philosophy, ontology/epistemology, psychoanalysis, phenomenology, Greek antiquity, linguistics, social critique and history - as well as other thinkers in the wake of Marx, Freud and Husserl.

On the philosophical level, Castoriadis developed a non-reductive logic-ontology, where creation of new forms is a central dimension of being, and creation of imaginary forms is a central dimension of the psychic and the social-historical being. On the political level, his thought redefines the Western project of freedom as an irreducible and therefore unique social-historical creation: The project of individual and collective autonomy. In Cold War France, Castoriadis was an influential political thinker on the radical, far, non-Stalinist left. In the group Socialisme ou Barbarie, Castoriadis, Claude Lefort and others worked out a theoretical platform for workers' self-management and non-hierarchical autogovernance, against Western as well as Eastern bureaucratic capitalism. The group was very influential of the student revolts of May 1968.


Truth, creation and the imaginary
Castoriadis insists upon talking about human creation, thus focusing on the central question in all kinds of constructivism: the possibility of the new -of new things, thoughts, words, ideas, and institutions. Human creation for Castoriadis is not just seen as a conscious activity, performed intentionally by an individual intending to create a more or less definite something. The most important (and perhaps most insidious) forms of human creation are not attributable or reducible to individual, conscious intentions - at least not in general or in a simple or obvious ways. His focus is on unmotivated creation - that is the "capacity to make emerge [faire émerger] that which is not given, nor derivable, through combinations or otherwise, from what is given." He insists on the crucial difference between causing (in the sense of both necessary and sufficient conditions) and conditioning. But how are we to understand this cleavage inside the domain of human creation? The main reason to insist on creation as conditioned and not as caused is that the alternative is simply and fundamentally absurd. If we do not make account for our ability to create ex nihilo - from nothing - we would have to admit all kinds of oddities. We would, for example, have to accept that everything that now is, from hairdryers and hot-dogs to symphonies and quantum-physics, is out of necessity and therefore, in a sense, has been there (where?) ever since the Big Bang (or what ever arche you choose). Or, if it is not always already there, we would at least have to assume that everything is fully explainable in casual terms - a position that Castoriadis calls 'the myth of being as being-determined'. On these issues, Castoriadis was deeply critical of structuralism, Marxism and all kinds of functionalism. On the other hand, his position is not one of epistemological relativism in the sense that any representation or meaning contents can be associated with any physical phenomenon, in an arbitrary manner. Rather, he maintains that the physical world lends itself to being represented in a certain way, viz. the way it does; a relationship he describes in terms of anaclisis ("leaning on"): The world of social imaginary significations thus "leans on" the physical world; yet the physical provides no resources to explain or understand the psychical representations, nor are they mere external conditions.

Upon the notion of creation Castoriadis develops a non-reductionist logic-ontology of being, which opens up a series of interesting questions awaiting further exploration. At the human and social-historical level, "the imaginary" is the source of creation of psychic and social forms. The imaginary is then not merely constructive of our conceptions of the world but fundamentally constitutive of the human world. Every society constitutes itself from a magma of social imaginary significations, which are embodied in the social practices and institutions. The central significations of modern, Western societies are for Castoriadis rationality and autonomy - and Peter Wagner adds the signification of the individual - which he then sees as the organizing meaning contents underlying our economic, political and social institutions.


The Projects of Rationality and Autonomy
The question of autonomy is central in Western thought since antiquity. From Kant, the term signifies a person's voluntary commitment to principles of universal validity. Marx defines it as recognition of necessity. The autonomy theme in Castoriadis's work is conceived as quite contrary to such commitment to universality, necessity, rational determination etc., viz. in terms of conscious meaning creation. As the human world for Castoriadis is a world of humanly created meaning, of "social imaginary significations" and institutions - and yet, the world itself being meaningless - to become autonomous means to become conscious of this very process of meaning making. "Autonomy" for Castoriadis has ontological, epistemological and political aspects. The political aspect was a vivid theme in Castoriadis's life as a political activist thinker on the far left in post-war France. In the small, but influential group, Socialisme ou Barbarie, publishing a journal by the same name (1949-1967), Castoriadis was the leading thinker along with Claude Lefort, Jean-Francois Lyotard, worker-sociologist Daniel Mothé and others. The temporary influence in the sixties on the situationist movement through the filmmaker Guy Debord contributed to the spread of Castoriadis ideas on autonomy; as did Daniel Cohn-Bendit in May '68.

Castoriadis's notion of autonomy is an individual and collective project. The idea first appeared in the Greek polis, Athens; in the twin birth of democracy and philosophy. Here, for the first time, the validity and "universality" of traditional institutions was questioned. The Athenians were the first to realize that they were the source of their social laws and norms; a realization which reappeared in Western enlightenment and democratization. Most societies, however, are in a state of heteronomy, meaning that the laws guiding the social institution is seen as emanating from a source outside of itself; as given from an extra-social source, such as God, nature, the laws of history - or the "laws" of the market. These societies are marked by repetition and closure of meaning; making them resistant to change. Paradoxically, modern capitalist societies create the drive towards autonomy while at the same time suppressing, since they depend on the fact that executants actively oppose what is imposed upon them.

There is a genuinely political side to Castoriadis' refutation of the Platonic search for universality and essentialist truth, as well as traditional historiography, which becomes clear when one considers his use of ancient Athens as a "seed" to ourselves. He uses two elements of Athenian history in particular. One is the existence of the tragic genre, a genre in which essentialist truth does not exist, and therefore a genre towards which Plato had the greatest contempt. This tragic lack of truthful answers is to Castoriadis' an example of the imaginary institution of society, because it throws the actors back on their own reason and intuition in their actions. The second element from Athens is the political complementary to tragedy, to be found in the inscriptions of the popular assembly: The Athenian people deemed it right to decide.... The total lack of truth or dogma in the political life of Athens constitutes the birth of political philosophy and vice versa. Castoriadis's use of Athens as an empirical example to understand ourselves, thus, highlights his unique historical philosophy which traverses the idea of historical singularity set against the universality of philosophy.

The modern West recreated the project of autonomy, but did it while simultaneously trying to find a rational foundation for it - in the principles of universal validity, or in the necessities imposed by the laws of history or the nature of man. In fact, what poststructuralist and postmodern thought has deconstructed is the possibility of such a rational foundation. Castoriadis's thought goes beyond that epistemological deconstruction, by arguing that creations in general and imaginary creations in particular lack any ontological foundation. In this way, it opens up a landscape of investigation where the project of autonomy can be re-posited and discussed without recourse to the imperative of rational foundation.


Some Aims and Research Interests
A central point in Castoriadis's thought, not least in relation to Marx and poststructuralism/postmodernism is his logic-ontology. Via this philosophical "ground-work", he is able to define being as the creation and alteration/destruction of forms (eide), to define the imaginary as constitutive of the psyche and the social-historical and as indefinite sources of creation of new psychic and social forms; one of which is autonomy. His explicit endeavor to develop a new logic-ontology of being in general, and of the human (psychic) and social-historical being in particular, opens up some interesting research themes:

To explicate this logic-ontology and its distinctive implications for the human and social-historical research, both in its own terms and in relation to some other predominant currents of thought such as positivism, Marxism, hermeneutics, social constructivism, postmodernism, etc. This makes it possible to elucidate some philosophical dilemmas and themes such as knowledge, truth, objectivity, subjectivity, relativity, etc.

Castoriadis conception of rational domination and autonomy as the two central imaginary signification that are underlying the economic, political and social project as well as the institutions of modern western societies opens up new perspectives for the human and social-historical research, namely, to elucidate these projects and institutions in terms of the significations that they convey and embody.

During his career Castoriadis influenced and was influenced by and involved in critical discussions with a whole range of important contemporary, mostly French, thinkers, such as the philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, sociologist Edgar Morin, the historian Pierre Vidal- Naquet and sociologist Alain Touraine. He was also involved with one of the branches of Lacanian psychoanalysis; although himself strongly critical of Lacan's ground assumptions on the subject. His influence was not limited to France. The roots of Castoriadis intellectual development can be traced to his early years in Greece. During the later years he returned to the studies of classical Greek philosophy. In the fifties Castoriadis collaborated with the American group of activists around the Trinidadian writer and philosopher C.L.R James, today one of the most important names in what is known as post-colonial studies. Later Castoriadis work was made known through his British translator Maurice Brinton, whose own writings show considerable influences from Castoriadis. In Italy Socialisme ou Barbarie also influenced what later has become known as operaismo or autonomous Marxism.

Castoriadis, despite his marginal position in relation to what in academia today is known as "French theory", appears as a central figure in a segment of French and international thought during the second half of the twentieth century. In addition to the already existing Castoriadis research networks, the interest of the circle therefore also extends to thinkers such as those mentioned above, particularly if they contribute to the understanding and critical development of the central themes of Castoriadis thought.


Proponents:
Ingerid S. Straume, philosophy of education, Institute for Educational Research, University of Oslo (coordinator)
Anders Ramsay, sociology, Department of Health and Society, Malmö University College, Department of Social Sciences and Humanities, Kalmar University College (coordinator)
Mona Ringvej, history, IAKH, University of Oslo
Mats Rosengren, philosophy, Södertörn University College
Fotis Theodoridis, management studies, Södertörn University College

The proponents have extensive academic networks in Castoriadis studies in the Nordic countries (including Iceland), France, Belgium, Italy, Australia, Greece and more.

References, see:
www.castoriadis.org
www.agorainternational.org

Brinton, Maurice, 2004, For Worker's Power: The Selected Writings of Maurice Brinton, Oakland, CA and Edinburgh, Scotland: AK Press
Castoriadis, C., 1981, Marxisme og revolutionær teori, København: Rhodos
Castoriadis, C., 1984, Crossroads in the Labyrinth, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press and Brighton, England: Harvester Press
Castoriadis, C., 1987, The Imaginary Institution of Society, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press and Cambridge, England: Polity Press
Castoriadis, C., 1988, Political and Social Writings. Volume 1: 1946-1955. From the Critique of Bureaucracy to the Positive Content of Socialism, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
Castoriadis, C., 1988, Political and Social Writings. Volume 2: 1955-1960. From the Workers' Struggle Against Bureaucracy to Revolution in the Age of Modern Capitalism, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
Castoriadis, C., 1991, Philosophy, Politics, Autonomy. Essays in Political Philosophy, New York: Oxford University Press
Castoriadis, C., 1993, Political and Social Writings. Volume 3: 1961-1979. Recommencing the Revolution: From Socialism to the Autonomous Society, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
Castoriadis, C., 1995, Filosofi, politik, autonomi, Stehag: Brutus Östlings Bokförlag Symposion
Castoriadis, C., 1997, World in Fragments. Writings on Politics, Society, Psychoanalysis, and the Imagination, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press
Castoriadis, C., 2003, On Plato's Statesman, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press
Curtis, David Ames, 1992, "Cornelius Castoriadis." In: Social Theory: A Guide to Central Thinkers, Peter Beilharz, ed., North Sydney, Australia: Allen and Unwin, 46-53.
Gottraux, Philippe, 1997. "Socialisme ou Barbarie" : Un engagement politique et intellectuel dans la France de l'après-guerre, Lausanne: Éditions Payot Lausanne
Holmqvist, Bosse, 1993, En ny vetenskap? En kritisk läsning av Edgar Morins La Méthode, Stockholm/Stehag: Brutus Östlings Bokförlag

Journals:
Res Publica, 58 (2003), Tema: Cornelius Castoriadis
Revue européenne des sciences sociales, 86 (décembre 1989); Autonomie et autotransformation de la société. La Philosophie militante de Cornelius Castoriadis, Giovanni Busino, éd. Genève: Droz, (contributions in french, english, italian and german)
Thesis Eleven, 49 (May 1997)
Thesis Eleven, 83 (November 2005)