Cornelius Castoriadis

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Cornelius Castoriadis with the choreographer Clara Gibson Maxwell (1990)

Cornelius Castoriadis ( Greek Κορνήλιος Καστοριάδης - Kornílios Kastoriádis ) (born March 11, 1922 in Constantinople ; † December 26, 1997 in Paris ) was a Greek - French political philosopher and psychoanalyst . He was a trained lawyer and a resistance fighter in the Greek civil war . His theoretical positions can be assigned to post- Marxism .

Life

Title pages of three editions of Socialisme ou Barbarie from the 1950s
Cornelius Castoriadis, portrait by Pablo Secca

In 1922, the year of birth, the Castoriadis family moved from Constantinople to Athens . Here Cornelius Castoriadis studied law , philosophy and economics . During the Metaxas regime he joined the Communist Youth Movement in Athens and in 1941 became a member of the Greek Communist Party , which he left a year later and became an active Trotskyist , whereupon he was persecuted by both the German occupying power and the Communist Party has been. After 1945 he had to get to safety from the communist ELAS . He went to France , where he founded the Socialisme ou barbarie group with Claude Lefort . This group was shaped by a criticism of Stalinism that wanted to go beyond Trotskyism; it emerged from a split in the Trotskyist party of France, but also criticized Trotskyist Holy Cows . In Socialisme ou barbarie to handle elements of council communism on, you emphasized the autonomous action of the working class and assessed workers' uprisings such as in East Berlin in 1953 or Hungary not -Aufstand 1956 as a counter-revolutionary actions. There are interesting similarities with Raniero Panzieri's political views and also with his operaist project. The usual splits arose at Socialisme ou barbarie , and when Castoriadis pushed his critique of Marxian thought and declared that Marxism was incompatible with a revolutionary theory, this contributed to the disintegration of the revolutionary group.

Castoriadis worked for the OECD as an economist for some time and eventually held the position of Director of Statistics, National Accounts and Growth Studies before retiring in 1970. Open political activity in France was denied to him at the time, as he only received French citizenship later. In the 1970s he turned increasingly to psychoanalysis and worked as an analyst from 1973 until his death . In 1975 he married the psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Piera Aulagnier (1923–1990), the marriage was divorced again in 1984. His eldest daughter, Sparta, comes from his first marriage to Rilka Castoriadis. In his third marriage, he lived with Zoé Castoriadis and their daughter Cybèle until his death. From 1979 to 1990 he taught as “Directeur d'études” (professor) at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris as part of the PhD program “Philosophy and Social Sciences” (alongside Louis Marin and Jacques Derrida ). He died on Boxing Day 1997 at the age of 75 as a result of heart surgery in Paris.

Central plant

The most important work of Castoriadis is probably the 1975 published society as an imaginary institution. Draft of a political philosophy (German 1984), the content of which is also related to Castoriadis' work in Socialisme ou Barbarie .

Central is the interpretation of "revolutionary practice" in Castoriadis 'work, which can almost be regarded as a prototype of the theory-practice relationship of socialist theories during Castoriadis' lifetime. In order to adequately understand his conception of a revolutionary practice, other aspects must be considered, e.g. B. his criticism of Marx, of communism and socialism, of a deterministic philosophy of history (and philosophy in general), as well as of the bureaucracy. In addition, his special emphasis on the everyday, autonomy , his understanding of dialectics and the relationship between theory and practice must be taken into account.

The deepening of his philosophical work in the course of the seminars at EHESS was dominated by magmalogics, which he developed based on Bourbaki as a new type of ontology . In doing so, he not only starts from the logic of quantity and identity of determinability, but also from the radical indeterminability of being , which he traces back in the history of philosophy to the ancient apeiron and chaos concepts, whose constant burial under the compulsion of identity- and set logic he also subjects to a partly psychoanalytical-philosophical-historical analysis. Magma logic says more precisely that His is magma and that it is dense everywhere: A magma is that in which (and from what) unlimited quantities of identity logic can be determined; however, a magma always remains as a residue ...

Magmalogic is conceptually related to the ontological, that is to say to the (cultural and social) being-constitutive relevance of the imaginary. Castoriadis revolutionized this term in connection with Lacan , but at the same time to differentiate it from him for cultural theory. He did this by conceiving and differentiating it as a “social imaginary”. This term was quickly used and applied by French-speaking social scientists, above all by “historians of the imaginary” such as Georges Duby , Jacques Le Goff , Nicole Loraux , Michelle Perrot or Pierre Vidal-Naquet .

Although Jürgen Habermas and Bernhard Waldenfels , and Ernst Tugendhat in Berlin seminars, had already referred to the outstanding importance of Castoriadis' work in the 1980s, and despite the English translations, its significance is only gradually being recognized outside the French-speaking world. Simon Critchley's book A Companion to Continental Philosophy , published in 1998, contains at least a contribution to Castoriadis. Aspects of the history of philosophy that have not yet been dealt with concern the connections to Ernst Cassirer or other neo-Kantian thinkers such as Hans Kelsen .

In 2014, the first comprehensive biography of Castoriadis was published, written in French by François Dosse .

Quotes

"If so many people show a superficial interest in false prophets, how much better would it be to pay real attention to this true thinker."

- Nicolas Walter : Freedom. Anarchist Fortnightly August 15, 1998

Fonts

French editions

  • La Brèche: vingt ans après; Réédition du livre de 1968 complété par de nouveaux textes. Paris, 1988.
  • L'imaginaire comme tel. Hermann, 2008, ISBN 978-2-7056-6741-2

German translations

  • Selected writings, 7 volumes. Edited by Michael Halfbrodt & Harald Wolf, Verlag Edition AV, Lich, 2006–2016
  • Paul Cardan (di Cornelius Castoriadis): Workers' councils and self-governing society. Exemplary draft on the nature of self-government ( New Critique series, No. 1). MaD, Hamburg 1974, ISBN 3-8015-0118-3 [ Workers' Councils and the Economics of Self-Managed Societies; Original: SouB. 1957]
  • Paul Cardan (di Cornelius Castoriadis): Postscript to redefine the revolution (= MaD -flugschrift. No. 6). MaD-Verlag, Hamburg 1974 [Paul Cardan: Redefining Revolution. Solidarity Pamphlet, No. 44, 1974; Original: SouB. No. 35, Jan. 1964]
  • Socialism or barbarism. Analyzes and calls for cultural revolutionary change. Wagenbach, Berlin 1980, ISBN 3-8031-1086-6 (therein CC: Introduction from 1972, pp. 9-52, and CC / SouB -Texte, 1949, 1959, 1963. A text from Etudes. Brussels 1960. Everything after the 10/18 edition of the Union génerale d'editions. 8 vols. Paris 1973–1979)
  • Society as an imaginary institution. Draft political philosophy. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1984, ISBN 3-518-57648-8 ; Tb edition: ibid. 1990, ISBN 3-518-28467-3 [Seuil, Paris 1975].
  • Through the labyrinth. Soul, reason, society. European Publishing House, Frankfurt 1981, ISBN 3-434-00434-3 ; Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1983, ISBN 3-518-28035-X [Seuil, Paris 1978].
  • May 68 - the anticipated revolution. Edited by Michael Halfbrodt & Harald Wolf. Publishing house Syndikat A, Moers 2009, ISBN 978-3-9810846-6-5 . [Paris 1968 a. 1988]
  • The imperative of the revolution. In: Ulrich Rödel (Ed. :) Autonomous Society and Libertarian Democracy. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1990, ISBN 3-518-11573-1 , pp. 54ff. (also contains The Greek Polis and the Creation of Democracy. p. 298ff .; Socialism and Autonomous Society. p. 329ff.)
  • The state of the subject today. In: Alice Pechriggl & Karl Reitter: The institution of the imaginary. On the philosophy of Cornelius Castoriadis. Turia and Kant, Vienna / Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-85132-015-8 , p. 11ff.
  • The crisis of Marxism and the crisis of politics. In: Institute for Social Research (Hrsg.): Critique and Utopia in the work of Herbert Marcuse. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1992, ISBN 3-518-28637-4 , p. 51ff.
  • The “rationality” of capitalism. In: ARCHIVE of resistance and work. No. 16, Germinal Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-88663-416-7 , p. 425ff. (in the volume further contributions to / from members of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group, such as A. Gabler, C. Lefort, D. Mothé, H. Simon, D. Blanchard)

English edited volumes

  • Philosophy, Politics, Autonomy. Oxford University Press, New York / Oxford 1991.
  • World in Fragments. Writings on Politics, Society, Psychoanalysis, and the Imagination. Stanford University Press, 1997.
  • David Ames Curtis (Ed.): The Castoriadis Reader. Blackwell Publishers, Oxford 1997, ISBN 1-55786-704-6 .

Work editions

The 10/18 edition

Texts from Socialisme ou barbarie and related texts, this seven-volume edition of the Union génerale d'editions (Paris, 1973–1979) also included L'institution imaginaire de la société [Le Seuil, Paris, 1975].

  • Volume I: La société bureaucratique. 2 partial floors. 1973.
  • Volume II: La dynamique du capitalisme.
  • Volume III: Capitalisme moderne et revolution. 2 partial floors. 1979.
  • Volume IV: Le contenu du socialisme. 1979.
  • Volume V: L'expérience du mouvement ouvrier. 2 partial floors. 1974.
  • Volume VI: L'institution imaginaire de la société. 1975, ISBN 2-02-036562-6
  • Volume VII: La société française. 1979.

French single editions and further work editions

The most important works were published by Seuil, Paris, as paperback (some of them are already available as paperback):

  • Les Carrefours du labyrinthe. 6 volumes
    • Les Carrefours du labyrinthe (I). 1978
    • Domaines de l'homme (Les carrefours du labyrinthe II). 1986
    • Le Monde morcelé (Les carrefours du labyrinthe III). 1990
    • La Montée de l'insignifiance (Les carrefours du labyrinthe IV). 1996
    • Fait et à faire (Les carrefours du labyrinthe V). 1997
    • Figures du pensable (Les carrefours du labyrinthe VI). 1998
  • Sur "Le Politique" de Plato. 1999, ISBN 2-02-036570-7
  • La creation humaine
    • Subject et vérité dans le monde social-historique. La création humaine 1. 2002
    • Ce qui fait la Grèce, 1st D'Homère à Héraclite. La création humaine 2nd 2004
    • Ce qui fait la Grèce, 2. La cité et les lois. La création humaine 3rd 2008, ISBN 978-2-02-097141-6
  • Une Société à la dérive, entretiens et débats 1974-1997. 2005
  • Fenêtre sur le chaos. 2007, ISBN 978-2-02-090826-9
  • Histoire et création: Textes philosophiques inédits, 1945-1967. 2009, ISBN 978-2-02-093225-7
  • "Ce qui fait la Grèce, 3rd Thucydide, la force et le droit. 3rd 2011.

In addition, other publishers in France have published:

English editions of works

Political and Social Writings. 3 volumes. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis / London 1988–1993.

  • Volume 1: 1946-1955: From the Critique of Bureaucracy to the Positive Content of Socialism
  • Volume 2: 1955-1960: From the Workers' Struggle against Bureaucracy to Revolution in the Age of Modern Capitalism
  • Volume 3: 1961-1979: Recommencing the Revolution: From Socialism to the Autonomous Society

German editions of works

literature

  • Aristotelis Agridopoulos and Paul Sörensen (eds.) (2016): Imagination - Autonomy - Radical Democracy: Cornelius Castoriadis' political thinking (special issue ), in: kultuRevolution. Journal for Applied Discourse Theory , No. 71, 02/2016.
  • Fabio Ciaramelli: An Introduction to Cornelius Castoriadis' Work . In: JEP - European Journal of Psychoanalysis. Number 6, winter 1998.
  • Nicola Condoleo: From Imaginary to Autonomy. Foundations of the political philosophy of Cornelius Castoriadis. Bielefeld: transcript 2015, ISBN 978-3-8376-3189-0 .
  • Heike Delitz: The imaginary and the unpredictable institution of society (Cornelius Castoriadis). In: dies .: Bergson Effects. Aversions and attractions in French sociological thought. Velbrück, Weilerswist 2015, pp. 401–424.
  • François Dosse : Cornelius Castoriadis. Une vie , Paris, La Découverte, 2014.
  • Takis Fotopoulos : Obituary: Castoriadis and the democratic tradition . In: Democracy & Nature. The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy. Vol. 4, No. 1, 1997.
  • Andrea Gabler: Anticipated Autonomy. On the theory and practice of the “Socialisme ou Barbarie” group (1949–1967). Offizin, Hannover 2008, ISBN 978-3-930345-64-9 .
  • Andrea Gabler: The despotism of the factory and the semblance of freedom. Evidence from everyday Fordist work, collected by “Socialisme ou Barbarie”. In: Archives for the history of resistance and work. 16, 2001, pp. 349-378 ( PDF; 129 KB ).
  • Lars Gertenbach: Cornelius Castoriadis. Social practice and radical imagination. In: Stephan Moebius , Dirk Quadflieg (ed.): Culture. Present theories. 2nd Edition. VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-16775-6 , pp. 277-289.
  • Ingrid Gilcher-Holtey: “The imagination of power”. May 68 in France. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-518-28780-X , in particular p. 48 ff.
  • Jürgen Habermas : The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. 12 lectures. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-518-57722-0 (excursus on Castoriadis: Die Imaginäre Institution. P. 380 ff.).
  • Martin Hagemeier: Giving form to chaos. An Introduction to Cornelius Castoriadis. Books on Demand: Norderstedt 2014, ISBN 978-3-7357-5139-3 .
  • Stephen Hastings-King: On the passage of some people through a fairly short unit of time: The Situationist International, Socialisme ou Barbarie and the crisis of the Marxist imaginary. In: Roberto Ohrt (ed.): The great game. The situationists between politics and art. Edition Nautilus, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-89401-349-4 .
  • Axel Honneth : An ontological salvation of the revolution. On the social theory of Cornelius Castoriadis. In: Mercury . Issue 439/440, 1985.
  • Hans Joas , Wolfgang Knöbl: Social Theory. Twenty introductory lectures. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-518-29269-2 ; including 16th lecture French anti-structuralists (Cornelius Castoriadis, Alain Touraine, Paul Ricoeur). Esp. Pp. 558-579.
  • Susanne Lüdemann: Society as an imaginary institution. Excursus on Cornelius Castoriadis. In: Metaphors of Society. Studies on the sociological and political imaginary. Fink, Paderborn / Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7705-3989-3 , pp. 47-61.
  • S. Münster: Castoriadis: the revolutionary project . In: grassroots revolution . 227, March 1998.
  • Alice Pechriggl, Karl Reitter (ed.): The institution of the imaginary. On the philosophy of Cornélius Castoriadis. Turia & Kant, Vienna / Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-85132-015-8 .
  • Johannes Rauwald: Political and literary poetology (s) of the imaginary. On the potential of the forces of (self) change at Cornelius Castoriadis and Alfred Döblin. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-8260-5040-4 .
  • Leander Scholz: The sublimity of the general. Imagination and political order in Castoriadis and Kant. In: Martin Doll, Oliver Kohns (ed.): The imaginary dimension of politics (= texts on political aesthetics. Vol. 1). Fink, Munich 2014, pp. 91–111.
  • Robert Seyfert: Cornelius Castoriadis: Institution, Power, Politics. In: Ulrich Bröckling , Robert Feustel (Ed.): Thinking about politics. Contemporary positions. Transcript, Bielefeld 2010, ISBN 978-3-8376-1160-1 , pp. 253-272.
  • Michael Sommer, Dieter Wolf : Imaginary meanings and historical barriers to knowledge. A criticism of Cornelius Castoriadis. Argument, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-88619-344-8 ( PDF; 1.124 MB ).
  • Paul Sörensen: Alienation as a key concept in a critical theory of politics. A systematization in the outcome of Karl Marx, Hannah Arendt and Cornelius Castoriadis. Nomos: Baden-Baden 2016. ISBN 978-3-8487-2535-9 .
  • Harald Wolf: Start the revolution again. About Cornelius Castoriadis and “Socialisme ou Barbarie”. In: ARCHIVE for the history of resistance and work. No. 15, Germinal Verlag, Fernwald 1998, ISBN 3-88663-415-9 , p. 69 ff. (In the same volume: Castoriadis: The question of the history of the labor movement. P. 15 ff.).
  • Max Zulauf: autonomy or barbarism. An overview of the work of Cornelius Castoriadis . In: Direct Action . No. 149, January / February 2002 ( PDF; 166 KB ).

Web links

Commons : Cornelius Castoriadis  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Paul Cardan: Marxisme et théorie révolutionnaire. No. 36, April-June 1964, pp. 1-25
  2. ^ David Ames Curtis: Cornelius Castoriadis Dies at 75 . December 31, 1997
personal data
SURNAME Castoriadis, Cornelius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Καστοριάδης, Κορνήλιος (Greek); Cardan, Paul (pseudonym); Coudray, Jean Marc (pseudonym); Chalieu, Pierre (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greco-French psychoanalyst, lawyer and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Constantinople , Ottoman Empire
DATE OF DEATH December 26, 1997
Place of death Paris , France