Berghahn Books

Cornelius Castoriadis contra Postmodernism: Beyond the "French Ideology"

Author(s): Warren Breckman
Source: French Politics and Society, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Spring 1998), pp. 30-42
Published by: Berghahn Books
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 Cornelius Castoriadis contra Postmodernism:
Beyond the "French Ideology"*
by Warren Breckman
Universityof Pennsylvania

Cornelius Castoriadis's intellectualcareer traced a singulararc through

all the major political and intellectualconflictsof postwarEurope. After
his death on December 26, 1997, tributesmemorializedhim as the inci-
sive critic of communismwhose apostasyfromthe "God that failed" in-
spireda vigorousreconceptionof radical politics.From the vantage point
of 1998, Socialisme ou Barbarie, the left-libertarian group and journal
foundedin 1948 by Castoriadisand Claude Lefortaftertheybrokewith all
the main tendencies of the French Left, does indeed look prescient
(Hastings-King,Gottraux). Castoriadis'searly Socialismeou Barbariearti-
cles attackedthe Soviet Union forbetrayingMarx's legacyby developing
into a highlyorganizedand particularlyoppressiveformof the "bureau-
cratic capitalism"that,in a morefragmented version,had come to domi-
nate the West. In opposition,Castoriadisidentifiedthe truecontentof so-
cialism with the struggleof people to gain control over their activities,
what he called "autogestion"or "self-management."By the early 1960s,
shortlybeforeSocialisme ou Barbariedisbanded,he came to believe that
Marx's flawedeconomic theory,deterministicphilosophyof history,and
productivistorientationactually implicatedthe originalMarxian spiritin
the twentiethcentury'sderailedsocialistexperiment.The situationcalled
for a starkdecision between remainingeither a "Marxist"or a "revolu-
tionary,"he declared. Castoriadis'sreaffirmed commitmentto revolution
was accompanied by a conviction that the "projectof autonomy,"as he
now describedthe aim of radical politics,requireda thorough- going cri-
tique of "all the framesof referenceand categoriesof inheritedthought"
(1988:32).
Most have focusedon the politicalaspectsof Castoriadis'slifeand workat
the expense of his deepeningeffortto rethinkthe West's inheritedforms
of thought.However,he believed that politics and philosophywere born
in, and are sustainedby, a mutuallyimplicatingquestioningof the already
institutedformsof human societyand belief.That image of co-birthsug-
gests that if Castoriadisis rightlyseen as a "revolutionary"tryingto hold
onto "revolution"afterthe collapse of Marxism,he should also be seen as
a thinkerwho believed that the vocationof reasonhad to be rethought af-
ter the collapse of a rationalistframework. One is temptedto say that the
lattertaskwas ultimatelythe morefundamental, but to do so would violate
the spiritof that very image of mutual inherence.Even though on his
termsthe two tasksshould not be separated,it was Castoriadis'sconcern

whohasdoneso muchtobring
*1wouldliketothankDavidAmesCurtis, Castoriadis
to an English forhis and comments
readership, generous insightful on an draft
earlier
ofthisessay.

Politics
French ,Vol.16,No.2(Spring
& Society 1998)

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 Warren Breckman
with the fateof reason- the humanprospectsof comingto gripswith the
worldand struggling to create an autonomoussociety - that animatedhis
long campaign against what he called the "French ideology."By this he
meant the structuralistand poststructuralistcurrentsthat rose to promi-
nence even as Marxism'shold on French intellectualswaned. This cam-
paign began in the early 1960s with Castoriadis's frequentcriticismof
Lévi-Straussianand Althusserianstructuralism as dubious extensions of
linguisticanalysisand as merelynew editions of modernculture'sobses-
sive seientism.It broadenedby the late 1960s and seventieswhen Castori-
adis's studyof psychoanalysisand subsequenttrainingas a psychoanalyst
broughthim into conflictwith the reigningLacanianism.Throughoutthe
1980s and 1990s, he continuedto addressthe issuesposed by poststruetur-
alism and postmodernism. This side of Castoriadis'swritinghas received
farless attentionthan his interventions againstMarxistand capitalistor-
thodoxies;but it was a crucial and significant
extensionof that initial en-
gagement.An examinationof Castoriadis'srelationto the "Frenchideol-
ogy" is especiallyintriguingbecause in fact he came to addressmany of
the same basic concernsand problems.How was it that Castoriadiscould
stand in what mightbe called a "postmodern"landscape, and yet draw
conclusions about the prospectsfor human knowledge and action that
were diametrically opposed to the morefamiliarpronouncements foundin
the heroes of recentFrench"theory"?
CASTORIADIS AND THE WESTERN TRADITION
The apparentoverlap between Castoriadis and the "French ideology"is
clearest in his assessmentof the westernphilosophical traditionand its
presentcrisis.From the mid-1960sonwards,he linked the "projectof au-
tonomy"to his deepening critique of westernconceptions of being and
knowledge.Accordingto him, the "inheritedlogic-ontology"of this tra-
dition is dominatedby rationalistcategorieswhich reduce all beings to
the single criterionthat, in Kant's words,"to be is to be determined."
Holding to this basic ontological orientation,westernthoughthas priv-
ileged an "ensemblistic- identitary"(functionalist-instrumental)
logic that
seeks to "elaboratethe worldof the determinateand of determination, the
world of categoricaldistinctions. . . , the world of separation"(1997a:
292). The "chaos," "abyss,"and "groundlessness" that Castoriadisalso de-
tected in all being is therebycoveredover, dropsout of sight,or is forced
into the illusionof conformity. In the modernera, "the exorbitantdilation
of the ensemblistic- identitarian,"or "ensidic,"which Castoriadis noticed
alreadyin "the specificturnthat philosophyhas taken since Parmenides,
and especiallysince Plato" (1997a: 307), has produceda "scientificideolo-
gy" that asserts science's progressivemarch toward an exhaustive or-
deringof beings withina "spatio-temporal framework of universalvalidity
and uttertransparency" and proclaimsthe obedience of all that exists to
"naturallaws which are both independentof man and intelligibleto him"
(1984: 150).

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French Politics & Society
Castoriadisarguedthat these beliefshave extendedtheirgripover society
at large and have come to permeate and structureModernity'sself'
understanding. Modern science's "imaginaryschema of the thoroughgoing
"
rationalityof physicalbeing intersectedwith what he called the "central
imaginarysignification of capitalism:the unlimitedexpansionof 'rational'
mastery," which has "penetrated"and "tended to shape the whole of so-
cial life" (1997b: 363). This functionalist-instrumental rationality,he
maintained, has not only created the "managerial- technical" formsof
state and capitalism(includingthe totalitarianformof "bureaucraticcapi-
talism" in Russia), but has also dominated modern thinkingabout the
social-historicalworld.This was the source of some of Castoriadis'smost
criticalcommentsabout Marx, whom he taxed forfallingunder the spell
of technical masteryand the categories of deterministiclogic. But he
even argued that ensidic logic had infiltratedthe thoughtof two figures
who profoundlyinfluencedhim: Max Weber, whose critique of bureau-
craticorganizationand instrumental rationalismdid not preventhim from
reducingthe properobject of social inquiryto the causal domain of pur-
posive behavior,and Freud,who articulatedhis theoryof the Unconscious
in the positivistlanguageof his day.
Justas science's self-understanding restrictsboth its mode of cognition
and its rangeof possibleobjects,ensidic logic cannot recognizewhat is on-
tologicallyunique about the social-historicalworld. In place of inherited
thought'srationalisticimpulseto subject the social and the historicalto
deterministicor teleological logic, Castoriadis emphasized contingency,
creation,and the ex nihiloemergenceof novel formsof social lifeor "radi-
cal alterity."In one of his most distinctive reformulationsof social
thought,the social-historicalis that regionof being formedby the "social
imaginary," the creativepowerby which a societydrawson a "magma"of
and "representations"
"significations" to instituteitselfas a specificmode
and typeof human coexistence.Even thoughCastoriadisemphasizedthat
ex nihilocreation does not occur outside of a concrete context (that is,
neitherin nihilonorcum nihilo)tno model of causalityor dialecticalprocess
(whether"material,"as in Marx, or "ideal," as in Hegel) can exhaustively
explain the imaginativeacts by which a collectivitycreates meaningand
in institutions(1997a: 370).
"materializes"these significations
These dimensionsof Castoriadis's thoughtwould seem to identifyhim
with manyof the concernsof postmodernor poststructural thought.The
convergenceis markedin relationto MartinHeidegger,whose attempted
"De-struktion"of the historyof westernthinkingabout Being exercised
such a stronginfluenceon successivegenerationsof post-WorldWar II
Frenchintellectuals.Like Heidegger,Castoriadisconceived his critiqueof
the westerntraditionon the broadestpossible canvas; although he dis-
tanced himselffromHeidegger'snotion of "ontological difference"(the
differencebetween knowledge of "Being" and of "beings"), Castoriadis
traced the effectsof a millenia-longprivilegingof the ensidic aspects of
overall being that strikinglyresemblesthe West's "forgetting of Being,"

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 Warren Breckman
which Heideggermade the centralthemeof his work.Then, too, Heideg-
ger became preoccupied in his later work with the conjunction of the
westernunderstanding of Being and the rise of modernscience and tech-
nology. And like Heideggerand the French thinkerswho followedhim,
CastoriadislinkedModernityto a certainconception,inauguratedby Des-
cartes and consummatedby Kant, of the human subject or ego as the
and the masterof a worldunderstoodas the manip-
sourceof intelligibility
ulable object of human knowledgeand desire. Furthermore, Castoriadis's
understanding of the social-historical
as an arrayof "social imaginarysig-
nifications"seems to demote the intentionalagencyof subjects,as Jürgen
Habermas has charged;and, in viewinglanguage as world-disclosing and
world-creating,he would seem to be part of the French "linguisticturn"
(Habermas 1991: 327-35). Finally,and perhapsmost profoundly, in com-
mon with figureslike Heidegger,Lacan, Barthes,Foucault, Lyotard,and
Derrida,Castoriadisbelieved that Modernity'sattemptto prescribefor it-
selffirmepistemologicaland ethical foundationsthrougha self-grounding
of reason had collapsed into a permanentcrisisof knowledge.This was a
crisis that Castoriadisanalyzednot only in philosophybut in contempo-
rarymathematics,physics,biology,chemistry,and the human sciences.
In magisterialsurveysof twentieth-century knowledge,he showed how
each of the sciences has been forced to confrontthe contradictionbe-
tween our aspirationto exhaustiveknowledgeand a being that is in its
depths non-totalizable, groundless,and chaotic. In the eclipse of our in-
heritedbearingsforreflectionand action, he insistedon the necessityof
findingnew pathsforthought.
The similaritiesare sufficiently
strongthat Habermas identifiesCastoria-
dis with the later philosophyof Heideggerand has a hard time distin-
guishinghim frompoststructuralism. Several commentators have also not-
ed the similaritiesbetweenthe two thinkerson the questionof technolo-
gy. However, Castoriadis never missed an opportunityto criticize"Hei-
deggerianphilosophy"and its "offshoots" for failingto address the ques-
tions "What are we to think?What are we to do?" at a time when those
questions "are taking on a tragic immediacyand urgency"(1991: 25).
How did Castoriadistryto answerthosequestions?How did he distinguish
himselffromcurrentswhich in many fundamentalways shared his own
rejectionof a uniformnotionof reasonor his own skepticismof what oth-
ers have called the "grandnarratives"of Modernity?To findat least pre-
liminaryanswersto these questions,let us examine the confrontation be-
tween Castoriadisand the "Frenchideology"in threeareas: the problem
of knowledge,the statusof the human subject, and the question of the
meaningof politics.
KNOWLEDGE AND WORLD
In a 1991 interview,Castoriadisclaimed that "the critiqueof 'rationalism*
presentlyunderwayleads to an irrationalism which is simplythe inverse
and to a philosophicalpositionwhich is as old as rationalistmetaphysics

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French Politics & Society
itself.Getting beyond inheritedthoughtpresupposesthe conquest of a
new point of view,which that tendencyis incapableof producing"(1991b:
53). Castoriadis'ssearchforthat new viewpointis perhapsbest examined
in his criticalreflections
on the relationshipbetweenthe historyof scien-
ce and ontology.
Castoriadisshared a greatdeal with theoristswho view scientificknowl-
edge as a social construction.He maintainedthat the problemsand solu-
tions of science are themselvesexpressionsof the social imaginaryas it is
each time instituted.There can be no "pure"historyof science as a self-
unfoldingprocessof empiricalobservationand objective theory-formation,
but Castoriadis still insisted that science has a historyin the "strong
sense." By that he meant,on the one hand, that therehas been a succes-
sion of physicaltheorieswhich are not simplydiachronicallycumulative,
but are instead markedby rupturesand discontinuities, and on the other
hand, that,as in the classic case of the transitionfromNewtonianismto
twentieth-century physics,successivetheorieshave proven capable of be-
ing both "false"in respectto the criteriaof later theoriesand "true"in re-
spect to their ongoing ability to account for significantclasses of facts.
The latterobservationset him againstThomas Kuhn and, morepointedly,
Michel Foucault, for he challenged notions of incommensurable"para-
digms"or "epistemes"that implythat the "historyof science and of hu-
man knowledge[is] nothingbut a successionof equivalent myths."Such
theories,he maintained,cannot "face the questionof the relationshipbe-
tween the Contents'of scientificknowledgeat different stagesof its exis-
tence." Castoriadiswas led fromthiscriticismof Kuhn and Foucaultto in-
quire into what the hibtoryof science tells us about "what is known,"as
well as about the "organisationand content of what, quite simply,is"
(1984: 168-9).
The ontologicaltheorythat Castoriadisadvanced in responseto thisques-
tion is one of the richestbut mostneglectedaspectsof his work,and it is
beyond mycurrentpurposeto do more than indicate the directionof his
speculations.Examiningthe strangeinterplaybetween incommensurabili-
ty and continuity,between theory'sconstructedness and its apparentcor-
respondenceto the world, Castoriadisasked rhetorically whetherour the-
ories could organizean "absolutelychaoticworld"(1997a: 306). The evi-
dence suggestedto him that the world indefinitely lends itselfto our sci-
entificeffortsto describeit in ensidic terms,even if the worldcannot be
exhaustedby the resultingtheoreticalconcepts. This implied,in turn,a
"hithertounsuspectedstratification [of being] ... an organisationof lay-
ers that in part adhere together,in termsof an endless succession in
depth of layersof being that are always organised,but never completely,
alwaysarticulatedtogether,but neverfully"(1984: 172). Where the con-
structivistwould argue that any coherencein natureis the productof the
"categorialschema" which we impose on the world,Castoriadisspeculat-
ed that being itselfhas self-organizing powers,even if only in the mini-
mal sense that "in as faras it is absolutelyunorganised,the real would be

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 Warren Breckman

indefinitelyorganisable,and thus it would still be organisedqua organis-

ait" (1984: 173). RadicalizingHeisenberg^uncertainty principle,in con*
junctionwith GödePs proofsof undecidability, Castoriadisbelieved that it
is impossibleto determinepreciselywhat the observercontributesto this
organizationand what the "real" itselfcontributes.
Science and, for that matter,all living beings are possible, according to
Castoriadis,because theyexist in "parasitizing, or in ontologicalsymbiosis
with, a stratum of total being that is locally ensemblistic- identitary"
(1997a: 307). The notion that the worldlocallylends itselfto ensidic logic
would seem to bringCastoriadis into proximitywith Jean-FrançoisLyo-
tarďs claim that "all that exist are 'islands of determinism' . Catastrophic
antagonismis literallythe rule . . ." (Lyotard1993: 59). But, unlikeCasto-
riadis,Lyotardtakes it for grantedthat there is no connection between
theoryand world. Hence, Lyotardpresentsthe historyof science as a
"narrative"composed by a specific "language game"; in the absence of
any correspondenceto the world,the only way to assess the value of a
specifictheoreticalclaim is its capacity to generate"new moves" within
the rules of the language game in question. By contrast,Castoriadis in-
tended to rethinkontologicallyour understanding of the relationshipbe-
tween knowledgeand its object. This relationshipis not one of "corre-
spondence" but neither is it merelyarbitrary:"the nondeterminationof
what is is not mere'indétermination* in the privativeand ultimatelytrivial
sense. It is creation, namely,emergenceof other determinations,new
laws, new domains of lawfulness.'Indétermination1 (if it does not simply
signify 'our state of ignorance* or a 'statisticalsituation') has a precise
meaning:No state of being is such that it rendersimpossiblethe emer-
gence of otherdeterminations than those alreadyexisting"(1997a: 308).
Along with the evidence of the historyof the theoreticalsciences,Casto-
riadis also enlisted the historyof technology.In each epoch, techique is
embeddedin a specific"constitution of the rationality
of the real." But this
human creation,ex nihilo,of techniquecannot occur unless it makes "ar-
bitraryuse simultaneously of the rationalmake-upof the worldand of its
indeterminateinterstices."Consistent with his broad claim about the
stratificationof being,Castoriadisobservedin the same passage that tech-
nique bringsabout a divisionof the world into "two regionsfundamental
to human making/doing: the region which resistsin everyway, and the
region which (at a given historicalstage) resistsonly in a certain way"
(1984: 240). Those resistancesare "real" in a way that Lyotardwould not
acknowledge,and theyset boundarieson what can and cannot be known
and done. But the specificway in which "nature resists"is never fixed
once and forall.
Castoriadis'sinquiryinto the "ontologicalimportof the historyof science"
takes seriouslyhis own call fora "critique"of knowledgethat is not mere
"skepticism."In contrastto Lyotarďs (or Richard Rorty's) treatmentof
science as literature,or Paul Feyerabend^ "anythinggoes," Castoriadis

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French Politics & Society
triedto rethinkthe "realist"momentthat appearsto residein science and
refusesto go away, despite the epistemologicalcrisis that he so fullyac-
knowledged.Faced by what he regardedas the contemporaryresurgence
in the formof a
of the ancient antithesisof rationalityand irrationality
logic-ontologythat can no longeraccount even for itselfand a postmod-
ern critiquethat pulverizesboth the "object"and the "activity"of science,
Castoriadisattemptedto rethinkthe natureof theoryitself.He arguedthat
we need to rid ourselvesof the age-old heritagethat regardstheoryas the
sovereign activityof the knowing subject and privileges"sight" or vi-
sion- with its implicationof a clear detachmentof observerfromthing
observed- over action and the immanentinvolvementof the observerin
the world. (This was, incidentally,the basis forCastoriadis'scontrastbe-
tween Lacan's identificationof the "imaginary" with "specularity"and his
own association of the imaginarywith radical creativity.)Instead, he
wrote,we need to "understandthat theoryis nothingless, but also noth-
ing more, than a project,a making/doing, the ever-uncertainattemptto
arriveat an elucidationof the world"(1988: 29).
"Elucidation"is one of the key termsin Castoriadis'swork,forit suggests
simultaneously a rejectionof the inheritednotion of "theory"and an affir-
mationof thatactivitywhich illuminatesrelationshipsand schematawith-
in and against the inexhaustibleindeterminacyof the world. This is a
processwhich is interminable and withoutfoundation,but not "unreal"for
all that.Elucidationinvertstraditionaltheory'snotion of the detachedob-
server, emphasizinginstead that thinkingbegins and is possible only
throughthe encounterbetween the subjectand a world that is alwaysal-
ready there; it is a coming to gripswhich is always underway,always in
mediares. Castoriadismeantto signifya mode of thinkingin which "logic
and theorisation,althoughtheyare not mere4instruments,' acquire mean-
ing only through theirimmersion in an activityof which tran-
elucidation
scends themand cannot simplybe subjectedto theircriteria"(1984: 84).
Redefiningtheoryas "practico-poietic" activity,the imaginativeand crea-
tive explorationof an "obscurebut elucidatableworld,"Castoriadiswas led
to one of his most lyricalimages: "We cannot do withoutreason- even
thoughwe know its insufficiency, its limitations.And, exploringthese,we
are again within reason- while of reason itselfwe can give neitherac-
count nor reasons.We are not, forthat,blind or lost. We are able to elu-
cidate what we think,what we are. Having createdour Labyrinth, we sur-
vey it,bit by bit" (1984: xxviii).
ELUCIDATING THE SUBJECT
Castoriadis'sargumentfor the opacity of the world,its resistanceto our
had profoundimplicationsforhis approachto
dreamof total transparency,
the question of human subjectivity.If Castoriadisthe philosopherrecog-
nized that the externalworld is "obscure,"Castoriadis the psychoanalyst
had a deep appreciationforthe obscurityof the interiorworldof the indi-
vidual. He willinglyconceded that the Cartesian "ego," a self-transparent

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 Warren Breckman
and self-presentsubject of knowledge,was untenable, but he was not
temptedto join what he called "an eclectic, incongruous,and unthought-
ful hodgepodge,proclaimingthe 'death of the subject' (and of man, of
meaning,of history,etc.), under the sign of Marx, Nietzsche,and Freud,
but- strangely - with Heideggeras the philosophicalguarantor."In trying
to finda different way,elucidationand encounterwere again centralcat-
egoriesfor Castoriadis.If we are always alreadyin an encounterwith a
"world"that requireselucidation,so too do we encounterourselvesand
othersin such a way that the questionof the subjectcannot be answered
satisfactorilyby pronouncingit fictional.Even if,as Castoriadisbelieved,
most of the time an unconsciouspsyche motivatesthe "subject" and its
pronouncements,or the "subject" is embedded in a time and a social
place, or all statementsare unavoidablymarkedby perspectiveor inter-
pretation,he insistednonethelessthat the "substantiveproblem"remains:
"how can it be that we are capable of any self-reflecti
ve activity,includ-
ing the one leadingus to the above statements[aboutthe death of the sub-
ject] and all the others."Beforethis obvious,even commonsensicalprob-
lem, Castoriadissaw only two options beyond silence. Either we accept
oracularpronouncements, as have the Frenchfollowersof Heidegger,or
we stand "under the obligationof logon didonai - of giving account and
reasonforwhateverwe say and do publicly.Logon didonaidoes not mean,
of course, mathematicaldemonstrationor experimentalcorroboration,
neitherdoes it mean the search forand the exhibitionof a 'foundation.'
But it means that we accept critique and discussion."That is to say, it
calls for an elucidation of the "antinomical" encounter wherein we
recognizethe psychical and social-historicalconditionsfor whateverwe
think and do, yet we still "attemptto think, to discuss and to judge
irrespectiveof these conditions,[and] we intendvalidityforwhat we say
irrespectiveof place, moment,motives,and conditions"(1991a: 29-30).
One of the main vehicles forCastoriadis's reflectionson the subject were
his writingson psychoanalysis. He opened a new path for this inquiryas
earlyas the 1968 essay,"Epilegomenato a Theoryof the Soul Which Has
Been Presentedas a Science," publishedshortlybeforea split in the La-
canian Ecole freudienneled to the creation of the "FourthGroup," the
French Language PsychoanalyticOrganizationfounded by Piera Aulag-
nier,Castoriadis'swifeat the time (Curtis 1997: xxiii). Settingout to de-
tach psychoanalysisfromits embeddednessin the scientificimaginary,
Castoriadisargued that the individualpsyche is at least as resistantto a
reductionistensidic logic as any otherdimensionof being. What he call-
ed the "monadiccore" of the psyche is, rather,a site of radical imagina-
tion, a magma of representations,a force of creation and synthesis,a
"monsterof unifying madness"thatcan be both the germof psychosisand
the "spermof reason"(Whitebrook1995:173). While he creditedFreudfor
thematizingthe Unconscious and posing the question of how the initial
psyche makes the transitionfromtotal self-absorption to socialized "nor-
malcy,"he vigorouslycriticizedthe psychoanalytictradition'sattemptsto

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French Politics & Society
domesticatethe "scandal of the Unconscious." Here, Castoriadis praised
Lacan for shakingthe psychoanalyticestablishment'sossified"positivist"
self-understanding;but significantly,he believed that Lacanianism reach-
ed an impassepreciselybecause it continuedon the road of a traditional
scientificunderstanding of psychoanalysis.Hence, he wrote that the La-
canians could not cope with the tensionbetween the irreducibly singular
individual,which is psychoanalysis's object, and the generalconceptsand
categories which it must necessarilyemploy. Defeated by this tension,
Lacanians could conceive psychoanalytictheoryonly as a "projection,
phantasm,delirium,"insofaras it takes seriouslythe individual,or as a
"science" that establishesits rigorby exposingthe individualas a product
of the objectiveplay of elementswithina structure (1984: 91).
For Castoriadis,the gravestresultof this exclusion of the "subject"from
psychoanalytictheoryis its perverseeffectson psychoanalyticpractice.
Rejecting the identificationof psychoanalysiswith science, therapeutic
"technique," or even "philosophy,"he redefinedpsychoanalysisas a
"practico-poietic"activitythat seeks the transformation of the individual
a
through process of self-examination and learning. Castoriadis under-
stood this, too, as an activityof elucidation undertakenby both analyst
and analysand.It aims not at knowledgebut at autonomy , at "the estab-
lishmentof a certainrelationof the individualto himself,the openingup
to reason of the imaginary, or the transformationof the relationsbetween
unconscious intention and conscious intention" (1984: 36). Castoriadis
emphasizedrepeatedlythat this relationshipcould never be transparent,
both because of the inexhaustibleopacityof the Unconsciousand because
other social-historicalconditionsfor individuallife exist beyond the do-
main of the psyche. However,between Lacanian "practice"and his own
recognitionof the impossibility, not to mentionundesirability, of a thor-
of
ough victory "ego" over "id," Castoriadissaw an insurmountable gulf.
When theoryconvinces us that the "I,Ego (or whatevergrammaticalin-
flexionmay take its place)" is at best a languageeffect,"spoken"by, not
speakinglanguage,then "to speak of alienation [and its overcoming]. . .
becomes simplya language tic. ... if the subject is nothingbut the dis-
course of the other then he is neitheralienated nor non-alienated,he
merelyis thatnon-beingwhichhe is (or is not)" (1984: 18).
Conceiving psychoanalysisas "practico-poietic"activityaimed at auton-
omy,Castoriadisemphasizedthat it takes the "subject"not as its point of
departurebut as its end goal, as its project. In this context,he interposed
betweenthe "psychicalmonad"and the "subject"a thirdregionor level of
human being, the "social individual."The social individualis the product
of a socializationprocess that begins at least at the momentof birthand
inductseach person into an alreadyexistingworld of languageand prac-
tice. Socialization never fullyeradicatesthe resistantcore of the psyche,
but it intrudessufficiently on the intenseegoismof the psychicalmonad
to produce an individual"thatfunctionsadequatelyfor itselfmostof the
time . . . and, above all, functionsadequatelyfromthe point of view of so-

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 Warren Breckman

ciety" (1997b: 155). This thesisput Castoriadisat odds with a numberof

prominentalternativepositions.First,he dismissedthe neo-liberalismof
the 1970s and 1980s, with its revival of the classic liberal preoccupation
with the boundarybetween the "individual"and "society,"arguingthat
the individualis alwaysalreadya productof society;the trueopposition,
rather,is between psychical monad and society. Second, in response to
Habermas's criticismthat this "metaphysicalopposition" allows for no
"mediationbetweenthe individualand society"(Habermas 1991: 334), he
countered aggressively:"One should ask oneself,rather,what metaphy-
sics is hidden behind the idea that everyaffirmation of irreducibility
is
'metaphysical1. The answer is obvious: a unitaryand reductionistmeta-
physics"(1997b: 376). Third, Castoriadisassertedthat "an enormouspart
of the rhetoricof the sixties and seventies concerningthe subject as a
simple effectof language and its 'unbeing' was in fact questioningonly
this social individual,more exactly the (fairlynaive) idea that this indi-
vidual representsa 'substantialreality*
or possessesan 'authenticity/ what-
ever the meaningof these termsmightbe" (1997b: 156).
FROM THE SUBJECT TO POLITICS: THE PROJECT OF AUTONOMY
Poststructuralistand postmoderncriticsof the subjectend theirinquiryat
the "individualfabricatedby society."Castoriadiswent further by insisting
on the capacity for reflectiveself-representationand deliberate activity
which allows the "subjector human subjectivityproperlyspeaking"to put
social boundariesor even itselfinto question.This typeof subjectivityis
an ongoingproject,he stressed,neitheran unattainableideal nor a static
reality.The task of psychoanalysisand, indeed, of all attemptsto aid in
the developmentof human subjectivitythus intersectswith Castoriadis's
largerredefinition of radicalpoliticsas the "projectof autonomy." This is
the strugglefora new "relationof societyto its institutions,forthe instau-
rationof a stateof affairsin which man as a social being is able and will-
ing to regardthe institutionsthat rule his life as his own collective cre-
ations,and hence is able and willingto transform themeach timehe has
the need or the desire"(1988: 31). One can recognizein Castoriadis'sde-
scriptionof autonomya classic themeof Rousseau and the German politi-
cal idealism that he inspired,the association of freedomwith the emer-
gence of a self-consciousrecognitionthat it is human will that createsthe
institutionsof society.Yet if Castoriadisappropriatedelementsfromthe
political thoughtof Rousseau,Kant, Hegel, and above all Fichte,he recast
the strugglefor a self-consciousrelationshipbetween citizens and their
institutionsin termsthat rejected the ideals of social transparency, de-
termination,and every sort of "absolute." Politics, too, in Castoriadis's
view, is part of a world that is obscureyet elucidatable.Consistentwith
his rejectionof all foundationalism, he maintainedthat the value of au-
tonomycannot be "grounded"or "proven";at most,autonomycan be "rea-
sonablyarguedforand arguedabout" once it has emerged(1991a: 172).

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French Politics & Society
This shiftfromfoundationalphilosophicalargumentto the possibilitiesof
civic discourseis a point of convergencebetweenCastoriadisand Haber'
mas, who has soughtthe conditionsof political consensusin the intersub-
jective dynamics and pragmaticsof communication itself. Habermas's
search for the linguistic pre-conditionsof consensus renounces meta-
physics,but in fact it aspiresto foundationalvalidityforcertainformsof
thought,speech, and action. Castoriadisemphasized,moreover,that Ha-
bermas'sattemptto redefinedemocracystrictlyin termsof the procedures
by which the communityreaches consensusneglectsthe extent to which
even a proceduralconceptionof democracyincorporatessubstantivevalue
choices. Democracy is a substantivechoice about the meaningof social
life that elevates freedomabove securityand institutesformsof law, leg-
islation and judgment, in short procedures,that embody this choice
(1997c). Castoriadis'spolitical theorythus incorporatesan elementof pre-
cisely that "decisionism"which has gained such negative connotations
since Carl Schmittmade it the centerof his authoritariancritiqueof the
Rechtstaat.Castoriadismighthave respondedto this observationby asking
once again what sort of metaphysicsis hidden in the belief that norms
and procedurescan be separatedfromthe decision which institutesthem
and gives themeffect.Decision is not equivalentto irrationalism or brute
force. Although the guaranteesof democracyare unavoidably "contin-
gent" and "relative,"theydepend for theireffectiveness on an unceasing
deploymentof "collective activity,"what Castoriadisalso called "explicit
and lucid self-institution."This is why,in place of the rationalistlanguage
of much modernpoliticalphilosophy,he revivedancient Greek termsthat
emphasizethe discursiveand agonisticdimensionsof civic life: Aristotle's
"phronesis,"or prudential,practical wisdom,and "paideia," or education
into citizenship.It is also why he describeddemocracyas the "tragicre-
gime,"the formof social life that explicitlyrenouncesextra-socialsupport
fromgods or transcendentideas and accepts its own responsibilityand
historicalrisk.In one of Castoriadis'scentralarguments - and one of his
mostcontroversial, because it is immediatelyopen to (glib) chargesof Eu-
rocentrism(see Rorty 1988)- he contended that the conditions for a
criticalrelationshipbetweensocietyand its institutions emergedonly twice
in human history,in ancient Athens and again in westernEurope after
the Middle Ages.
Castoriadis'sevaluation of the meaningof the westernhistoricalexperi-
ence and its prospectsconsolidatedmanyof his mostfundamentalthemes.
It markedperhapsthe deepestdivide betweenCastoriadisand the "French
ideology."In the neo-Heideggerianstrainsof his contemporaries, he saw
a radical form of historical reductionism:"To identifythe historyof
Greco-occidentalthoughtwith the closure of metaphysics'and 'onto-theo-
logo-(phallo)-centrism'conjures away the fecundseeds contained in that
history"(1991b: 53). Unlike the postmodernists,Castoriadisdeveloped a
theory of the "dual institution"of Modernity,a view alreadyimplicitin
the veryname of his revolutionary group."Autonomy,"an imaginarysig-

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 Warren Breckman
nificationof the "modernperiod,"has rootsin the westerntraditionevery
bit as deep as those of the ontologicalpresuppositionsthat have fed the
pursuitof rationalisticdomination and technical efficiency.Castoriadis
believed that these imaginarysignifications - autonomyand rationalmas-
tery- have contended for the heart of Modernity,and he saw no neces-
saryor fixedoutcome to this struggle.Hence, he never tiredof stressing
that the projectof autonomyis "alreadyin the processof being realized,"
yet never guaranteed(1997b: 169). In fact,he offereda bleak assessment
of the prospectsforautonomyin the foreseeablefuture.To be sure,Casto-
riadis acknowledgedthe strugglesof women, students,homosexuals,and
racial and ethnic minorities.But he believed that,at least in the wealthy
countries,relativeaffluence,consumerism,television,and leisure,as well
as the decline of working-classpolitics in the postindustrial
context,have
produced a prevailingtrend towarda passive, privatizedcitizenryand a
general complacency toward the prevailing technical imaginary.This
characterizationof the social-historicalsituation led Castoriadis to his
most damningjudgmentsof culturaland philosophic postmodernism.In
demotinghuman agency,in denyingthe possibilityof radical creation,in
deconstructingthe meaning of meaningfulspeech and action, postmod-
ernismhas been a symptomof the "completeatrophyof political imagi-
nation," an expression,even an embraceof the entropyand conformism
of post-World War Two society(1997b: 39). In lightof the fact thatpost-
modernismbecame the intellectualposition that many French intellec-
tuals turnedto when Marxismcollapsed,Castoriadisjudged it to be little
morethan the emptinessthatfilleddie void.
Castoriadishas not been read as widelyas he deserves,and one explana-
tion undoubtedlylies in his staunch refusalof all orthodoxies.His cam-
paign against Marxism and then against the "French ideology" ensured
thathis thoughtswere alwaysout of season. What elevateshis criticalop-
positions- which were sometimestoo polemical, too blunt, or too cryp-
tic- above the merelycontrarianis that he engagedhis object fromwith-
in. His critiques,thoughferocious,were aporetic,his oppositionsnuan-
ced, not absolute. He allowed himselfto be touchedby what he resisted,
allowed it to effecthis thoughteven as he soughtto transform it. One
can see this in his progressivedisengagementfromMarxism,which was
accompaniedby persistenteffortsto forgenew conceptionsof radical so-
cial change. Less famous,but no less significant,Castoriadis's engage-
ment with the successivewaves of post-Marxistintellectualfashionwar-
rantsseriousattentionbecause of the subtle interplaybetweencommonal-
ity and differencethat we witness in it. This was an interplaythat
promptedCastoriadis to begin fromthe same historicaland intellectual
situationand thinktowardradicallydifferent conclusions.Where manyof
the intellectual leaders of his generationwere content to declare the
death of man, he workedinstead to reconceptualizehuman subjectivity,
agency,and the prospectsforautonomy.Against the symptomsof quiet-
ism and resignationthat he detected in the present,he struggledto pre-

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French Politics & Society
and the eman-
serve and extend the Utopianspirit,the radical imaginary,
of
cipatorypotentials Modernity.

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