Cornelius Castoriadis Archives

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Speculating on Chaos in Financialized Capitalism

Speculations, Spectacles, Spectres

May 30, 2019 • by Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou

Across the channel, during the upheaval caused by the gilets jaunes movement, media and government have condemned protestors’ actions for the continuing chaos they have brought upon France’s city centers. Back in autumn, some weeks before the eruption of the gilet jaunes protests, President Macron used his Armistice Speech to focus on the ...

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Machine Learning and the Project of Autonomy

Technology in the philosophy of Cornelius Castoriadis

September 20, 2018 • by Conrad Moriarty-Cole

“Every society creates its own world, internal and external, and of this creation technique is neither an instrument nor a cause; it is a dimension… an everywhere dense sub-set. For it is present at every point at which the society constitutes what is, for it, the real-rational.” Cornelius Castoriadis, Crossroads in the ...

Machine Learning and the Project of Autonomy

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Feminist Economics Yoga

Political Interruptions, New Orientations & Collective Wishes for Bourgeois Hobby Time

July 26, 2018 • by Cassie Thornton

My work as an artist over the past decade has been defined by exploring the effects of financialization and debt on the imagination, in solidarity with anti-debt and anti-capitalist activist projects. I have, for instance, for many years been hypnotizing people to allow them to visualize their debt. This vision often becomes ...

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The ‘Fear Index’

The autonomization of the social imaginary of finance

June 19, 2018 • by Carla Ibled

The ‘fear index’, also known as the VIX, is a financial instrument created to measure and speculate on market volatility. While financiers of old may have sought to minimize risk, the widespread use of the VIX in today’s financial landscape indicates a shift towards the competitive leveraging of volatility, with ...

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The City and the City

A Post-Financial Counter-Imaginary for London

June 18, 2018 • by Steven Taylor

London’s status as a world financial centre is central to the current imaginary of the city as projected by PR firms, web sites such as visitlondon.com or ‘official’ promoters of tourism like London & Partners. In this representation of London, the capitalized City - the financial district or ‘Square Mile’ ...

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How Castoriadis read Weber

Meaning, values, and imaginary institution

March 6, 2018 • by Yannis Ktenas

I. The interest Cornelius Castoriadis had in Max Weber’s work, although quite apparent and confessed by the philosopher himself, has not drawn sufficient attention by scholars and commentators. [1] It is no coincidence that the first and the last texts Castoriadis published while living both deal with Weber. The first of these was ...

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Self-Limitation and Democracy

On the Ability of Society to Self-Regulate

February 7, 2018 • by Yavor Tarinski

[F]or the impulse of mere appetite is slavery, while obedience to a self-prescribed law is liberty. Jean-Jacques Rousseau[1] The philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis has often been credited with saying that "democracy is the regime of self-limitation." [2] But since for him the only true democratic form is direct democracy, this claim might seem a bit ...

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Imagination and Interpretation

On the dialogue between Cornelius Castoriadis and Paul Ricoeur

January 15, 2018 • by Alexandros Schismenos

On March 9th, 1985, Paul Ricoeur and Cornelius Castoriadis met at the studio of the France Culture "Le Bon Plaisir" radio broadcaster. In 2016, the transcript of their dialogue, their only public debate, was published [1]. This publication is significant not only because it highlights the points of convergence and divergence ...

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Ricoeur and Castoriadis in Discussion

An excerpt from Suzi Adams’ new book

December 5, 2017 • by Suzi Adams

The dialogue is, however, peppered with some persistent misunderstandings. At one point, Castoriadis notes that they seem to be speaking ‘at cross purposes’. This can be attributed – at least in part – to the various seminar series that each had given in the years prior to the radio encounter, ...

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The Radical Imagination

Imagining the future in financial capitalism

June 2, 2017 • by Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou and Chiara Bottici

Architectural fantasy stimulates the architect’s activity, it arouses creative thought not only for the artist but it also educates and arouses all those who come in contact with him; it produces new directions, new quests, and opens new horizons. Iakov Chernikhov (1933), ‘101 architectural fantasies’ Why the radical imagination? Today more than ...