Title
Castoriadis's Ontology : Being and Creation / Suzi Adams.
ISBN
9780823291106
Published
New York, NY : Fordham University Press, [2022]
Copyright
©2011
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource (312 p.)
Item Number
10.1515/9780823291106 doi
Summary
This book is the first systematic reconstruction of Castoriadis' philosophical trajectory. It critically interprets the internal shifts in Castoriadis' ontology through reconsideration of the ancient problematic of 'human institution' (nomos) and 'nature' (physis), on the one hand, and the question of 'being' and 'creation', on the other. Unlike the order of physis, the order of nomos played no substantial role in the development of western thought: The first part of the book suggests that Castoriadis sought to remedy this with his elucidation of the social-historical as the region of being elusive to the determinist imaginary of inherited philosophy. This ontological turn was announced with the publication of his magnum opus The Imaginary Institution of Society (first published in 1975) which is reconstructed as Castoriadis' long journey through nomos via four interconnected domains: ontological, epistemological, anthropological, and hermeneutical respectively. With the aid of archival sources, the second half of the book reconstructs a second ontological shift in Castoriadis' thought that occurred during the 1980s. Here it argues that Castoriadis extends his notion of 'ontological creation' beyond the human realm and into nature. This move has implications for his overall ontology and signals a shift towards a general ontology of creative physis. The increasing ontological importance of physis is discussed further in chapters on objective knowledge, the living being, and philosophical cosmology. It suggests that the world horizon forms an inescapable interpretative context of cultural articulation - in the double sense of Merleau-Ponty's mise en forme du monde - in which physis can be elucidated as the ground of possibility, as well as a point of culmination for nomos in the circle of interpretative creation. The book contextualizes Castoriadis' thought within broader philosophical and sociological traditions. In particular it situates his thought within French phenomenological currents that take either an ontological and/or a hermeneutical turn. It also places a hermeneutic of modernity - that is, an interpretation that emphasizes the ongoing dialogue between romantic and enlightenment articulations of the world - at the centre of reflection. Castoriadis' reactivation of classical Greek sources is reinterpreted as part of the ongoing dialogue between the ancients and the moderns, and more broadly, as part of the interpretative field of tensions that comprises modernity.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
System Details Note
Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 03. Jan 2023)
Series
Perspectives in Continental Philosophy
Available in Other Form
print 9780823234592
Frontmatter
Contents
Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
General Introduction: Castoriadis in Context
PART I: NOMOS
Introduction to Part I The Importance of Nomos
1 Toward an Ontology of the Social-Historical
2 Proto-Institutions and Epistemological Encounters
3 Anthropological Aspects of Subjectivity: The Radical Imagination
4 Hermeneutical Horizons of Meaning
PART II: PHYSIS
Introduction to Part II Physis and the Romanticist Imaginary of Nature
5 The Rediscovery of Physis
6 Objective Knowledge in Review
7 Rethinking the World of the Living Being
8 Reimagining Cosmology
Conclusion: The Circle of Creation
Notes
References
Index
