Lorraine Code
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195159431
- eISBN:
- 9780199786411
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195159438.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This chapter shows how ecology, literally and metaphorically, affords a model for rethinking the established theories of knowledge, and relations between humanity and the other-than-human, that ...
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This chapter shows how ecology, literally and metaphorically, affords a model for rethinking the established theories of knowledge, and relations between humanity and the other-than-human, that characterize the social imaginary of the post-Enlightenment western world. Ecology figures as a study of habitats where people can live well together; of the ethos and habitus enacted in the customs, social organizations, and creative-regulative principles by which they strive or fail to achieve this end. Focusing on a shift in Rachel Carson’s thinking from geographical to ecological, and drawing on Kristin Shrader-Frechette’s analysis of ecological science, the chapter draws a parallel between Carson’s tacit epistemology and that of biologist Karen Messing to develop the working conception of ecology that informs the argument of the book. A reclamation of testimony as a source of evidence is central to the argument.Less
This chapter shows how ecology, literally and metaphorically, affords a model for rethinking the established theories of knowledge, and relations between humanity and the other-than-human, that characterize the social imaginary of the post-Enlightenment western world. Ecology figures as a study of habitats where people can live well together; of the ethos and habitus enacted in the customs, social organizations, and creative-regulative principles by which they strive or fail to achieve this end. Focusing on a shift in Rachel Carson’s thinking from geographical to ecological, and drawing on Kristin Shrader-Frechette’s analysis of ecological science, the chapter draws a parallel between Carson’s tacit epistemology and that of biologist Karen Messing to develop the working conception of ecology that informs the argument of the book. A reclamation of testimony as a source of evidence is central to the argument.
Lorraine Code
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195159431
- eISBN:
- 9780199786411
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195159438.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
Arguing that ecological thinking can animate an epistemology capable of addressing feminist, multicultural, and other post-colonial concerns, this book critiques the instrumental rationality, ...
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Arguing that ecological thinking can animate an epistemology capable of addressing feminist, multicultural, and other post-colonial concerns, this book critiques the instrumental rationality, hyperbolized autonomy, abstract individualism, and exploitation of people and places that western epistemologies of mastery have legitimated. It proposes a politics of epistemic location, sensitive to the interplay of particularity and diversity, and focused on responsible epistemic practices. Starting from an epistemological approach implicit in Rachel Carson’s scientific projects, the book draws, constructively and critically, on ecological theory and practice, on (post-Quinean) naturalized epistemology, and on feminist and post-colonial theory. Analyzing extended examples from developmental psychology, from medicine and law, and from circumstances where vulnerability, credibility, and public trust are at issue, the argument addresses the constitutive part played by an instituted social imaginary in shaping and regulating human lives. The practices and examples discussed invoke the responsibility requirements central to this text’s larger purpose of imagining, crafting, articulating a creative, innovative, instituting social imaginary, committed to interrogating entrenched hierarchical social structures, en route to enacting principles of ideal cohabitation.Less
Arguing that ecological thinking can animate an epistemology capable of addressing feminist, multicultural, and other post-colonial concerns, this book critiques the instrumental rationality, hyperbolized autonomy, abstract individualism, and exploitation of people and places that western epistemologies of mastery have legitimated. It proposes a politics of epistemic location, sensitive to the interplay of particularity and diversity, and focused on responsible epistemic practices. Starting from an epistemological approach implicit in Rachel Carson’s scientific projects, the book draws, constructively and critically, on ecological theory and practice, on (post-Quinean) naturalized epistemology, and on feminist and post-colonial theory. Analyzing extended examples from developmental psychology, from medicine and law, and from circumstances where vulnerability, credibility, and public trust are at issue, the argument addresses the constitutive part played by an instituted social imaginary in shaping and regulating human lives. The practices and examples discussed invoke the responsibility requirements central to this text’s larger purpose of imagining, crafting, articulating a creative, innovative, instituting social imaginary, committed to interrogating entrenched hierarchical social structures, en route to enacting principles of ideal cohabitation.
Suzi Adams
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823234585
- eISBN:
- 9780823240739
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823234585.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This chapter addresses the second pole of the creative imagination—the radical imaginary—and critically engages with Castoriadis's theory of meaning as social imaginary significations. It situates ...
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This chapter addresses the second pole of the creative imagination—the radical imaginary—and critically engages with Castoriadis's theory of meaning as social imaginary significations. It situates him within French phenomenological perspectives in regards not only to meaning, but also to the problematic of the world horizon. Castoriadis emphasizes the world creating capacity of nuclear imaginary significations, such as “God” or “autonomy”, which have no world referent: they are purely generative and creative. The chapter argues that with his elucidation of the being of imaginary significations, Castoriadis makes an implicit hermeneutical turn that relativizes his claims of social-historical creation ex nihilo. The chapter includes an excursus on Johann P. Arnason's cultural hermeneutics and phenomenology of the world as an alternative to Castoriadis's ontological treatment of meaning and the human condition. It is argued that in the final chapter of The Imaginary Institution of Society, Castoriadis began to expand his notion of magma beyond human confines and into natural modes and regions of being, and, with the reappearance of à-être, paves the way to his shift to a trans-regional ontology of creative physis.Less
This chapter addresses the second pole of the creative imagination—the radical imaginary—and critically engages with Castoriadis's theory of meaning as social imaginary significations. It situates him within French phenomenological perspectives in regards not only to meaning, but also to the problematic of the world horizon. Castoriadis emphasizes the world creating capacity of nuclear imaginary significations, such as “God” or “autonomy”, which have no world referent: they are purely generative and creative. The chapter argues that with his elucidation of the being of imaginary significations, Castoriadis makes an implicit hermeneutical turn that relativizes his claims of social-historical creation ex nihilo. The chapter includes an excursus on Johann P. Arnason's cultural hermeneutics and phenomenology of the world as an alternative to Castoriadis's ontological treatment of meaning and the human condition. It is argued that in the final chapter of The Imaginary Institution of Society, Castoriadis began to expand his notion of magma beyond human confines and into natural modes and regions of being, and, with the reappearance of à-être, paves the way to his shift to a trans-regional ontology of creative physis.
Manfred B. Steger
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199286942
- eISBN:
- 9780191700408
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286942.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Ideology is a loaded word with a checkered past and most people today regard it as a form of dogmatic thinking or political manipulation. Virtually no one associates it with analytic clarity or ...
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Ideology is a loaded word with a checkered past and most people today regard it as a form of dogmatic thinking or political manipulation. Virtually no one associates it with analytic clarity or scientific rigor. Moving beyond the invective, this book considers ideology as evolving and malleable political belief systems that emerged during the American and French Revolutions and competed with religious doctrines over what ideas and values should guide human communities. Surprisingly, however, new treatments of nationality and nationalism appearing on the academic scene since the early 1980s have advanced convincing arguments in favor of a tight connection between the forces of modernity, the spread of industrial capitalism, and the elite-engineered construction of national community as a cultural artifact.Less
Ideology is a loaded word with a checkered past and most people today regard it as a form of dogmatic thinking or political manipulation. Virtually no one associates it with analytic clarity or scientific rigor. Moving beyond the invective, this book considers ideology as evolving and malleable political belief systems that emerged during the American and French Revolutions and competed with religious doctrines over what ideas and values should guide human communities. Surprisingly, however, new treatments of nationality and nationalism appearing on the academic scene since the early 1980s have advanced convincing arguments in favor of a tight connection between the forces of modernity, the spread of industrial capitalism, and the elite-engineered construction of national community as a cultural artifact.
C. Kavin Rowe
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195377873
- eISBN:
- 9780199869459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377873.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
Reading Acts as lively political theology in its time necessarily raises questions that directly relate to several crucial contemporary problems. Indeed, the argument is that engaging Acts in this ...
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Reading Acts as lively political theology in its time necessarily raises questions that directly relate to several crucial contemporary problems. Indeed, the argument is that engaging Acts in this way offers significant resources on which modern thinkers can draw to understand conflicts that arise in light of profoundly different schemes of life. “God,” “tolerance,” “diversity,” “culture,” and “religious violence” are words that explicitly point to issues requiring sustained and refined reflection in the 21st century. After a condensed exposition of the reading of Acts given in Chapters 2 through 4, therefore, this final chapter pursues several critical questions that attend the interrelation between claims to universal truth about God and the politics they produce (e.g., the nature of religious truth, the relation between normative truth claims and tolerance of the religious other, the political significance of polytheism, etc.).Less
Reading Acts as lively political theology in its time necessarily raises questions that directly relate to several crucial contemporary problems. Indeed, the argument is that engaging Acts in this way offers significant resources on which modern thinkers can draw to understand conflicts that arise in light of profoundly different schemes of life. “God,” “tolerance,” “diversity,” “culture,” and “religious violence” are words that explicitly point to issues requiring sustained and refined reflection in the 21st century. After a condensed exposition of the reading of Acts given in Chapters 2 through 4, therefore, this final chapter pursues several critical questions that attend the interrelation between claims to universal truth about God and the politics they produce (e.g., the nature of religious truth, the relation between normative truth claims and tolerance of the religious other, the political significance of polytheism, etc.).
Manfred B. Steger
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199286942
- eISBN:
- 9780191700408
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286942.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
World War generated in the minds of of hundreds of millions of people around the world a profound sense of rupture with the preceding era. Charles Taylor argues that new ideas and theories generated ...
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World War generated in the minds of of hundreds of millions of people around the world a profound sense of rupture with the preceding era. Charles Taylor argues that new ideas and theories generated by social elites sometimes manage to seep into the dominant social imaginary. At the same time, he emphasises that the transformative power of such ideational clusters depends to a significant degree on their correspondence to their existing social contexts. Taking root in people's minds in response to experienced needs, these new ideas become applied in the expanding sphere of common action. In 1955, with the decolonisation process and the Cold War in full swing, an obscure Scandinavian political scientist published a short article that amounted to the opening salvo in what came to be known in the West as the ‘end-of-ideology’ debate.Less
World War generated in the minds of of hundreds of millions of people around the world a profound sense of rupture with the preceding era. Charles Taylor argues that new ideas and theories generated by social elites sometimes manage to seep into the dominant social imaginary. At the same time, he emphasises that the transformative power of such ideational clusters depends to a significant degree on their correspondence to their existing social contexts. Taking root in people's minds in response to experienced needs, these new ideas become applied in the expanding sphere of common action. In 1955, with the decolonisation process and the Cold War in full swing, an obscure Scandinavian political scientist published a short article that amounted to the opening salvo in what came to be known in the West as the ‘end-of-ideology’ debate.
Suzi Adams
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823234585
- eISBN:
- 9780823240739
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823234585.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This book is the first systematic reconstruction of Castoriadis's philosophical trajectory, and pays particular attention to his dialogue with phenomenology. It critically interprets the shifts in ...
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This book is the first systematic reconstruction of Castoriadis's philosophical trajectory, and pays particular attention to his dialogue with phenomenology. It critically interprets the shifts in his ontology by reconsidering 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 has played no substantial role in the development of Western thought. The first part of the book suggests that Castoriadis sought to remedy this by elucidating the social-historical as the region of being that eludes the determinist imaginary of inherited philosophy. This ontological turn was announced in his 1975 magnum opus, The Imaginary Institution of Society. With the aid of archival sources, the second half of the book reconstructs a second ontological shift in Castoriadis's thought that occurred during the 1980s. The book 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 toward a general ontology of creative physis.Less
This book is the first systematic reconstruction of Castoriadis's philosophical trajectory, and pays particular attention to his dialogue with phenomenology. It critically interprets the shifts in his ontology by reconsidering 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 has played no substantial role in the development of Western thought. The first part of the book suggests that Castoriadis sought to remedy this by elucidating the social-historical as the region of being that eludes the determinist imaginary of inherited philosophy. This ontological turn was announced in his 1975 magnum opus, The Imaginary Institution of Society. With the aid of archival sources, the second half of the book reconstructs a second ontological shift in Castoriadis's thought that occurred during the 1980s. The book 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 toward a general ontology of creative physis.
Enda Delaney
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199276677
- eISBN:
- 9780191707674
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276677.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter charts the initial responses of the migrating Irish to the new environment as well as the ambiguous position of the Irish within the broader social landscape of post-war Britain. Few ...
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This chapter charts the initial responses of the migrating Irish to the new environment as well as the ambiguous position of the Irish within the broader social landscape of post-war Britain. Few Irish migrants possessed illusions of Britain as an El Dorado. Preconceptions were formed well in advance of leaving home. It was most certainly not seen as the promised land of biblical imagery, and expectations of life in this ‘strange land’ were invariably formed by the wider cultural milieu of independent Ireland. The view that the Irish were an element of British society, yet still somehow on the margins, was an all-pervasive one. This ‘strange land’ with its unfamiliar physical landscape would never be ‘home’, and even after decades living in Britain the vision of return and ultimate redemption remained a defining feature of the social imaginary.Less
This chapter charts the initial responses of the migrating Irish to the new environment as well as the ambiguous position of the Irish within the broader social landscape of post-war Britain. Few Irish migrants possessed illusions of Britain as an El Dorado. Preconceptions were formed well in advance of leaving home. It was most certainly not seen as the promised land of biblical imagery, and expectations of life in this ‘strange land’ were invariably formed by the wider cultural milieu of independent Ireland. The view that the Irish were an element of British society, yet still somehow on the margins, was an all-pervasive one. This ‘strange land’ with its unfamiliar physical landscape would never be ‘home’, and even after decades living in Britain the vision of return and ultimate redemption remained a defining feature of the social imaginary.
Mike Savage
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199587650
- eISBN:
- 9780191740626
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587650.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Comparative and Historical Sociology
This chapter examines the emergence of the so-called technical identity in Great Britain in 1954. It argues that the changing relations between the middle and working classes encouraged amongst the ...
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This chapter examines the emergence of the so-called technical identity in Great Britain in 1954. It argues that the changing relations between the middle and working classes encouraged amongst the former both a rejection of the gentlemanly embrace, which was seen to be out of keeping with the meritocratic tenor of post-war Britain, and a new interest in rational planning, which was to prove receptive to the social sciences. The chapter contends that the social sciences were shaped by a managerial concern, strongly indebted to cultures of war, mobilization, and demobilization, and suggests that the social sciences did not merely respond to a changing external environment but are themselves implicated in new forms of governmentality, regulation, and social imaginary.Less
This chapter examines the emergence of the so-called technical identity in Great Britain in 1954. It argues that the changing relations between the middle and working classes encouraged amongst the former both a rejection of the gentlemanly embrace, which was seen to be out of keeping with the meritocratic tenor of post-war Britain, and a new interest in rational planning, which was to prove receptive to the social sciences. The chapter contends that the social sciences were shaped by a managerial concern, strongly indebted to cultures of war, mobilization, and demobilization, and suggests that the social sciences did not merely respond to a changing external environment but are themselves implicated in new forms of governmentality, regulation, and social imaginary.
Craig Browne and Andrew P. Lynch
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780748691937
- eISBN:
- 9781474445191
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748691937.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Taylor’s political thinking seeks to come to terms with the changed ideological and political context that coalesced during the twentieth century’s last decades and the new millennium. It involves a ...
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Taylor’s political thinking seeks to come to terms with the changed ideological and political context that coalesced during the twentieth century’s last decades and the new millennium. It involves a reinterpretation of modernity in light of its questioning and a new take on the cultural background to modernity’s dominant institutional forms, liberal democracy and modern capitalism. Taylor’s contributions to two theoretical perspectives that offer important insights into the present are explained: multiple (or alternative) modernities and social imaginaries. The chapter clarifies multiple modernities and social imaginaries’ intellectual backgrounds and development in response to specific theoretical and political problems, like the dissolution of State Socialist societies, anti-colonial struggles, and religious fundamentalism. It argues that Taylor’s desire to revisit the question of the relationship between religion and the secular motivated his work on modern social imaginaries. Taylor contends that the modern social imaginary generates a notion of society as constituted as a moral order of mutual benefit and that this image informs individual practices. Taylor’s proposals are critically compared with those of the principal initiators of the social imaginaries theoretical perspective, especially those of Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort.Less
Taylor’s political thinking seeks to come to terms with the changed ideological and political context that coalesced during the twentieth century’s last decades and the new millennium. It involves a reinterpretation of modernity in light of its questioning and a new take on the cultural background to modernity’s dominant institutional forms, liberal democracy and modern capitalism. Taylor’s contributions to two theoretical perspectives that offer important insights into the present are explained: multiple (or alternative) modernities and social imaginaries. The chapter clarifies multiple modernities and social imaginaries’ intellectual backgrounds and development in response to specific theoretical and political problems, like the dissolution of State Socialist societies, anti-colonial struggles, and religious fundamentalism. It argues that Taylor’s desire to revisit the question of the relationship between religion and the secular motivated his work on modern social imaginaries. Taylor contends that the modern social imaginary generates a notion of society as constituted as a moral order of mutual benefit and that this image informs individual practices. Taylor’s proposals are critically compared with those of the principal initiators of the social imaginaries theoretical perspective, especially those of Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort.
James Davison Hunter
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199730803
- eISBN:
- 9780199777082
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730803.003.0013
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Politics has become a “social imaginary” that defines the horizon of understanding and the parameters for action. What is never challenged is the proclivity to think of the Christian faith and its ...
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Politics has become a “social imaginary” that defines the horizon of understanding and the parameters for action. What is never challenged is the proclivity to think of the Christian faith and its engagements with culture in political terms. For all, the public has been conflated with the political. But the ressentiment that marks the way they operate makes it clear that a crucial part of what motivates politics is a will to dominate. However, for politics to be about more than power, it depends upon a realm that is independent of the political process. The deepest irony is that the Christian faith has the possibility of autonomous institutions and practices that could be a source of ideals and values that could elevate politics to more than a quest for power. Instead, by nurturing its resentments, they become functional Nietzcheans, participating in the very cultural breakdown they so ardently strive to resist.Less
Politics has become a “social imaginary” that defines the horizon of understanding and the parameters for action. What is never challenged is the proclivity to think of the Christian faith and its engagements with culture in political terms. For all, the public has been conflated with the political. But the ressentiment that marks the way they operate makes it clear that a crucial part of what motivates politics is a will to dominate. However, for politics to be about more than power, it depends upon a realm that is independent of the political process. The deepest irony is that the Christian faith has the possibility of autonomous institutions and practices that could be a source of ideals and values that could elevate politics to more than a quest for power. Instead, by nurturing its resentments, they become functional Nietzcheans, participating in the very cultural breakdown they so ardently strive to resist.
JAMES T. FISHER and MARGARET M. MCGUINNESS
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823234103
- eISBN:
- 9780823240906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823234103.003.0018
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter demonstrates how the “Catholic imagination” mode of interpretation might better serve what the philosopher Charles Taylor calls the “social imaginary.” It suggests that the prevailing ...
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This chapter demonstrates how the “Catholic imagination” mode of interpretation might better serve what the philosopher Charles Taylor calls the “social imaginary.” It suggests that the prevailing Catholic “imaginary” has failed to fully engage the range of social injustices found in places like the author's native Philadelphia. The author's account of Philadelphia's 2,800 wall murals—and her own engagement with these murals as sites of theological reflection and liberation praxis—represents a mode of Catholic Studies that both draws on the approaches described in this volume and models a new kind of Catholic humanism. The author's project is radically interdisciplinary as the work of a Christian ethicist drawn to works of visual art whose presence demands interpretive responses beyond the limits of “Catholic imagination” precedent, yet rooted in unfulfilled yearnings of Catholic activists in the tradition of the Catholic Worker movement, the liturgical movement, and the Catholic interracial apostolate, each of which sought an integration of faith, culture, community, and the work of social justice.Less
This chapter demonstrates how the “Catholic imagination” mode of interpretation might better serve what the philosopher Charles Taylor calls the “social imaginary.” It suggests that the prevailing Catholic “imaginary” has failed to fully engage the range of social injustices found in places like the author's native Philadelphia. The author's account of Philadelphia's 2,800 wall murals—and her own engagement with these murals as sites of theological reflection and liberation praxis—represents a mode of Catholic Studies that both draws on the approaches described in this volume and models a new kind of Catholic humanism. The author's project is radically interdisciplinary as the work of a Christian ethicist drawn to works of visual art whose presence demands interpretive responses beyond the limits of “Catholic imagination” precedent, yet rooted in unfulfilled yearnings of Catholic activists in the tradition of the Catholic Worker movement, the liturgical movement, and the Catholic interracial apostolate, each of which sought an integration of faith, culture, community, and the work of social justice.
Warren Breckman
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231143943
- eISBN:
- 9780231512893
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231143943.003.0003
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter examines Cornelius Castoriadis's rejection of both the retreat from Marxism into structuralism and the attempt to recast Marxism in structuralist terms, as well as his sustained effort ...
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This chapter examines Cornelius Castoriadis's rejection of both the retreat from Marxism into structuralism and the attempt to recast Marxism in structuralist terms, as well as his sustained effort to reconceive radical politics as the project of autonomy. It considers the development of Castoriadis's thought during the crucial period from 1960 to 1975. In that process of refinement and alteration, Castoriadis's long critical engagement with structuralism was an important vehicle; at the center of that engagement was the question of the relationship between the imaginary and the symbolic. His critique of totalitarianism led him to challenge the Marxist reduction of the political to the social. For Castoriadis, the political depends on the interplay between social imaginary and the “radical imaginary,” which creates the conditions for human and social autonomy. Castoriadis's argument with structuralism evolved from a critique of Claude Lévi-Strauss's exclusion of the imaginary from the symbolic to a critique of Jacques Lacan's attempt to reduce the imaginary to a structure of capture and fixation.Less
This chapter examines Cornelius Castoriadis's rejection of both the retreat from Marxism into structuralism and the attempt to recast Marxism in structuralist terms, as well as his sustained effort to reconceive radical politics as the project of autonomy. It considers the development of Castoriadis's thought during the crucial period from 1960 to 1975. In that process of refinement and alteration, Castoriadis's long critical engagement with structuralism was an important vehicle; at the center of that engagement was the question of the relationship between the imaginary and the symbolic. His critique of totalitarianism led him to challenge the Marxist reduction of the political to the social. For Castoriadis, the political depends on the interplay between social imaginary and the “radical imaginary,” which creates the conditions for human and social autonomy. Castoriadis's argument with structuralism evolved from a critique of Claude Lévi-Strauss's exclusion of the imaginary from the symbolic to a critique of Jacques Lacan's attempt to reduce the imaginary to a structure of capture and fixation.
Chiara Bottici
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231157780
- eISBN:
- 9780231527811
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231157780.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter focuses on the passage from the word imagination to “the imaginary,” which it suggests also points to a passage from a philosophical tradition centered on a philosophy of the subject to ...
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This chapter focuses on the passage from the word imagination to “the imaginary,” which it suggests also points to a passage from a philosophical tradition centered on a philosophy of the subject to a more context-oriented approach. The appearance and increasing prominence of the term imaginary constitutes a rupture in the genealogy of imagination. The passage from imagination to the imaginary signals more than just the fact that imagination itself became imaginary, that is, associated with unreality; it also parallels that from reason to the more context-oriented category of rationality. Psychoanalysis and structuralism both contributed to this development, the former with its emphasis on the complexity of psychic life and the latter with a new attention to the products of imagination. This chapter also examines how the term imaginary became central to Jacques Lacan's theory, along with the concept of social imaginary and Cornelius Castoriadis's notion of a radical imagination.Less
This chapter focuses on the passage from the word imagination to “the imaginary,” which it suggests also points to a passage from a philosophical tradition centered on a philosophy of the subject to a more context-oriented approach. The appearance and increasing prominence of the term imaginary constitutes a rupture in the genealogy of imagination. The passage from imagination to the imaginary signals more than just the fact that imagination itself became imaginary, that is, associated with unreality; it also parallels that from reason to the more context-oriented category of rationality. Psychoanalysis and structuralism both contributed to this development, the former with its emphasis on the complexity of psychic life and the latter with a new attention to the products of imagination. This chapter also examines how the term imaginary became central to Jacques Lacan's theory, along with the concept of social imaginary and Cornelius Castoriadis's notion of a radical imagination.
Manfred B. Steger
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199286942
- eISBN:
- 9780191700408
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286942.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
The social and industrial revolutions that swept across Europe and the Americas between 1776 and 1848 served as midwives to the birth of a new social imaginary decisively colored by the national. The ...
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The social and industrial revolutions that swept across Europe and the Americas between 1776 and 1848 served as midwives to the birth of a new social imaginary decisively colored by the national. The role played by the French Revolution in this process was even more crucial than what essentially amounted to a large-scale tax rebellion across the Atlantic. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels also come in here, and it is hard to ignore that their treatise contains many significations of and references to the national. It comes also as no surprise that Marxist socialism would find its most powerful expression in German social democracy and similar political parties organised along national lines.Less
The social and industrial revolutions that swept across Europe and the Americas between 1776 and 1848 served as midwives to the birth of a new social imaginary decisively colored by the national. The role played by the French Revolution in this process was even more crucial than what essentially amounted to a large-scale tax rebellion across the Atlantic. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels also come in here, and it is hard to ignore that their treatise contains many significations of and references to the national. It comes also as no surprise that Marxist socialism would find its most powerful expression in German social democracy and similar political parties organised along national lines.
Samuel Moyn
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199769230
- eISBN:
- 9780199388875
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199769230.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, History of Ideas, European Modern History
Many contests between different approaches to intellectual history (Cambridge contextualism versus philosophia perennis, for example) have tended to take place against the background of an idealist ...
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Many contests between different approaches to intellectual history (Cambridge contextualism versus philosophia perennis, for example) have tended to take place against the background of an idealist agreement about the transcendence of concepts or representations over practices or activities. The “linguistic turn” of the last generation only confirmed this idealism. This essay investigates the recently popular category of the social imaginary for its promise in providing a way beyond the standoff of representations and practices for the sake of a less defensive future version of intellectual history.Less
Many contests between different approaches to intellectual history (Cambridge contextualism versus philosophia perennis, for example) have tended to take place against the background of an idealist agreement about the transcendence of concepts or representations over practices or activities. The “linguistic turn” of the last generation only confirmed this idealism. This essay investigates the recently popular category of the social imaginary for its promise in providing a way beyond the standoff of representations and practices for the sake of a less defensive future version of intellectual history.
Jens Beckert and Richard Bronk
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- August 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198820802
- eISBN:
- 9780191860430
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198820802.003.0001
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Political Economy
This chapter provides a theoretical framework for considering how imaginaries and narratives interact with calculative devices to structure expectations and beliefs in the economy. It analyses the ...
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This chapter provides a theoretical framework for considering how imaginaries and narratives interact with calculative devices to structure expectations and beliefs in the economy. It analyses the nature of uncertainty in innovative market economies and examines how economic actors use imaginaries, narratives, models, and calculative practices to coordinate and legitimize action, determine value, and establish sufficient conviction to act despite the uncertainty they face. Placing the themes of the volume in the context of broader trends in economics and sociology, the chapter argues that, in conditions of widespread radical uncertainty, there is no uniquely rational set of expectations, and there are no optimal strategies or objective probability functions; instead, expectations are often structured by contingent narratives or socially constructed imaginaries. Moreover, since expectations are not anchored in a pre-existing future reality but have an important role in creating the future, they become legitimate objects of political debate and crucial instruments of power in markets and societies.Less
This chapter provides a theoretical framework for considering how imaginaries and narratives interact with calculative devices to structure expectations and beliefs in the economy. It analyses the nature of uncertainty in innovative market economies and examines how economic actors use imaginaries, narratives, models, and calculative practices to coordinate and legitimize action, determine value, and establish sufficient conviction to act despite the uncertainty they face. Placing the themes of the volume in the context of broader trends in economics and sociology, the chapter argues that, in conditions of widespread radical uncertainty, there is no uniquely rational set of expectations, and there are no optimal strategies or objective probability functions; instead, expectations are often structured by contingent narratives or socially constructed imaginaries. Moreover, since expectations are not anchored in a pre-existing future reality but have an important role in creating the future, they become legitimate objects of political debate and crucial instruments of power in markets and societies.
Byron Dueck
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199747641
- eISBN:
- 9780199379859
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199747641.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music, History, American
This chapter introduces the central subject of the volume, public performances of indigenous (First Nations and Métis) music and dance. It begins with an examination of two performances of the C-Weed ...
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This chapter introduces the central subject of the volume, public performances of indigenous (First Nations and Métis) music and dance. It begins with an examination of two performances of the C-Weed Band’s song “Run as One,” which leads into a discussion of key theoretical concepts informing the volume as a whole. These include “intimacies” and “imaginaries” and the “public spaces” that intersect them. A second trio of concepts—publics, counterpublics, and antipublicity—is also introduced. The chapter outlines the research methods and theoretical underpinnings of the study and discusses the contexts in which the research was conducted. It also presents a brief account of the recent (colonial and postcolonial) history of indigenous peoples in western Canada that helps to establish the social and political context for the musical practices under discussion.Less
This chapter introduces the central subject of the volume, public performances of indigenous (First Nations and Métis) music and dance. It begins with an examination of two performances of the C-Weed Band’s song “Run as One,” which leads into a discussion of key theoretical concepts informing the volume as a whole. These include “intimacies” and “imaginaries” and the “public spaces” that intersect them. A second trio of concepts—publics, counterpublics, and antipublicity—is also introduced. The chapter outlines the research methods and theoretical underpinnings of the study and discusses the contexts in which the research was conducted. It also presents a brief account of the recent (colonial and postcolonial) history of indigenous peoples in western Canada that helps to establish the social and political context for the musical practices under discussion.
Andrew Blaikie
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748617869
- eISBN:
- 9780748653515
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748617869.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Scottish Studies
This chapter attempts to explain how it is ‘memory above all that maintains the imagined identities upon which society rests’. It suggests that remembrance of the modern nation, as time advances, is ...
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This chapter attempts to explain how it is ‘memory above all that maintains the imagined identities upon which society rests’. It suggests that remembrance of the modern nation, as time advances, is redolent with diverse interpretations and imaginings, but these experiences, at once both personal and social, are far from random or chaotic. It explains that they are conditioned by the needs of relative strangers who wish either to maintain some collective sociological grasp of the present, or who feel confronted by its very absence. It opines that such is the illumination cast by the Scottish social imaginary.Less
This chapter attempts to explain how it is ‘memory above all that maintains the imagined identities upon which society rests’. It suggests that remembrance of the modern nation, as time advances, is redolent with diverse interpretations and imaginings, but these experiences, at once both personal and social, are far from random or chaotic. It explains that they are conditioned by the needs of relative strangers who wish either to maintain some collective sociological grasp of the present, or who feel confronted by its very absence. It opines that such is the illumination cast by the Scottish social imaginary.
Daniel Renfrew
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520295469
- eISBN:
- 9780520968240
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520295469.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter argues that lead poisoning acted as a metonym of a general social imaginary of crisis associated with the collapse of the neoliberal model while also being rooted in the legacies of the ...
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This chapter argues that lead poisoning acted as a metonym of a general social imaginary of crisis associated with the collapse of the neoliberal model while also being rooted in the legacies of the mid-twentieth-century Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) period. The chapter counters Uruguay’s modern foundational myths of “exceptionalism” with social imaginaries anchored in the militant working-class history of La Teja. The chapter critically examines these foundational myths in relation to the all-encompassing socioeconomic crisis that began in 2002, arguing that activists interpreted the lead-poisoning epidemic within the working-class counter-narrative of Uruguayan national identity and history, politics and society, and in dialogue with a counter-imaginary of crisis linked to the material and symbolic fallout of the neoliberal order.Less
This chapter argues that lead poisoning acted as a metonym of a general social imaginary of crisis associated with the collapse of the neoliberal model while also being rooted in the legacies of the mid-twentieth-century Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) period. The chapter counters Uruguay’s modern foundational myths of “exceptionalism” with social imaginaries anchored in the militant working-class history of La Teja. The chapter critically examines these foundational myths in relation to the all-encompassing socioeconomic crisis that began in 2002, arguing that activists interpreted the lead-poisoning epidemic within the working-class counter-narrative of Uruguayan national identity and history, politics and society, and in dialogue with a counter-imaginary of crisis linked to the material and symbolic fallout of the neoliberal order.
