Cornelius Castoriadis Quotes
Cornelius Castoriadis was a Greek-French philosopher, psychoanalyst, and political theorist. A founding figure of the heterodox Marxist group Socialisme ou Barbarie in post-war Paris, he broke with Marxism in the 1960s while retaining a radical commitment to the project of human self-government. The quotes below are attributed to Cornelius Castoriadis, organized by topic.
Browse Cornelius Castoriadis by topic
Cornelius Castoriadis on Freedom
-
Attributed to Cornelius Castoriadis:
“Autonomy is the project of consciously giving ourselves our own laws.”
Cornelius Castoriadis on Justice
-
“Reification, the essential tendency of capitalism, can never be wholly realized. If it were, if the system were actually able to change individuals into things moved only by economic “forces,” it would collapse not in the long run, but immediately. The struggle of people against reification is, just as much as the tendency towards reification, the condition for the functioning of capitalism. Capitalism can function only by continually drawing upon the genuinely human activity of those subject to it, while at the same time trying to level and dehumanize them as much as possible.”
p. 16.
Cornelius Castoriadis on Knowledge
-
“From an interview conducted on 23 March 1983 for the May-August issue of the French journal Lutter ( "Marx today: the tragicomical paradox " ). It was translated by Franco Schiavoni for the January 1984 issue of the Australian magazine Thesis Eleven .”
Either history is really governed by laws, and in that case a truly human-activity is impossible, except perhaps in a technical sense; or human beings really make their own history, and then the task of theory will not be directed to discovering 'laws', but to the elucidation of the conditions with in which human activity unfolds. -
“A century after the Communist Manifesto was written and thirty years after the Russian Revolution, the revolutionary movement, which has witnessed great victories and suffered profound defeats, seems somehow to have disappeared. Like a river approaching the sea, it has broken up into rivulets, run into swamps and marshes, and finally dried up on the sands.”
Wikiquote -
“Despite their noisy pretensions, all of them, the "Fourth International," anarchists, and "ultraleftists," are but historical memories, minute scabs on the wounds of the working class, destined to be shed as the new skin readies itself in the depths of its tissues.”
Wikiquote -
“Wo Ich bin, soll Es auftauchen.”
Where Ego is, Id must spring forth. | p. 104. -
“Where Ego is, Id must spring forth.”
Wo Ich bin, soll Es auftauchen. -
“There is no proper meaning … every expression is essentially tropic .”
Cornelius Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society , trans. Kathleen Blamey (Cambridge, Mass. 1987) p. 348 ( doi : 10.1093/camqtly/bfs004 ). -
“Cornelius Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society , trans. Kathleen Blamey (Cambridge, Mass. 1987) p. 348 ( doi : 10.1093/camqtly/bfs004 ).”
There is no proper meaning … every expression is essentially tropic .
Cornelius Castoriadis on Life
-
“I ask to be able to participate directly in all the social decisions that may affect my existence, or the general course of the world in which I live. I do not accept the fact that my lot is decided, day after day, by people whose projects are hostile to me or simply unknown to me, and for whom we, that is I and everyone else, are only numbers in a general plan or pawns on a chessboard, and that, ultimately, my life and death are in the hands of people whom I know to be, necessarily, blind.”
Je désire pouvoir, avec tous les autres, savoir ce qui se passe dans la société, contrôler l’étendue et la qualité de l’information qui m’est donnée. Je demande de pouvoir participer directement à toutes les décisions sociales qui peuvent affecter mon existence, ou le cours général du monde où je vis. Je n’accepte pas que mon sort soit décidé, jour après jour, par des gens dont les projets me sont
Cornelius Castoriadis on Mind
-
Attributed to Cornelius Castoriadis:
“The radical imagination is the deepest source of human creativity.”
Cornelius Castoriadis on Politics
-
Attributed to Cornelius Castoriadis:
“Society is self-instituted; it is not given by nature, by God, or by history.”
-
Attributed to Cornelius Castoriadis:
“We are responsible for what we make of the world we share.”
-
Attributed to Cornelius Castoriadis:
“The crisis of the West is the crisis of imagination as much as of institutions.”
Cornelius Castoriadis on Time
-
“Either history is really governed by laws, and in that case a truly human-activity is impossible, except perhaps in a technical sense; or human beings really make their own history, and then the task of theory will not be directed to discovering 'laws', but to the elucidation of the conditions with in which human activity unfolds.”
From an interview conducted on 23 March 1983 for the May-August issue of the French journal Lutter ( "Marx today: the tragicomical paradox " ). It was translated by Franco Schiavoni for the January 1984 issue of the Australian magazine Thesis Eleven .