[CRIT 13.

1 (2012) 29-51] Critical Horizons (print) ISSN 1440-9917

doi:10.1558/crit.v13i1.29 Critical Horizons (online) ISSN 1568-5160

Castoriadis and the Non-Subjective Field:

Social Doing, Instituting Society and
Political Imaginaries
Suzi Adams
School of Social and Policy Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia
suzi.adams@flinders.edu.au

Abstract: Cornelius Castoriadis understood history as a self-creating

order. In turn, he elaborated history in two directions: as the politi-
cal project of autonomy, and as the ontological modality of the social-
historical. On his account, history as self-creation was only possible
through the interplay of social (or political) imaginaries and social
doing. Although social imaginaries are readily situated within the non-
subjective field, non-subjective modes of doing have been less explored. Yet
non-subjective contexts are integral to both the doing and imagi-
nary dimensions of the human condition, and form the preconditions
for concrete varieties of social and political action and politics (as la
politique), more generally. The present paper begins to clear a path to
reflect on social doing in its non-subjective aspects; as such, it is pre-
paratory rather than programmatic. After briefly reviewing the field of
social imaginaries, it reflects on Castoriadiss elaboration of praxis
and teukhein. It then considers Johann Arnasons culturological recon-
figuration of Castoriadiss approach, and Jan Patokas asubjective phe-
nomenology of the movement of human existence as different ways of
engaging with the problematic of doing, instituting society and politi-
cal imaginaries. Despite a gradual subordination of doing to signifi-
cation in Castoriadiss philosophical elaborations, social doing as a
non-subjective modality does not disappear altogether from his thought
especially and explicitly in respect to the phenomenon of instituting
society as a political project and remains a point of recurring intru-
sion into his more explicit theoretical concerns.
Keywords: Action; Autonomy; Arnason; Asubjective Phenomenology;
Castoriadis; Cultural Movement; Patoka; Political Imaginaries; Praxis;
Social Doing.

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30 Suzi Adams

Introduction

The problematic of social and political imaginaries has appeared in recent

debates in the human sciences. Cornelius Castoriadis understood society as a
political institution, and as such social imaginaries seem intimately entwined
with political imaginaries in his thought (although Castoriadis does not
himself use this term). The present paper takes up the notion of imaginary
significations and rethinks their connection to social and political doing in
Castoriadiss thought. Castoriadiss mature thought emphasizes the funda-
mental connection between the social-historical and social imaginary sig-
nifications, but this more or less reduction of the social-historical to the
imaginary element (as signification) was not always the case. Prior to his
shift to ontology in the early 1970s, Castoriadis laid far more emphasis
on the modality of doing (especially in its privileged form of praxis) as the
lynchpin of autonomy as a political project. In the course of his intellectual
trajectory, however, the elucidation of doing was gradually more marginal-
ized by his focus on the being of imaginary significations. The present paper
looks to recover the dimension of doing in Castoriadiss thought (via Johann
Arnason and Jan Patoka) and to link it to the broader non-subjective field
(of which social and political imaginaries comprise an important subfield).
It argues that the importance of non-subjective doing has been neglected in
debates on social and political imaginaries as well as in debates on social
and political action, more generally and seeks to clear a preliminary path
for further debate.
The notion of imaginary emerges from French currents of social and
philosophical thought, with especial reference to post-Heideggerian phe-
nomenology in France. In connection with the phenomenological imagina-
tion, it first appeared in Sartres text Limaginaire, albeit in a different sense.1
Lacans division of human existence into the symbolic, the imaginary
and the real can be considered a response to Sartre from a psychoanalytic
perspective.2 In social and political theory, Benedict Andersons imagined
communities came to prominence in the early 1980s, and overshadowed
Castoriadiss earlier, and arguably richer contribution to the field in his
most systematic work Linstitution imaginaire de la socit.3 Part of the rea-
son for this might well have been the delay in the translation of this, Cas-

1. J.-P. Sartre, Limaginaire (Paris: Gallimard, 1940).

2. J. Lacan, Ecrits (Paris: Seuil, 1966).
3. B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (Lon-
don and New York: Verso, 1983); C. Castoriadis, Linstitution imaginaire de la socit (Paris:
Seuil, 1975).

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 Castoriadis and the Non-Subjective Field 31

toriadiss major work, into English until 1987.4 About the same time that
Castoriadis published his magnum opus, Paul Ricoeur incorporated the term
social imaginary into his phenomenological-hermeneutics.5 Most recently,
Charles Taylors understanding of modern social imaginaries includes the
sense of a moral good, whilst Johann Arnasons hermeneutical and cul-
turological engagement with Castoriadiss thought reconfigures imaginary
significations to interpretative patterns in ways that highlight the herme-
neutical dimension of social-historical creation and the imaginary element
that Castoriadis neglects.6
Social imaginary significations are to be understood as complexes or figu-
rations of latent meaning that make social reality conceivable in the first
place. As Castoriadis tells us: Reality, language, values, needs and labour
in each society specify, in each case, in their particular mode of being, the
organization of the world and of the social world related to the social imagi-
nary significations instituted by the society in question.7 They comprise
the background horizon against which cultural articulations of the social
world configure themselves. Social imaginary significations appear at the
trans-subjective level of social reality, or, in Castoriadian terminology, at the
level of the collective anonymous. They are not reducible to intersubjective
contexts or analyses. Castoriadiss elaboration of imaginary significations
can also be understood as a radicalization of Durkheims collective represen-
tations.8 As with Durkheim, so, too, does Castoriadis understand society as
a reality sui generis. We might say that social reality is constituted by the non-
subjective as its primary substratum. Also in the wake of Durkheim but in a
radicalized, sociological version of the Cartesian sovereign or absolute subject,
more generally Castoriadis envisages society as a uniquely self-instituting
modality. For Castoriadis and Durkheim, society exhibits a world mak-
ing capacity that is not dependent on external sources or referents. In this
vein, Castoriadis replaced the self-constituting subject with self-instituting
society. Here, he was particularly interested in what he called central social

4. C. Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society, Kathleen Blamey (trans.) (Cambridge,

UK: Polity, 1987 [1975]). Hereafter referred to as the IIS.
5. P. Ricoeur, Lectures on Ideology and Utopia, George Taylor (ed.) (New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 1986). This aspect of Ricoeurs work and his thought on the cultural imagination,
in general has not been discussed as much as it warrants.
6. C. Taylor, Social Imaginaries (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004); J. P. Arnason
Praxis und Interpretation: Sozialphilosophische Studien (Frankfurt a/Main: Suhrkamp, 1988);
J. P. Arnason, Culture and Imaginary Significations, Thesis Eleven 22 (1989), 2545. The
Imaginary Element is an unfinished work by Castoriadis, first mentioned in the IIS.
7. Castoriadis, IIS, 371.
8. E. Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, J. W. Swain (trans.) (New York: The
Free Press: 1965 [1912]).

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32 Suzi Adams

imaginary significations, as opposed to second order significations (such as

nature). Central imaginary significations are world creating not world
referring, whereas second order significations lean on what Castoriadis
terms the first natural stratum through the proto-institutions of legein and
teukhein.9 Central imaginary significations, such as autonomy or God,
on the other hand, do not have any world referent; they are entirely genera-
tive and exemplify Castoriadiss understanding of social worlds created ex
nihilo by the social-historical.10
The field of non-subjective doing is a problematic that has remained
implicit in much of the relevant literature, which has generally focused
either on doing via theories of (social and political) action, or the non-
subjective field as it links to cultural meaning (in particular, as social imagi-
naries) but has not connected the two aspects in any systematic fashion.
More generally, elaboration of the non-subjective field has been impor-
tant to phenomenological currents of thought, broadly conceived, and is
generally elucidated either along a-subjective or trans-subjective lines. Jan
Patokas a-subjective phenomenology is perhaps the best known example of
the former, whereas Johann Arnasons discussion of the trans-subjective field
is the most systematic of its kind.11 As Arnason has noted, the cultural her-
meneutic shift in the human sciences has seen the (partial) transformation
from reason as the faculty of an individual person, to modes of ratio-
nality as an element of culture; so too, albeit less systematically, a shift in
discussion from the imagination as a singular faculty to imaginaries as
an element of culture is discernible, as part of the broader trans-subjective
field.12 However, there is no comparable shift in relation to the elucidation
of the non-subjective contexts of doing. Generally discussed in relation
to action, the modality of doing tends to be reduced to the capacities
of individual subjects or understood in a teleological fashion (even notions
of collective action often take a collective subject as a basis). At the very

9. Castoriadis, IIS, especially Chapter 7. In this regard, Castoriadis expands the psychoanalytic
term Anlehnung to the social domain. I explain the terms legein and teukhein later.
10. A full discussion of Castoriadiss elucidation of social imaginary significations goes beyond
the scope of this paper. For further discussion, see Arnason, Praxis und Interpretation, and
Culture and Significations; and S. Adams, Castoriadiss Ontology: Being and Creation (New
York: Fordham University Press, 2011), especially Chapter 4.
11. J. Patoka, Der Subjektivismus der Husserlschen und die Mglichkeit einer asubjektiven
Phnomenologie, in Die Bewegung der menschlichen Existenz (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1991);
J. Patoka, Der Subjektivismus der Husserlschen und die Forderung einer asubjektiven
Phnomenologie, in J. Patoka, Die Bewegung der menschlichen Existenz; J. P. Arnason,
Reason, Imagination, Interpretation, in Rethinking Imagination: Culture and Creativity,
G.Robinson, and J. Rundell (eds) (London: Routledge, 1994), 15577.
12. Arnason, Reason, Imagination, Interpretation.

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least, there is an ambiguity in analyses of social action that do not take

account of the non-subjective underpinnings of doing and its centrality for
world formation. The present paper begins to question this gap and takes
inventory of Castoriadiss approach to doing. In so doing it identifies two
main phases in his elucidation: The first phase centres on the concept of
praxis and is important to his pre-ontological elucidation of autonomy; the
second phase emerges as part of Castoriadiss ontological turn, although it is
not treated as systematically as praxis. Instead it appears in more truncated
form as the proto-institution of teukhein in the ontological section of the
IIS. Finally, openings onto movement as the most fundamental aspect of
non-subjective doing are reconstructed in Castoriadiss thought.
Castoriadiss approach to social doing (and social imaginaries, too, for
that matter) is linked to his understanding of history as a human creation. The
question of history as creation has been an enduring aspect of his thought,
both political and ontological.13 However, his elucidation of the historical
order is ambiguous in that it involves both the question of history as the
creative doing of the collective anonymous (that is, the question of insti-
tuting society and of society as a political institution), and the question of
history as emerging from more particular agencies and actors (individual
and/collective). Castoriadis does not clearly distinguish between these two
aspects in his thought. Although he understood the institution of society,
that is, of a social-historical world, as characterized by two aspects the
social imaginary and social doing if anything, his elucidation of social
doing was originally more important than the imaginary dimension to his
overall intellectual project.14 The next section elaborates his early thinking
on praxis and his partial shift away from it.

Praxis, Autonomy and Phenomenology

Theories of praxis draw on either or both Aristotelian and Marxian

sources and articulate action as part of the subjects openness to and interac-
tion with the world. Castoriadis articulated autonomy as the project of revo-
lutionary social and political doing as creative praxis, which he understood
as creative, lucid activity and open ended know how. His most important
discussion of praxis is found in the first section of the IIS, which elucidates
his turn away from Marx but predates his shift to ontology.15 In the broad-

13. Castoriadis, IIS.

14. Castoriadis, IIS.
15. Castoriadis, IIS.

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34 Suzi Adams

est sense, Castoriadiss articulation of praxis links it to ways of social doing

that is in turn connected to open ended contexts of practical knowledge, on
the one hand, and the project of autonomy, especially at the intersubjective
level, on the other. Castoriadis sets up his discussion through the lens of
theoretical and practical reason and the kinds of knowledge that each entails
(Castoriadiss emphasis on epistemology, without any reference to ontologi-
cal horizons, is in line with his broader intellectual preoccupations at that
time that were focused on epistemology and logic). The human world is an
historical world, which is the world of human doing.16 Castoriadis goes on
to tell us that [t]his doing is always related to knowledge but the relation
itself has to be clarified.17 He takes two limiting cases of reflex action and
technique to delineate the relationship of social doing to knowledge. In
brief, reflex action is purely unconscious and, as such, can have no relation-
ship to knowledge, but at the same time, nor does it have any connection to
history. Technique, on the other hand, is overdetermined by its relationship
to knowledge; here Castoriadis elucidates technique as a purely rational
activity that would be premised on an exhaustive, or practically exhaus-
tive, knowledge of its domain.18 However, for Castoriadis neither of these
examples reveals the essential aspects of human activity. He points to the
Aristotelian examples of medicine and pedagogy as types of social activ-
ity which carry the value of the activity in themselves and are not directed
towards an endpoint as a technique.19 They can be counted as true kinds
of praxis as they aim at the autonomy of the other.20
Castoriadis now turns to a discussion of praxis proper. In a twist that
takes it beyond Marxian and Aristotelian currents of praxis philosophy, he
links it to the project of autonomy as politics and revolutionary action and
tells us that we term praxis that doing in which the other or others are
intended as autonomous beings considered as the essential agents of the
development of their own autonomy.21 It is not reducible to a means/
ends framework as politics is neither the concretization of an Absolute
knowledge, nor a technique: neither is it the blind will of no one knows
what. It belongs to another domain, that of doing, and to the specific mode
of doing called praxis.22 In reinforcing the difference between technique
and political action, history is regarded as the domain of human doing;

16. Castoriadis, IIS, 72.

17. Castoriadis, IIS, 72.
18. Castoriadis, IIS, 72.
19. Castoriadis, IIS, 7374.
20. Castoriadis, IIS, 75.
21. Castoriadis, IIS, 75.
22. Castoriadis, IIS, 74.

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the intersections of the rational and the non-rational in social-historical

reality, and it is precisely this intersection which provides the condition
for action.23 Thus praxis is a specific and privileged mode within the
historical domain. Technique is another specific mode within the domain
of history, but because it aims at absolute knowledge and rationalization of
and rational mastery over the world, it does not recognize the overlap
of rational and trans-rational elements as its precondition. Praxis, however,
aims to develop the autonomy in others (through not treating them as a
means to an end) the autonomy of others is not an end it is a begin-
ning and also to encourage and participate in revolutionary action as
lucid activity.24
But more than this, praxis is creative activity that does not encounter an
external object (either theoretical or practical) as such, but an open ended
unity, as a unity for itself which lies in the capacity of the for-itself to
supersede every prior determination, to produce the new, new forms and
new contentsas concerns praxis, one can sum up the situation by say-
ing that it encounters the totality as an open-ended unity in the process of
making itself .25 The object of praxis is open (and open ended); grasp of the
object is only ever partial.26 The object itself is not something inert, whose
entire fate is to be assumed by praxis. The object itself is active, it possesses
tendencies, it is productive and it organizes itself, for if it is not capacity for
production and capacity for self-organization, it is nothing.27 Praxis not
only acts on its object but does so in seeing in it (a child, a sick person, a
group or a society), first and foremost life, the capacity of being grounded
in itself, self-production and self-organization.28
It is important to note that Castoriadiss philosophy of praxis occurred
within a phenomenological framework. In this respect, Merleau-Ponty was
an important intellectual source. As seen in the above passage, Castoriadis
grounds his understanding of praxis in the recognition of life or exis-
tence of its object as, to use an Arnasonian term, an open ended unity,
but within his phenomenological writings at that time, the world horizon
is also a significant problematic. Let us turn to his homage to Merleau-
Ponty, The Sayable and the Unsayable, a paper he wrote in 1970 (that is,
slightly later than the IIS chapter presently under discussion), and which

23. Castoriadis, IIS, 79.

24. Castoriadis, IIS, 74, 75.
25. Castoriadis, IIS, 8889, emphasis in original.
26. Castoriadis, IIS, 89. Castoriadis vacillates between the object of praxis as the world and as the
for-itself, here understood in a restricted sense of human subjectivity.
27. Castoriadis, IIS, 89.
28. Castoriadis, IIS, 90, emphasis in original.

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36 Suzi Adams

bridges Castoriadiss phenomenologically grounded writings and those after

his ontological turn.29 Ostensibly concerning the place of the creativity
of language (and silence) in the formation of speaking subjects, it is also
anchored in Merleau-Pontys notion of praxis as the savage mind.30 The
paper approaches the phenomenon of language and meaning from
interrelated aspects: subject and world. Far more so than in his later writ-
ings, here Castoriadis emphasizes the role of the world in the subject/
language nexus. In so doing, he highlights Heideggers insight that we
are always already in-the-world, and Merleau-Pontys radicalization of that
insight to the recognition that [b]ecause we are in the world we are con-
demned to meaning.31 It is significant to note that in The Sayable and
Unsayable, Castoriadis was one of the first to posit a cultural stratum as
the basis of Merleau-Pontys articulation of perception. For him, doing is
immersed in a cultural layer in the world, as opening the world. Casto-
riadis concludes his homage with this sentence [the subject] is opening,
then in the sense of the work of opening, constantly renewed inaugura-
tion, performance of the primitive spirit, the spirit of praxis. Or, in other
words: the subject is that which opens.32 The opening is praxis as cultural
movement towards the world. In Castoriadiss later writings the recognition
that we are already in-the-world tends to get lost in his growing emphasis
on the world creating modality of the social-historical. But, as Castoria-
dis did not elucidate doing systematically along ontological lines in the
same way as he did for the creative imagination, openings onto doing
as part of the world process (to use Patokas term) or world formation
(to use Merleau-Pontys) from the perspective of cultural movement, seems
more conducive for a hermeneutic-phenomenological reconstruction that
takes fuller account of the historical rather than ontological dimension
of the human condition.33 In prioritizing the historical (or the historical-
anthropological) rather than the ontological aspects of cultural movement
in the world, links to concrete political projects and imaginaries, especially
as instituting society, are more readily foregrounded (I return to this).

29. C. Castoriadis, The Sayable and the Unsayable, in Crossroads in the Labyrinth, M. Ryle and
K. Blamey (trans.) (Brighton, UK: Harvester Press, 1984).
30. Castoriadis, The Sayable and the Unsayable, 90.
31. M. Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception (London: Routledge, 2008 [1945]). For fur-
ther discussion on this aspect of Castoriadiss text The Sayable and the Unsayable, see
S. Adams, Dimensions of the World: Castoriadis Homage to Merleau-Ponty, Chiasmi
International 11 (2009): 11130.
32. Castoriadis, The Sayable and the Unsayable, 144.
33. For reasons of space, greater elucidation of the world problematic in relation to doing as
cultural movement is beyond this paper.

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Legein and Ontology

Castoriadiss shift towards ontology and a systematic elucidation of the

social-historical saw his earlier emphasis on social doing/praxis (as central
to autonomy) become sidelined as his interest in the being of signification
(as social imaginary significations) became more pronounced. In the wake
of Castoriadiss ontological turn, a number of critical responses were writ-
ten, in particular the cluster of essays written by thinkers situated within
critical theory, broadly conceived: Jrgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, Hans
Joas, and Johann P. Arnason.34 Of these, the interventions by Habermas and
Honneth were the most critical, whereas Joas and Arnason sought a more
constructive approach. For present purposes, what is most interesting is that
where Habermas and Honneth mourn, each for slightly different reasons,
the demise of praxis and, thus, concrete action in Castoriadiss turn to
ontology and signification (which therefore in their eyes is incapable of sup-
porting a critical theory of emancipation), Joas and Arnason take a more
sociological approach and highlight the creativity of action within social-
historical horizons. In relation to Castoriadiss shift to ontology and away
from praxis as autonomy, Habermas and Honneths conclusions are remark-
ably similar. Honneth notes that the bearers of these acts of generation
of meaning are no longer social groups, but anonymous processes instead.
Thereby, however, these creative achievements entirely forego the character
of practice as social action, and increasingly take on the characteristics of
an impersonal occurrence,35 and Habermas argues that in the end, social
praxis disappears in the anonymous hurly-burly of the institutionalization
of ever new worlds from the imaginary dimension.36 Whilst this is on one
level correct social doing is marginalized whereas the imaginary dimen-
sion and creation of new worlds of meaning as the work of the anonymous
collective (as a trans-subjective modality) is increasingly emphasized in the
IIS this is not the same as saying that social praxis has been swallowed

34. J. Habermas, Excursus on Castoriadis: The Imaginary Institution, in The Philosophical Dis-
course of Modernity: Twelve Lectures (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991 [1985]), 32735; A. Hon-
neth, Rescuing the Revolution with an Ontology in The Fragmented World of the Social:
Essays in Social and Political Philosophy, C. W. Wright (ed.) (Albany: SUNY, 1991); H. Joas,
Institutionalization as a Creative Process: The Sociological Importance of Cornelius Casto-
riadis Political Philosophy, American Journal of Sociology 4, no. 5 (March 1989), 118499;
Arnason, Praxis und Interpretation; J. P. Arnason, Praxis and Action: Mainstream Theories and
Marxian Correctives, Thesis Eleven 29 (1991): 6391; J. P. Arnason, Civilizations in Dispute
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2003).
35. Honneth, Rescuing the Revolution, 71.
36. Habermas, Excursus, 330.

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38 Suzi Adams

by the anonymous, imaginary hurly-burly. Rather, it is the case that, in

elucidating social imaginary significations and the creation of the world
by instituting society as the anonymous collective, Castoriadis neglected
to develop other aspects, in particular, the trans-subjective dimension of
political doing by the anonymous collective as instituting doing (as insti-
tuting society), in the same way that he developed his elaboration of social
imaginary significations as inherent in the trans-subjective field. Part of the
issue here is the initial difficulty of conceiving of non-subjective doing at all
although it generally accepted that political and social imaginaries exem-
plify meaning as non-subjective and the fear that it engulfs concrete and
emancipatory political action (as articulated by Habermas and Honneth).
It does not. Instead, non-subjective contexts of socio-political doing or
movement form the precondition for concrete varieties of socio-political
action, which, in turn, is formed in interplay with social imaginaries as the
precondition of concrete articulations of a meaningful world via actors and
collectives. Although the sense of anonymous movement is implicit in the
social-historical creation of a world of imaginary significations, Castoriadis
did not follow up this aspect of creation in any systematic fashion.
Unlike Habermas and Honneth, Joas and Arnason, although not uncriti-
cal, were nonetheless more constructive in their respective engagement with
Castoriadiss approach to social action. Joas articulates the implications of
Castoriadiss political philosophy as a way to enrich sociology and social
theory, with his main aim to develop Castoriadiss insight into the creativ-
ity of action.37 Thus his engagement with Castoriadiss notion of praxis
and critique of Marx sees support for Castoriadiss anchoring of action in
sociality on the one hand, and creativity on the other. Joas argues that Cas-
toriadis, unlike Habermas, is the only thinker to have taken the notion of
creativity implicit within Marxs theory of society and history and developed
them further in order to arrive at a general theory of action and thus to
contribute to a social theory based upon it.38 In reflecting on Castoriadiss
ontological turn in the second section of the IIS in his 1989 review essay,
Joas sees this as a more extended analysis of the social institution, as creative
process in and as history.39 In an implicit critique of Habermass and Hon-
neths dismissal of Castoriadiss ontological turn, Joas argues that Casto-
riadis challenges the traditional metaphysics upon which philosophies of
praxis generally rest, for how is intentional action possible if the world is
a cosmos of endless, deterministic concatenations of causes and effects, or

37. H. Joas, The Creativity of Action (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1996).
38. Joas, The Creativity of Action, 105.
39. Joas, Institutionalization.

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 Castoriadis and the Non-Subjective Field 39

else a chaos that can acquire determinate form only through the imposi-
tion of human schematizations?.40 For him, Castoriadiss elucidation of an
ontology of creation (Joas uses the term indeterminacy) is a precondition
to greater understanding of the context of social action as creative. Social
action, however, not only has creativity and cultural meaning as its pre-
conditions, the non-subjective context of doing is also presumed. Joas leaves
this aspect unexplored.
Castoriadiss thought has provided an enduring intellectual source for
Johann P. Arnason. Because Arnason has developed an explicit articulation
of the trans-subjective field (of culture and world), his engagement with
Castoriadiss philosophy is the most significant for present purposes. Arna-
sons engagement with Castoriadis has centred on extending Castoriadiss
notion of social imaginary significations towards a theory of culture (and
civilization), on the one hand, and, in a not unrelated vein, in arguing for
an interpretative dimension of social imaginary significations, towards a
hermeneutical phenomenology, on the other.41 That said, Arnason has an
enduring interest in theories of action, although he does not pursue this
aspect as systematically as his elaboration of meaning and culture. The fol-
lowing discussion will lean on Arnasons elaboration of teukhein in order to
illuminate Castoriadiss grappling with the primordial institution of social
doing situated between the ensemblistic-identitarian and imaginary strata of
being, and to better reconstruct Arnasons own culturological appropriation
of Castoriadiss thought.42
Two of Arnasons texts are of particular importance in the present context:
Praxis and Action and the later Civilizations in Dispute, respectively. In
Praxis and Action, Arnason pursues a wide ranging discussion of theories
of action, where discussion of Castoriadis occurs in the context of post-
Marxian approaches. Unlike Habermas, Honneth and Joas, Arnason finds
positive points of contact for theories of social action in Castoriadiss post-
ontological elucidation of the proto-institutions of legein and teukhein, and
notes that with the publication of the IIS, Castoriadis was still concerned
to take up the problematic of social action. Part of Castoriadiss aim, as
foreshadowed in the first part of the IIS, was to reformulate the concept of
praxis so that it could provide a better framework for interpreting action,

40. Joas, Institutionalization, 1192.

41. For example, Arnason, Praxis und Interpretation; Arnason, Culture and Imaginary Significa-
tions; Arnason, Civilizations in Dispute.
42. It goes beyond the scope of this paper to discuss Arnasons reconfiguration of Castoria-
diss understanding of social imaginary significations in any detail. See Arnason, Culture
and Imaginary Significations; and Adams, Castoriadiss Ontology (especially the excursus on
Arnason).

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40 Suzi Adams

especially revolutionary action. As Arnason argues, Castoriadiss rejection

of Marxs paradigm of production is due in part to dissatisfaction with
mainstream theories of action.43 Castoriadiss elaboration of the project of
autonomy is to be understood as a radicalization of Marxs free association
which would then be grounded in the possibility of a radical transforma-
tion of social relations and institutions [that] must be grounded in general
characteristics of social action or social being.44 As mentioned, Castoria-
diss approach to praxis is not the focus of Arnasons discussion. Instead,
Arnason turns his attention to Castoriadiss ontology, in particular, to his
approach to Castoriadiss analysis of social-historical being as institutions
and institutionalization, and, moreover, how this links up with social action.
Although Arnason recognizes that Castoriadiss ontological turn signals a
shift away from a more general central focus on action, he argues that Cas-
toriadiss analysis of institutions culminates in a particularly radical and
comprehensive project of collective action.45 For Arnason, this is achieved
through the incorporation of an interpretative framework that emphasizes
the surplus of meaning irreducible to natural, functional or rational limita-
tions. Nonetheless, Arnason notes that Castoriadiss ontology means that
the problematic of social doing has so far been developed in a rather one
sided way, that is, with regard to the social-historical world as the formative
context of human doing, rather than from the viewpoint of human doing
as a constitutive participation in the social-historical world.46
The link between socio-political action and non-subjective doing lies in
Castoriadiss discussion of the proto-institutions of legein (distinguishing-
choosing-positing-assembling-counting-speaking) and teukhein (assem-
bling-adjusting-fabricating-constructing) as ground rules of thought and
action.47 Of the two (and in line with Castoriadiss growing emphasis on
signification), legein is treated at far greater length than teukhein.48 The
ensemblistic-identitarian organization of the social world occurs through
legein, and although the philosophical tradition has developed legein to its
most extreme as the reduction of being to determinacy, it also, Arnason
observes, serves as a precondition for social action. Teukhein, on the other
hand, does not posit the signitive relation (as does legein), but it does add

43. Arnason, Praxis and Action, 69.

44. Arnason, Praxis and Action, 69.
45. Arnason, Praxis and Action, 73
46. Arnason, Praxis and Action, 74 (emphasis added).
47. Arnason, Praxis and Action, 75.
48. Castoriadis, IIS. Recapitulation of Castoriadiss analysis of legein is not central for the purposes
of this paper. For further discussion, see Arnason, Praxis and Action; and Adams, Castoriadiss
Ontology (especially Chapter 2).

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 Castoriadis and the Non-Subjective Field 41

a new relation: the relation of finality or of instrumentality, referring that

which is to that which is not and at the same time, could be, in a way that
de-teleologizes action and lends meaning to the division between the real
and the possible.49 On Arnasons view, because relations of finality and
instrumentality are anchored in a broader horizon of possibilities, the web
of imaginary significations comes into play, and highlights the connections
between culture and social doing; or, rather, the sense that culture pro-
vides the basis for social doing. But while Arnason argues that there is no
impediment to continued elaboration of the connection between teukhein
and social action, Castoriadis does not pursue this line of thought: instead
the rest of the IIS focuses on the dual poles of the creative imagination: the
radical imagination of the psyche, and social imaginary significations as the
radical imaginary (in ways which make it irreducible to legein and second
order significations). Castoriadis did not develop an anthropology of action
comparable to his anthropology of subjectivity and interpretation, but in
Arnasons view, Castoriadiss treatment of meaning is attuned to openness,
creativity and diversity, and thus remains promising with regard to the prob-
lematic of action.50 There is another aspect to this, however: the schemata
of the possible makes teukhein subversive and transformative of the wider
social institution (in ways that legein is not) and opens onto contexts of
social doing as creation beyond the ensemblistic-identitarian.51 This brings
the question of instituting society and the political realm into play, although
neither Castoriadis nor Arnason pursued this problematic further.
What does Castoriadiss ontological turn in the early 1970s mean for his
elucidation of the modalities of the social imaginary and social doing? Casto-
riadiss shift from phenomenological praxis to ontology was originally meant
to elucidate the ontological preconditions of autonomy (Dick Howard uses
the term political ontology). While Castoriadis began his ontological eluci-
dation with an intended focus on the creativity of history that was to include
both the dimensions of doing and signification, his emphasis on social
doing was increasingly subordinated to his growing interest in imaginary
significations (and the creative imagination).52 Social imaginaries are the
product of the radical imaginary. The radical imaginary is, strictly speaking,
one of two poles of the creative imagination which consists of the radical
imagination of the psyche and the radical imaginary of the social-historical.

49. Arnason, Praxis and Action, 75.

50. Arnason, Praxis and Action, 76.
51. Castoriadis, IIS, 271.
52. However, theories of history were less discussed than theories of society in his elucidation of
the social-historical.

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42 Suzi Adams

In the penultimate chapter of the IIS, Castoriadis approached the radical

imagination of the psyche as the anthropological precondition of subjectiv-
ity, whilst the final chapter elucidated the radical imaginary (and its central
link to the creation and interpretation of social-historical worlds of
meaning) as social imaginary significations. Castoriadis did not follow up
with a comparable discussion of creative doing in the same way that he
did for the creative imagination and did not systematically reflect on ways
in which an elaboration of social doing can move beyond accounts of social
action anchored in the actions of persons in order to situate itself within the
trans-subjective field, that is, within a decentred understanding of culture
as the relations between anthropos and world.

From Action to Social Practices

Arnasons second meditation on action and Castoriadis occurs about a de-

cade later in the context of civilizational analysis.53 Arnason begins the rel-
evant discussion with Peter Wagners observation of a recent convergence of
otherwise different theories on a basic social ontology, which distinguished
three main types of human activity and social practices,54 which can, for
example, be thought of as the threefold nature of social action as the distinc-
tion between economic, political and cultural practices.55 What is interesting
here is the twofold mention of non-subjective doing as human activity and
social practices, indicating different levels of its overall modality. Whilst
Arnason does go on to discuss social practices, he does not explicitly link
it to the non-subjective field, and pursuit of this problematic was not cen-
tral to his concerns at that time. Arnason argues that the new basic social
ontology is connected with renewed efforts to theorize action/agency that
moves beyond traditional reductionist perspectives, be they teleological and
/or individualist. Such approaches emphasize the creativity and contextual-
ity of action, and here, importantly for Arnasons culturological perspective
and articulation, the plurality of frameworks (or practices) which link the
diverse meanings and orientations of action to corresponding aspects of
social reality.56 Social action is underpinned by cultural frameworks, but,
although his formulation would seem to leave the reverse formulation a

53. Arnason, Civilizations in Dispute (especially Chapters 1 and 4). Chapter 4 is the most theo-
retically important and the most significant for our purposes.
54. Arnason, Civilizations in Dispute, 195.
55. Arnason, Civilizations in Dispute, 197.
56. Arnason, Civilizations in Dispute, 197.

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 Castoriadis and the Non-Subjective Field 43

possibility, he does not pursue their interactions in a systematic manner,

preferring, instead, to emphasize the cultural basis of social action and, in-
deed, the cultural element of world formation tout court.
Arnason notes that the concept of praxis was revived to theorize the
creation of a distinctively human or socio-cultural world which could not
plausibly be subsumed under productivist models emerging from Marxian
currents of thought.57 Here he draws attention to Hannah Arendts emphatic
concept of action that was required for the ongoing self-constitution of the
public sphere. Arnason argues that an overall meaning to the social world
and [its location] within a broader world reflect the autonomous activity of
interpretation, rooted in but also reaching beyond contexts of practice. The
multiple and potentially divergent meanings of practices are linked to more
comprehensive articulations of the horizons of experience.58 This final point
is significant in that, although Arnason notes the activity of interpretation,
he ultimately subordinates social practices to culture. Culture goes beyond
contexts of practices as an action related but also action transcending
formation and transformation of meaning.59 Nonetheless, the activity of
interpretation and the interpretation of activity is clearly linked to the
trans-subjective field of world articulation. As Arnason sees it, the way for-
ward would be to develop a theory of subjectivities. An elaboration of sub-
jectivities, as opposed to the subject is a project anchored firmly in the
trans-subjective problematic, but it does not necessarily incorporate aspects
of non-subjective doing (Arnason, himself, tends to focus on the cultural
element), and there can be a tendency to downplay interrelated varieties of
worldhood, as the trans-objective dimension of subjectivities. In other words,
a sole focus on subjectivities obscures the constitutive links between culture
and social doing, and also obscures the varieties of worldhood presumed
by cultural articulations of the world and historically changing forms of
subjectivity: the formation of new subjectivities as part of social doing also
links up with new varieties of political subjectivities and worldhood.
In the text under discussion, Arnasons link to civilizational analysis con-
nects up with Arendts articulation of the Greek polis in that it can be seen
as the radical rearticulation of the patterns of human activity. It offers
promising openings onto the cultural dimension of non-subjective doing,
but in ways more conducive to understanding their mutually constitutive
interplay.60 Unfortunately, Arnason does not develop this argument further,

57. Arnason, Civilizations in Dispute, 197.

58. Arnason, Civilizations in Dispute, 198.
59. Arnason, Civilizations in Dispute, 198.
60. Arnason, Civilizations in Dispute, 198.

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44 Suzi Adams

observing that the largely unexplored points of contact between action

theory and civilizational analysis are worth noting in passing.61 In conclud-
ing that section of the chapter, however, Arnason observes that the expanded
tripartite social ontology can be anchored in anthropological perspectives
that highlight three dimensions of the human condition: the productive
transformation of inner and outer nature, the creation of a socio-cultural
world, and the interpretative articulation of a wider world.62 What is inter-
esting here is that the three dimensions of the human condition entail dif-
ferent levels of trans-subjective modalities. Part of what distinguishes them
from each other is not only the overlapping layers of the cultural aspect but
also the different varieties of non-subjective doing that is associated with
instituting society and world formation.

Instituting Society, Political Imaginaries and Non-Subjective Movement

One aspect of socio-political doing which Castoriadis saw very clearly, and
which is somewhat obscured by the debates on social practices, was that
social doing is an essential moment of instituting society. It is questioning,
transforming and subversive. As such, it is part of politics (as la politique). As
we have seen, this sense was retained in his elaboration of teukhein. The term
social practices (or patterns of human activity), however, seems to marginalize
the transformative aspect; instead social practices indicate instituted forms
of social doing. Even though Castoriadiss journey through the IIS saw an
increasing emphasis on imaginary significations and the cultural element of
the social-historical, his two concluding paragraphs (at the end of the final
chapter of the IIS and at the end of the Preface to the IIS) return to the
question of doing and instituting society. He concludes the final chapter of
the IIS with the following:

the bringing about of a history in which society not only knows

itself, but makes itself as explicitly self-instituting, implies a radical
destruction of the known institution of society, in its most unsus-
pected nooks and crannies, which can exist only as positing/creating
not only new institutions but a new mode of instituting and a new
relation of society and of individuals to the institution (). The self-
transformation of society concerns social doing and so also politics,
in the profound sense of the term the doing of men and women in

61. Arnason, Civilizations in Dispute, 198.

62. Arnason, Civilizations in Dispute, 216.

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 Castoriadis and the Non-Subjective Field 45

society, and nothing else. Of this thoughtful doing, and political think-
ing societys thinking as making itself is one essential component.63

This is echoed in the concluding sentence of Preface to the IIS (which he

wrote after the final chapter):

It is easy to imagine and even to display historical examples of inco-

herent pseudo-projects. But such a project is not so incoherent in its
central core, if this core has any value any more than is the move-
ment of individuals with which it must link up or run the risk of dis-
appearing altogether. For the former and the latter and their junction
posit, create and institute not only new forms of intelligibility but
new forms of social-historical doing, representing and value forms
which cannot simply be discussed and gauged on the basis of prior
criteria belonging to instituted reason. The first, the second and their
junctions are but as moments and forms of instituting doing, of the
self-creation of society.64

These passages show us not only the way in which Castoriadis regards
doing as inherently creative, but also the broad conception of doing
as providing different bases for instituted reason, as well as for instituting
society. Nonetheless, it does also point to a shift in interest towards elucidat-
ing institutions of doing rather than doing per se, but this, too, is a step
towards a more non-subjective understanding of social doing. This brings
us to the non-subjective field, properly speaking; that is, the level of socio-
political reality instituted by the collective anonymous. Despite the gradual
subordination of doing to signification in the second section of the IIS,
social doing especially in its non-subjective modality as instituting society
(both of which Castoriadis explicitly links to politics [la politique]) begins
to intrude into the seeming reduction of the social-historical to signification.
In turn, the doing of instituting society seems more akin to political rather
than social imaginaries as instituting rather than instituted society, as a form
of instituting power (puissance). Thus we might say, that where social practices
and social imaginary significations imply society as instituted (although they
are not reducible to this), social doing and political imaginaries encapsulate
society in its instituting modality, which are understood more generally as
varieties of cultural movement.

63. Castoriadis, IIS, 373 (emphasis in original).

64. Castoriadis, IIS, 5, emphasis added.

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46 Suzi Adams

Movement and the Non-Subjective Field

How might non-subjective modes of doing be articulated? The field of non-

subjective doing is particularly varied and, like social and political imagi-
naries, encapsulates different levels of the human context. It includes, for
example, Arnasons articulation of social practices,65 Castoriadiss foray into
the social-historical institution of teukhein,66 the openings in Durkheims
Elementary Forms of the Religious Life onto non-subjective doing (in interplay
with the formation of collective representations),67 Touraines more concrete
elaboration of social movements,68 as well as Taylors incorporation of social
practices into his understanding of social imaginaries.69 More broadly, and
with a more explicit emphasis on cultural meaning, Ricoeurs essay on the
text as action moves into a-subjective territory,70 and Blumenbergs elabo-
ration of work on myth opens up further possibilities for consideration.71
Significantly in this context, Merleau-Pontys notion of mise en forme du
monde, which has been central to Arnasons cultural hermeneutics, translated
as world articulation so as to highlight (cultural) meaning in its world
relation, could also be rendered world formation, which highlights the
mutual interplay of doing and meaning for the social-historical encounter
with the world and the political self-institution of society. In other words,
world formation highlights the cultural aspects of movement (and the
movement of culture) between the human context and the world process.
Perhaps one of the most promising attempts to grasp the nature of non-
subjective doing is by Czech phenomenologist, Jan Patoka. In his later
thought, Patoka started to develop his phenomenology of the world in
three overlapping but distinct ways. They are, first, his a-subjective phenom-
enology, which sought to elaborate appearance as such; the three movements
of human existence; and his heretical philosophy of history.72 First to move-
ment: The concept of movement encapsulates the non-subjective or what

65. Arnason, Civilizations in Dispute.

66. Castoriadis, IIS.
67. Durkheim, The Elementary Forms.
68. A. Touraine, The Voice and the Eye: An Analysis of Social Movements (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1981).
69. Taylor, Social Imaginaries.
70. P. Ricoeur, The Model of the Text as Meaningful Action, New Literary History 15:1 (1973):
91117.
71. H. Blumenberg, Work on Myth, R. H. Wallace (trans.) (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1985 [1979]).
72. Patoka, Die Bewegung der Menschlichen Existenz; J. Patoka, Body, Community, Language,
World, Erazim Kohak (trans.), James Dodd (ed.) (Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1998); J. Patoka,
Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, Erazim Kohak (trans.), James Dodd (ed.) (Chi-
cago, IL: Open Court, 1996). Here I can but give a brief glimpse of a complex philosophical

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 Castoriadis and the Non-Subjective Field 47

Patoka calls the a-subjective modality of doing. It involves a reformula-

tion of Aristotelian notions of physis as qualitative movement in its dynamic
aspects (especially as kinesis and alloiosis); that is, in contradistinction to mod-
ern understandings of movement as locomotion that can be elaborated in
quantitative terms. Patokas elaboration of the three movements of human
existence is found in his lectures Care and the Three Movements of Human
Life (and elsewhere).73 But in this version, Patoka elaborates movement in
existential terms that involve a critical reconfiguration of Heideggers notion
of care (Sorge) as the basic structure of existence (Lecture 17). They encom-
pass a trinity of movements in which our life unfolds, which depend on and
link up with each other in a distinctive though not a uniform way.74 The
first movement comprises the instinctual and affective level of life as the basic
corporeity of existence, of sinking roots, of anchoring: the movement of
reception.75 The second is characterized as the movement of self-sustenance,
of self-projection carried out in the region of human work: that is, of
reproduction.76 The third is a movement in the narrower sense of the word
which typically seeks to bestow a global closure and meaning on the regions
of rhythms of the first and second movement; it is the most important for
our purposes.77 It is the movement of truth, an historical, rather than existen-
tial, modality (and which he extends in his essays on history). Patoka delin-
eates these movements as phenomenological manifestations or structures of
human life in the constitution of the human world; that is to say, these struc-
tures are not only in-the-world, but are part of the world process.78 Each
of the first two movements is linked to a boundary situation understood
as human finitude: facts of being in the world which cannot be further
analysed and thought away from our existence. Patoka characterizes these
as earth bound movements.79 The third movement, however, is authenti-
cally human and comprises an attempt to break the rule of the Earth that
breaks the bondage of life and into history.80 The second movement the
movement of reproduction is reiterated in Patokas later work on the

constellation (it is to be noted that Patoka elaborated the movement of existence in a few
places and in different ways).
73. Patoka, Body, Community, Language, World.
74. Patoka, Body, Community, Language, World, 143.
75. Patoka, Body, Community, Language, World, 148. It is to be noted that Patoka uses different
names for the three movements in other writings.
76. Patoka, Body, Community, Language, World, 148.
77. Patoka, Body, Community, Language, World, 148.
78. Patoka, Body, Community, Language, World, 157.
79. Patoka, Body, Community, Language, World, 159.
80. Patoka, Body, Community, Language, World, 16063.

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48 Suzi Adams

heretical essays on history (especially in the second essay), and it seems

to merge into the third movement, understood as the movement of truth
or transcendence.81 Here Patokas account connects up with Castoriadiss
understanding of history as created by trans-subjective doing (as institut-
ing society in the political sense), as well as his elucidation of the concrete
project of autonomy, but Patokas version potentially relativizes the tension
between Castoriadiss polarization of political autonomy (as an historically
rare occurrence) and heteronomy, in that history as truth allows more room
for inter-cultural (and inter-civilizational) variation.
The notion of non-subjective doing as movement in and towards the
world as part of the world process seems a promising way forward for
elaborating the human condition in its various levels of world formation. Is
there anything in Castoriadiss thought that opens onto a notion of move-
ment? In an important, if little discussed essay, Phusis and Autonomy,
Castoriadis reactivates and radicalizes Aristotles notion of physis as qualita-
tive movement (alloiosis) of the living being to include the emergence and
creation of ontological form. It represents an extension of his elucidation of
history as a qualitative ontology of time (as creation), and can be regarded
as a radicalization of his original discussion of the for-itself in relation to
praxis (as found in the first half of the IIS).82 In Physis and Autonomy, the
form which is created by the living being and the for-itself more gener-
ally is a world. The problematic of the world is ambiguous in Castoriadiss
thought; within his ontological framework, he neglects the interpretative
context that can obscure the creation as a modality of doing already in-
the-world.83 From a different angle, however, Castoriadiss insights into the
living being not only broaden the scope of phenomenological enquiry, but
his elaboration of qualitative movement towards the world can be fruitfully
taken up in conjunction with Patokas writings, and linking to each of
Arnasons three dimensions of the human condition and different levels
of the trans-subjective field as the interchange between anthropos and
nature; the articulation of a social world, and the interpretation of a wider
world horizon. Further, in understanding varieties of cultural movement
involved in the formation of the world (both between the various levels of

81. Patoka, Heretical Essays.

82. C. Castoriadis, Phusis and Autonomy, in World in Fragments, David Ames Curtis (trans. and
ed.) (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997). This essay is important to Castoriadiss
changing ontology and expansion of magmas into nature. The living being, in an extension
of his earlier discussion of life and the for itself (in the IIS chapter on praxis) features as
the archetypal being for-itself. The others are: the psyche, the social-historical, the social
individual, and the virtual types of the autonomous society and the autonomous subject.
83. Adams, Castoriadiss Ontology.

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 Castoriadis and the Non-Subjective Field 49

the living being, and the social-historical level), greater appreciation of the
activation of socio-political imaginaries as forms of human activity and social
practices is emphasized. This allows for an elaboration of Merleau-Pontys
mise en forme du monde as world formation (instead of world articulation),
which is more hospitable to notions of the activity of cultural movement not
just cultural interpretation as part of the world process and of politics more
generally.

In lieu of a Conclusion

Castoriadiss enduring interest in autonomy and the self-creation of his-

tory was elucidated as the interplay of signification and doing. However, his
elucidation of the modality of doing did not keep pace with his increasing
focus on social imaginaries, even though, as we have seen, he explicitly
linked social doing to the most profound sense of politics. It was also char-
acterized by a persistent ambiguity that vacillated between a conception
of history instituted by the collective anonymous, and an image of his-
tory as the product of particular agencies. His earlier attempt to elucidate
praxis, although emphasizing the (inter)subjective level of analysis, was
anchored in a phenomenological engagement with the world problematic
(as being-in-the-world), on the philosophical level, and in political events
and autonomy, on the historical level. His later articulation of teukhein
highlighted the trans-subjective aspects of doing and instituting society
but was circumscribed by his growing interest in the creative imagination.
Much of the scholarly discussion on social action does not explicitly deal
with the non-subjective domain of doing (or only partially and implic-
itly). And social doing, once it moves beyond teleological and individualist
assumptions, tends to appear as the action or activity of subjects, rather
than an element of world constitution in his thought. Unlike his treatment
of the creative imagination, Castoriadis did not elucidate an ontology of
doing beyond the proto-institution of legein. This, coupled with the phe-
nomenological contexts of his writings on praxis which incorporated a
deeper engagement with the problematic of the world horizon provide
an alternate constellation for rethinking social doing that can more readily
acknowledge the human condition as both historical and always already
in-the-world. Subterranean aspects of non-subjective social doing remain
discernible in his reflections on instituting society and the movement of
physis, for example, and link up with political imaginaries as distinct from
social imaginaries (and social practices). Patokas asubjective approach to
movement as existential and historical dimensions of the human condition

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50 Suzi Adams

opens up new perspectives with which to extend Castoriadiss thought,

especially in broadening his understanding of political autonomy. These
signposts point us towards the trans-subjectivity of doing and opens onto
a deeper understanding of the modalities of world formation in relation to
the human condition as intersecting aspects of cultural movement, political
doing and the world process.

Dr Suzi Adams lectures in social theory and sociology at Flinders University. She has
published widely on Castoriadiss thought. Most recently her monograph Castoriadiss
Ontology: Being and Creation was published by Fordham University Press (New York,
2011). With Ingerid Straume, she is co-editing a special issue on Castoriadiss thought,
forthcoming in the European Journal of Social Theory (2012).

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