Online research in philosophy

Introduction: What is liberalism? -- Three conceptions of autonomy -- A theory of autonomy -- Autonomy and anti-perfectionism -- Autonomy-minded liberalism -- Multicultural liberalism.

From Hippocrates to paternalism to autonomy : the new hegemony -- From autonomy to consent -- Consent, autonomy, and the law -- Autonomy at the end of life -- Autonomy and pregnancy -- Autonomy and genetic information -- Autonomy and organ transplantation -- Autonomy, consent, and the law.

The work of Herbert Marcuse, unlike that of certain of his colleagues at the Institut für Sozialforschung, is most often maligned as being excessively positive and identitarian. His work on Freud, for example, is criticized for being grounded in a crude biological determinism which points towards an ultimate reconciliation of both psychic and social conflict. This essay will attempt to counter such readings by critically juxtaposing Marcuse’s concept of non-repressive sublimation with Cornelius Castoriadis’s understanding of psychic socialization. It will be suggested that the affinities between Marcuse and Castoriadis’s appropriations of Freudian metapsychology reveals the degree to which the former can be read as a radical democratic thinker affirming the values of autonomy and creativity. This reading demonstrates that Marcuse has much to contribute to contemporary debates on the role of the aesthetic and the sensuous in democratic theory.

This paper explores the aporetic nature of social and historical being as it emerges from a juxtaposition of the philosophies of Castoriadis and Heidegger with specific emphasis on their meditations on history, individuality and collective being. It is argued that any current attempts to grasp the problems posed by historical time should not overlook the conceptual space opened up by contrasting Castoriadis' theorisation of social-historical praxis as the enactment of autonomy expressed through the emergence of the `radically new' with Heidegger's treatment of authentic historicity as fate and repetition. The attempt of both thinkers to break with the philosophical tradition of the West is examined from the perspective of their conceptions on time and history, while their opposing accounts serve to revaluate the traditional dichotomy between allegedly `linear' and `cyclical' conceptions of time. Additionally, it is argued that instead of treating Phenomenological-Hermeneutic and Marxist accounts as adverse and incompatible, our reflections on history and society are enriched by their juxtaposition. Castoriadis and Heidegger present us with the most promising individual cases of thinkers representing these philosophical schools mainly due to their emphasis on the historical dimension of human life and to their overall groundbreaking philosophical elaborations that resist labelling and defy confinement to specific philosophical or epistemic traditions.

This paper looks at two 20th century theories of tragedy: those of Cornelius Castoriadis and Albert Camus. The theories that each proffer of this ancient cultural form are striking. Against more standard views, both theorists stress that tragedy is a cultural form that has only arisen historically in cultures whose forms of religious thought have been laid open to question. In this way, both argue that tragedy is an important democratic cultural form, which stages the confrontation between a no longer unquestionable divine order, and human autonomy.The intent of the paper, from the start, is a political one. It wants to place Camus alongside Castoriadis as a 'post-Marxist' thinker, who belongs meaningfully to what Dick Howard has called 'the Marxian legacy'. More than this, it aims to do this by staging Camus' theorisation of tragedy, with Castoriadis', as a powerful riposte to the conservative criticism of democracy as a modern political form, that is, that it cannot muster sacral cultural forms forceful enough to meaningfully unite people beneath its banner.

This paper focuses on the relationship of theory and practice in Castoriadis concepts. Especially Castoriadis' concept of the revolutionary practice is examinded. (Diese Arbeit behandelt das Verhältnis von Theorie und Praxis bei Cornelius Castoriadis. Besondere Beachtung findet Castoriadis Vorstellung der revolutionären Praxis.).

One of the most contentious of Castoriadis' ideas is his concept of creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing). This article elucidates and evaluates this concept of creation, contrasting Castoriadis' approach with its classical antithesis in the philosophy of Parmenides, who famously concluded that the universe muct be unchanging since nothing can come to be or cease to be.

This collection presents a broad and compelling overview of the most recent work by a world-renowned figure in contemporary thought. The book is in four parts: Koinonia, Polis, Psyche, Logos. The opening section begins with a general introduction to the author's views on being, time, creation, and the imaginary institution of society and continues with reflections on the role of the individual psyche in racist thinking and acting. The second part is a critique of those who now belittle and distort the meaning of May 1968 and other movements of the sixties as well as the French Revolution. In part three, Castoriadis shows how psychoanalysis, like politics, can contribute to the project of individual and collective autonomy and challenges Lacan, Foucault, and Derrida, and others in his report on 'The State and Subject Today'. Finally he examines how Aristotle's original aporetic discovery and cover-up of the imagination were repeated by Kant, Freud, Heidegger, and even Merleau-Ponty.

These remarkable essays include Cornelius Castoriadis's latest contributions to philosophy, political and social theory, classical studies, development theory, cultural criticism, science, and ecology. Examining the "co-birth" in ancient Greece of philosophy and politics, Castoriadis shows how the Greeks' radical questioning of established ideas and institutions gave rise to the "project of autonomy". The "end of philosophy" proclaimed by Postmodernism would mean the end of this project. That end is now hastened by the lethal expansion of technoscience, the waning of political and social conflict, and the resignation of intellectuals who blindly defend Western culture as it is or who merely denounce or "deconstruct" it as it has been. Discussing and criticizing Plato, Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Weber, Heidegger, and Habermas, the author of The Imaginary Institution of Society and Crossroads in the Labyrinth poses a radical challenge to our inherited philosophy.