Abstract

The purpose of this paper is the introduction of the anthropological ideas that are proposed through the philosophical thought of Cornelius Castoriadis, specifically focusing on the psychoanalytic topic that he elaborates. Psychoanalysis for Castoriadis does not only disclose the ‘impossibility’ of the subject but also the overcoming of this ‘impossibility’. The subject on Castoriadis is not an a priori logical subject, absolutely absorbed by the social, as well as it is not a ‘lost’ subject that is being ‘captured’ by the unconscious’ domination and betrayed through a latent language from which he has irrecoverably been alienated. In the Castoriadian anthropology the singularity of the human nature is self-creation and human’s vocation could be autonomy. This aim that exactly could coincide with the goals of a successful analytical process constitutes not only a deeply humane purpose, but also a vital precondition for a free and autonomous society. Castoriadic psychoanalysis aims to autonomy through the establishment of a different, clarified–as much as this can be possible- relation between the subject and his unconscious. By defining the soul’s being as imaginary, Castoriadis refers to a condition that enables the reflection to become, overrunning thus the Freudian biological thinking and succeeding to show, that the act of thinking is something totally different from the process of simple logical computation. Imagination is designated as a source of creation and human conceived as basically an imaginative being, becomes potentially self-creative and capable of autonomous decision.