Plurality and Indeterminacy

Revising Castoriadis’s overly homogeneous conception of society

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2397945
AutoresJeff Klooger (Swinburne University of Technology, autor correspondente)
Ano2012
Volume15
Fascículo4
Páginas488-504
Data de publicação2012-11-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEuropean Journal of Social Theory (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1368-4310 • E-ISSN: 1461-7137
EditoraSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1368431011432372
OpenAlexW2097091359
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas12

Despite its ground-breaking character, Castoriadis's theory of society remains, in some respects, caught up in conceptual difficulties common to social theory generally, particularly the problem of conceptualizing social unity without resort to an understanding of society that downplays heterogeneity and over-emphasizes the homogeneous. Unlike many other theoretical approaches and traditions, Castoriadis's work also offers a possible path out of this dilemma in the form of philosophical innovations which could enable us to conceptualize social unity without flattening the heterogeneous characteristics of the social. Castoriadis sometimes fails to recognize the full implications of his own rejection of ontological determinism, and so ends up proposing a far too deterministic and homogeneous model of social types. This essay aims to show how this might be remedied by drawing on Castoriadis's own fundamental insights

Character (mathematics · Determinism · Dilemma · Epistemology · Homogeneous · Indeterminacy (philosophy · Sociology · Critical Realism in Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Mathematics · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism