Cornelius Castoriadis (; 11 March 1922 – 26 December 1997) was a Greek-FrenchMemos 2014, p. 18: "he was ... granted full French citizenship in 1970." philosopher, sociologist, social critic, economist, psychoanalyst, author of The Imaginary Institution of Society, and co-founder of the Socialisme ou Barbarie collective."Cornelius Castoriadis Dies at 75"
His writings on autonomy and social institutions have been influential in both academic and activist circles.Tassis 2007, p. 4; Tasis 2007, pp. 27–8.
Biography
Early life in Athens Cornelius Castoriadis was born on 11 March 1922 in ConstantinopleDosse 2014, p. 13. (then part of the Ottoman Empire), the son of fabric merchant KaisarMeletopoulos 2008, p. 52. and Sophia Kastoriadis, Papachela (Παπαχελά).Tasis 2007, p. 37. His family had to move in July 1922 to Athens, the home of Castoriadis' mother, due to the Greco-Turkish War (1919–22). Castoriadis developed an interest in politics after he came into contact with Marxist thought at the age of 13.Cornelius Castoriadis/Agora International Interview Cerisy Colloquium (1990), p. 2 (French original: Entretien d'Agora International avec Cornelius Castoriadis au Colloque de Cerisy (1990)). At the same time, he began studying traditional philosophy after purchasing a copy of the book History of Philosophy (Ιστορία της Φιλοσοφίας, Istoria tis Filosofias, 2 vols., 1933) by historian of ideas Nikolaos Louvaris.
Sometime between 1932 and 1935, Maximiani Portas (later known as "Savitri Devi"), a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Lyon, was Castoriadis' French tutor.Dosse 2014, p. 17. During the same period, he attended the 8th Gymnasium of Athens in Kato Patisia, from which he graduated in 1937 at age 15.Meletopoulos 2008, p. 53.Marianthi Bella, "In my Neighborhood, Patisia ...", Glinos Foundation, 2013, p. 5.
His first active involvement in politics occurred during the Metaxas Regime in 1937, when he joined the Athens Communist Youth (Κομμουνιστική Νεολαία Αθήνας, Kommounistiki Neolaia Athinas), a section of the Young Communist League of Greece (OKNE). In 1938, Castoriadis and fellow student Andreas Papandreou were arrested for leftist affiliations.Cahiers Léon Trotsky, Issue 76, Institut Léon Trotsky, 2001, p. 18. In 1941, Castoriadis joined the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), only to leave one year later in order to become an active Trotskyist—at the time, he was under the influence of the Archeio-Marxist/Trotskyist revolutionary militant Agis StinasTasis 2007, pp. 40–1."For Spyros Stinas" by Cornelius Castoriadis, a text delivered at the University of Athens during Stinas' civil memorial service in March 1989. who was the founder of KDKE, a party that rejected the Communist-led National Liberation Front and promoted revolutionary defeatism.Emmanouilidis 2002, pp. 50–1. The latter action resulted in his persecution by both the Germans and the Communist Party (through its secret police, OPLA).Meletopoulos 2008, p. 58.
In 1937, he also enrolled in the School of Law, Economics and Political Sciences of the University of Athens (where, at the University Club, he met and collaborated with the "Heidelberg Circle",Spiros Gangas, Georgia Lagoumitzi, Sociology in Greece: Its History and Development, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, p. 68. namely the Heidelberg School neo-Kantian intellectuals Konstantinos Despotopoulos, Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, Konstantinos Tsatsos),Meletopoulos 2008, p. 54.Dosse 2014, p. 22. from which he graduated in 1942.
In early 1944, he wrote his first essays on social science and Max Weber,Suzi Adams. Castoriadis's Ontology: Being and Creation. New York: Fordham University Press, 2011, p. 218. . which he published in the journal Archive of Sociology and Ethics (Αρχείον Κοινωνιολογίας και Ηθικής, Archeion Koinoniologias kai Ithikis; published by the Greek Association for Sociological Studies – Εταιρεία Κοινωνιολογικών Σπουδών). The journal was initially headed by the sociologist Avrotelis Eleftheropoulos, but later by Castoriadis and his fellow law students Dimitrios Tsakonas and Mimika Kranaki.Oikonomou 2000, p. 13.Meletopoulos 2008, p. 55.
Castoriadis heavily criticized the actions of the KKE during the December 1944 clashes (the prelude to the 1946–49 Greek Civil War) between the communist-led ELAS on one side, and the Georgios Papandreou government aided by British troops on the other.
In December 1945, he boarded the RMS Mataroa,Tasis 2007, p. 42. a New Zealand ocean liner, to go to Paris (where he remained permanently) to continue his studies under a scholarship offered by the French Institute of Athens. The same voyage—organized by Octave Merlier—also brought from Greece to France a number of other Greek writers, artists and intellectuals (the "Mataroa Generation"),Danae Antonakou, "La nave Mataroa (Atene-Parigi 1945) Un mito greco contemporaneo", La Rivista di Engramma 174 (July/August 2020), pp. 77–134. including Constantine Andreou, Kostas Axelos, Georges Candilis, Costa Coulentianos, Mimika Kranaki, Emmanuel Kriaras, Adonis A. Kyrou, Kostas Papaïoannou, Miltiadès Papamiltiadès, Virgile Solomonidis, and Nikos Svoronos.Tasis 2007, p. 43.Dosse 2014, p. 37.François Bordes, "Exil et création : des penseurs grecs dans la vie intellectuelle française", in Servanne Jollivet, Christophe Premat, Mats Rosengren, Destins d'exilés, Le Manuscrit, 2011, p. 66.
In France, he was known to intimates as "Corneille".Dosse 2014, pp. 514–5.
Paris and the Chaulieu–Montal Tendency Once in Paris, Castoriadis joined the Trotskyist Parti Communiste Internationaliste (PCI).Dosse 2021, p. 205. He and Claude Lefort (a student of Maurice Merleau-Ponty) constituted a Chaulieu–Montal Tendency (so called after their pseudonyms) in the French PCI in 1946. In August 1946, Castoriadis published his article "On the Regime and Against the Defense of the USSR",Pierre Chaulieu [Cornelius Castoriadis], "Sur le régime et contre la défense de l'URSS", Bulletin Intérieur du PCI, no. 31, August 1946, pp. 3–5. which addressed the "Russian question"—that is, the nature of Stalinist Russia—rejecting the Trotskyist characterization of the Soviet Union as a degenerated workers' state.PSW 1, pp. 37–43. Castoriadis acknowledged that the October Revolution had degenerated, but this alone does not explain the structure of the new type of regime.Arato 1993, p. 147.
In 1948, Castoriadis and Lefort experienced their final disenchantment with Trotskyism (and its Leninist foundations), leading them to break away to found the libertarian socialist and councilist group and journal Socialisme ou Barbarie (S. ou B., 1949–1966), which included Jean-François LyotardPSW 3, p. x. and Guy Debord as members for a while, and profoundly influenced the French intellectual left. Castoriadis had links with the group known as the Johnson–Forest Tendency (a Trotskyist tendency in the United States associated with Marxist humanist theorists C. L. R. James, Raya Dunayevskaya, and Grace Lee Boggs) until 1958.Memos 2014, p. 24. Strongly influenced by Castoriadis and Socialisme ou Barbarie was the British group Solidarity, led by Maurice Brinton.
Early philosophical research In 1946, Castoriadis started attending philosophical and sociological courses at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Paris, where among his teachers were Gaston Bachelard,Cornelius Castoriadis/Agora International Interview Cerisy Colloquium (1990), p. 4.Dosse 2014, pp. 43–4.Tasis 2007, pp. 67–8. the epistemologist René Poirier, the historian of philosophy Henri Bréhier, Henri Gouhier, Jean Wahl, Gustave Guillaume, Albert Bayet, and Georges Davy. He submitted a proposal for a doctoral dissertation on mathematical logic to Poirier, but by 1948 he had abandoned the project.Meletopoulos 2008, p. 59.Dosse 2014, p. 44. The working title of his unfinished thesis was Introduction à la logique axiomatique (Introduction to Axiomatic Logic), with a complementary unfinished thesis: Introduction à la théorie des sciences sociales (Introduction to the Theory of the Social Science).Timothy Andrews, "Between Athens and Paris: The life and intellectual contribution of Cornelius Castoriadis", Thesis Eleven, December 2020 ("Special Issue: Castoriadis Ex Nihilo"), 161(1):14–22.
Career as an economist At the same time (starting in November 1948), he worked as an economist at the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation / Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OEEC/OECD) until 1970, which was also the year when he obtained French citizenship. His last position at the OECD was Director of Statistics, National Accounts, and Growth Studies.
Political theorist In his 1949 essay "The Relations of Production in Russia",Pierre Chaulieu [Cornelius Castoriadis], "Les rapports de production en Russie", Socialisme ou Barbarie no. 2 (May–June 1949), reprinted in La Société bureaucratique: Volume 1, Christian Bourgois Éditeur, 1990 and in PSW 1, pp. 135–158. Castoriadis developed a critique of the supposed socialist character of the government of the Soviet Union. According to Castoriadis, the central claim of the Stalinist regime at the time was that the mode of production in Russia was socialist, but the mode of distribution was not yet a socialist one since the socialist edification in the country had not yet been completed. However, according to Castoriadis' analysis, since the mode of distribution of the social product is inseparable from the mode of production,"[L]e mode de répartition du produit social est inséparable du mode de production." (Cornelius Castoriadis, La Société bureaucratique: Volume 1, Christian Bourgois Éditeur, 1990, p. 164.) the claim that one can have control over distribution while not having control over production is meaningless."L'Idée que l'on puisse dominer la répartition sans dominer la production est de l'enfantillage." (La Société bureaucratique: Volume 1, Christian Bourgois Éditeur, 1990, p. 166.)
Castoriadis was particularly influential in the turn of the intellectual left during the 1950s against the Soviet Union, because he argued that the Soviet Union was not a communist but rather a bureaucratic capitalist state, which contrasted with Western powers mostly by virtue of its centralized power apparatus.Peter Osborne (ed.), A Critical Sense: Interviews with Intellectuals, Routledge, 2013, p. 17. His work in the OECD substantially helped his analyses. Castoriadis regarded the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 as the first genuine uprising against bureaucratic regimes.PSW 2, p. vii.Marcela Tovar-Restrepo, Castoriadis, Foucault, and Autonomy: New Approaches to Subjectivity, Society, and Social Change. Continuum International Publishing, 2012, pp. 9–32. .
His reflections on organization within a militant framework led him to confront the irreducible element of creation that cannot be described or anticipated in advance. The most explicit articulation of these ideas appears in his article "Proletarian Leadership" (1952),Pierre Chaulieu [Cornelius Castoriadis], "La direction prolétarienne", Socialisme ou Barbarie, no. 10 (July–August 1952), pp. 10–18. where he argues that Marxist revolutionary practice is marked by a profound contradiction: on the one hand, it depends on a scientific understanding of social structures; on the other, its very possibility hinges on the inventive and transformative actions of countless individuals.Nicolas Piqué, "Castoriadis Before Castoriadis? Organization, Reality and Creation". Journal of the CIPH, 96:2 (2019).
To prevent visa complications,Prat, Jean-Louis. "Introduction à Castoriadis." Revue du MAUSS permanente, 2 October 2007. his pre-1970 political writings were published under a pseudonym, as "Pierre Chaulieu" (early S. ou B. writings, 1949–1958) "Paul Cardan" (later S. ou B. writings, 1959–1965) or "Jean-Marc Coudray" (Fayard, 1968).