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After Merleau-Ponty: Castoriadis, Living Being, World

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After Merleau-Ponty: Castoriadis, Living Being, World AFTER MERLEAU-PONTY: CASTORIADIS, LIVING BEING, WORLD Suzi Adams This paper considers Merleau-Ponty as a significant source not only for Cornelius Castoriadis’ early trajectory but also for his later philosophy, too. Although several openings into such a discussion are easy to find, the present paper takes up Castoriadis’ unfinished philosophy of nature, which is little discussed in the secondary literature. Unlike Merleau-Ponty, Castoriadis’ road to ontology was not by way of a reconsideration of nature, but through a rethinking of history, creation and the imagination. However he made not one but two ontological turns in his thought: moving from a regional ontology of the social-historical to a trans-regional ontology of à-être. This second ontological shift emerged through a rethinking of the creativity of nature. Two aspects are emphasized in this paper: First, Castoriadis’ poly-regional ontology of the for-itself, with especial reference to the living being and his contribution to an elaboration of the being of the world; second, Castoriadis’ later approach to the living being is contextualized as part of a critical Naturphilosophie. The importance of Merleau-Ponty as a key intellectual source for Lefort is well documented. However, the significance of Merleau-Ponty for Greek-French thinker and co-founder of Socialisme ou Barbarie, Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) has been more marginal to contemporary debates.1 Perhaps the most obvious place to begin would be to situate Castoriadis’ political philosophy – or political ontology, as Dick Howard has called it2 – in relation to Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology. Although such an approach would certainly prove fruitful – especially if enriched by a comparison with Lefort’s post-Merleau-Pontian socio-political theory – the present paper takes a different tack. By focusing rather on Castoriadis’ unfinished philosophy of nature, the aim of this paper, is to sketch some 1 But see Dick Howard The Marxian Legacy, 2nd revised edition with Afterword, (London and Minneapolis 1988); and Bernhard Waldenfels Phänomenologie in Frankreich, (Frankfurt am Main, 1993). 2 Dick Howard, ibid. <UN> <UN> 332 suzi adams contours of Castoriadis’ later philosophy as part of the post-Merleau- Pontian field, with a particular focus on the living being as part of a wider Naturphilosophie. Castoriadis’ philosophy is best known for its interrogation of autonomy and creation in the human, that is, the socio-political domain.3 His later reflection, however, reveals a renewed consideration of the creativity of nature that can be considered along the lines of a critical Naturphilosphie (I will return to this later). Working originally within the milieu of phe- nomenological Marxism, Castoriadis’ reconfiguration of the phenomeno- logical legacy emerged primarily from an encounter with Merleau-Ponty’s thought but also – albeit to a lesser extent – as a critical engagement with Husserl and Heidegger. In the wake of Merleau-Ponty, Castoria- dis continued the ontological reconfiguration of phenomenology, whilst simultaneously – albeit implicitly – drawing on Ricoeurian, that is, herme- neutical, currents of French phenomenology. Castoriadis’ philosophy relates to both these aspects: In the first instance, the publication of his most systematic work, L’Institution imaginaire de la societé (Hereafter, the IIS) in 1975 saw his initial ontological turn and the early 1980s witnessed a further ontological shift in his thought; in the second instance, Castoriadis’ own protestations notwithstanding, an implicit hermeneutical turn emerges in his thought as well. This becomes especially clear in the final chapter of the IIS, where he elucidates his theory of meaning via the elabo- ration of social imaginary significations. Castoriadis’ engagement with Merleau-Ponty was critical for the elabo- ration of his political phenomenology towards ontology. He published two important essays on Merleau-Ponty’s thought: ‘Le Dicible et l’Indicible’ was first published in the 1971 special issue of L’ARC,4 whilst ‘Merleau- Ponty and the Weight of the Ontological Tradition’ was written in 1978 after the publication of the IIS.5 Importantly, each of Castoriadis’ philo- sophical encounters with Merleau-Ponty transpired on the eve of – and in close connection with – major ontological breakthroughs in Castoriadis’ own thought. In the first instance, ‘The Sayable and the Unsayable’ occurred on the cusp of his first – and best known – ontological turn in the IIS (the four chapters comprising the second part of the IIS and 3 See especially, Cornelius Castoriadis The Imaginary Institution of Society, Translated by Kathleen Blamey (Cambridge, UK: 1987 [1975]). 4 Cornelius Castoriadis, ‘Le Dicible et l’indicible’, L’ARC, 46 (1971) pp. 67–79. 5 Cornelius Castoriadis, ‘Merleau-Ponty and the Weight of the Ontological Tradition’, Thesis Eleven, 36 (1993) pp. 1–36. <UN> <UN>.
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