The radical ontology of Castoriadis

Creation, Imaginary, Autonomy

Introduction

The philosophical tradition of the West has, to a large extent, been shaped under the weight of a fundamental ontological constant: that Being is identified with what is logically determinable, with that which can be fully grasped, represented, and explained through concepts, categories, and identities (Taylor, 2004). From Parmenides to Aristotle, and from Descartes to Hegel and Marx, Western thought has returned obsessively to this axiom of the rationality of Being. Within this framework, philosophy functioned as a tool for organizing the world: a means through which indeterminacy is transformed into system, and multiplicity/otherness into unity. The very notion of truth presupposed that reality could be entirely revealed through a coherent web of linguistic and logical representation.

Cornelius Castoriadis formulates a radically subversive proposition against this fundamental assumption: he argues that Being is not a set, but a “magma”. Being cannot be exhausted in logical distinctions and categorizations; it is, above all, creation – emergent novelty, radically non-causally predictable, beyond any closed logic. His ontology of creation marks a rupture in the way we conceive of reality, history, praxis, and society.

Yet, the novelty of his thought does not lie only in the introduction of new concepts, but in the reconstruction of the very philosophical terms traditionally used to articulate the experience of the world: Being, causality, form, subjectivity, otherness, society. At the center of his proposition stand the notions of emergence and the social imaginary as the radical source of creativity.

The present study seeks to delve into Castoriadis’ systematic ontology of creation, as articulated in his work, and to highlight how it relates to the critique of the logic of identity, the introduction of the concept of magma, the foundation of the imaginary institution of society, and the problematic of autonomy as a philosophical and political possibility. It is an attempt to transform the very way we think about the possibility of the new – the non-derivative, the radically other, the creative.

The critique of ensemblistic – identitary logic

Castoriadis (1998, pp. 221-237) identifies at the heart of the Western philosophical tradition a logical structure that characterizes the relation of thought to Being: what he calls “ensemblistic–identitary logic”. This logic is based on the conviction that whatever exists can be fully understood, described, and determined as a member of a set, according to criteria of identity and conceptual categorization.

Examples abound: Plato’s ideal order of beings, Aristotelian essentialism, Hegelian dialectics, and so forth. Over the centuries, Western thought has sought to reduce the multiplicity of the real into a universally coherent logical system (Habermas, 1984, pp. 1-20). Castoriadis, however, insists that this ontological stance leads ultimately to a universally closed system in which there is no space for indeterminacy, novelty, or the radically new (Arnason, 1989; Castoriadis, 1991). Ensemblistic –identitary logic seeks to eliminate the internal tension of multiplicity and reconstruct reality as a series of clearly defined identities. Anything that cannot be incorporated into the existing web of meanings is regarded as either false or unintelligible.

The conception of Being as a completed set ignores, according to Castoriadis (1998, pp. 152; 370), the fundamental experience of becoming: the continuous emergence of new forms of life, institutions, meanings, and actions. History, politics, and art bear witness to the presence of creative indeterminacy. Social movements, revolutions, artistic ruptures cannot be explained as mere mechanical expressions of pre-existing structures. Rather, they are realizations of an element that escapes the logic of identity.

In The Imaginary Institution of Society, Castoriadis (1998) stresses that this logic constitutes a profound ontological illusion, since it transforms Being into something fully determined, thereby excluding emergence as a category. It amounts to a form of metaphysical coercion – where reality must obey logical terms, even when lived experience testifies to the opposite.

Ensemblistic – identitary logic is therefore not only inadequate, but also an obstacle to conceiving humanity as creative and society as potentially autonomous. A thought that reproduces only existing schemas cannot grasp the praxis that transcends them radically. As Castoriadis underlines in Passion et connaissance, knowledge is never severed from passion, and imagination is not the enemy of truth but its very condition (Castoriadis, 2007, pp. 145-147). Logic alone cannot explain the constitution of the world.

Magma as a meta – ontological category

The concept of magma forms the cornerstone of Castoriadis’ alternative ontology. It is an ontological conception that questions the very logical constitution of Being. The magma is the fundamentally non-(fully) reducible, non-completable, and non-representable element of reality (Castoriadis, 1998, pp. 340-344; 370-371). In contrast to the set, which is fully defined by its members and can be exhaustively analyzed, the magma cannot be reduced to its formations. It produces forms – concepts, institutions, symbolisms – yet none of these can fully capture it, nor stabilize it. The magma is not form but the very precondition of the genesis of forms – the source of all structures.

Castoriadis borrows the term “magma” from geology but transforms it into a philosophical principle: Being is not “substance” but a dynamic field of form-giving, without definitive determination. Thus, magma functions as a meta-ontological category, for it does not belong to the traditional schemas of being/non-being, identity/difference (Arnason, 1989).

Through the notion of magma, Castoriadis seeks to shatter the dominance of the logic that has shaped the philosophical imaginary of the West: the demand that every existence must be fully sayable, imaginable, and identifiable. The magma is the substratum from which reality emerges without being exhausted in any of its forms. Any attempt to “determine” it logically results in paradox: the determinable cannot explain the creative (Castoriadis, 1991; 2007).

The significance of the magma is crucial at every level:

• Ontologically, it asserts that Being cannot be exhausted by logic.

• Epistemologically, it reveals the limits of representation and theoretical discourse.

• Politically and anthropologically, it underpins the idea that humanity, as a creative force, is not merely a product but a bearer of emergence.

Finally, the magma provides Castoriadis with an alternative basis for thinking the historicity of the world. There is no predetermined schema, no causal necessity. Being is in continuous genesis, just as society both institutes and reflects upon itself.

The rupture with necessity

Within this framework, one of Castoriadis’ deepest philosophical aims is the deconstruction of the notion of necessity, as established both in metaphysical tradition and in modern theories of history and science. As noted earlier, the dominant philosophical stance – from Aristotelian teleology to Hegelian historicism and Marxist dialectics -presupposes a causally structured world, where the new is never truly new but a necessary outcome of pre-existing conditions (Lefort, 1986, pp. 250-255).

Castoriadis articulates the notion of emergence precisely to oppose such reductionist logic. Emergence signals the possibility of the radically new, which cannot be deduced or causally/ logically derived from prior structures or states (Castoriadis, 1998, pp. 370-373). We do not have transformations within a closed system, but ruptures, breaks, realizations of the unpredictable. This has profound ontological implications. Creation is not the result of some internal necessity or external cause; rather, it is a mode of existence – the emergence of meanings, forms, and institutions without pre-existing determining patterns. In this view, history is neither “natural process” nor “science,” but an open trajectory constituted by praxis and by imaginary ruptures with what already exists.

The rupture with necessity also entails rejecting any deterministic or teleological interpretation of the social. Castoriadis is especially critical of theories such as Marxist historical materialism, which assume a necessary logic of development of social forms. For him, such accounts subordinate human praxis to abstract laws and deny the very possibility of freedom (Castoriadis, 2003).

Emergence is also directly related to the concept of time. Contrary to philosophies that treat time as a linear span awaiting the realization of a pre-given potentiality, Castoriadis proposes a time of creation. Temporality is not a neutral dimension but the very field in which the impossible up to now becomes actual. Time is open – and so too is Being (Castoriadis, 1998).

Ultimately, Castoriadis’ thought collides with every form of metaphysical necessity. Being is neither completed nor interpretable by reduction. It is a field of possibility, which implies that history is not fate but instituted and instituting praxis.

Society as imaginary (self-)institution

From here we arrive at the core of Castoriadis’ contribution to contemporary philosophy: the conception of society not as a structure or functional mechanism, but as a system of imaginary institution. At the center of this claim lies the notion of the social imaginary, which is not a psychological or cultural superstructure upon an “objective” social substratum, but the very source of the creation of social forms of Being (Castoriadis, 1998).

Society, according to this view, institutes itself (Castoriadis, 1991; Castoriadis, 1998, pp. 359-364; Taylor, 2004). Its institutions – language, law, religion, politics, techniques of organization, and so on – are not products of natural necessity, biological evolution, or external causality, but formations of imaginary production. This does not mean they arise from “nothing” but that they do not follow a deterministic causal continuity.

Imaginary institution is radically autonomous and indeterminate. Each society creates its own network of meanings, which functions as the self-evident – namely, that system of meaning which is not questioned by its members. Castoriadis introduces here the crucial distinction between imaginary and imagination: the imaginary is not private projection or arbitrary invention, but a collective, historically active force of form-giving. Thus, social reality is constituted as a web of meanings generated from within, without external grounding. In this institution, the subject – object relation collapses. There is no pre-given “nature” of the world upon which meaning is overlaid; rather, the world is socio-ontologically constructed through the imaginary. This position rejects every realist or positivist conception of society and opens the field for recognizing praxis as a primordial constituent of existence.

This imaginary self-institution is directly linked to the central philosophical notion of creation. Every society creates its limits, its meanings, its institutions – and this creation cannot be sufficiently explained by biological or material factors. The social imaginary is the non-causal matrix of the social. Hence, every society embodies a different “truth” of the world – not as a relativistic variation, but as the incarnation of a different ontological regime (Castoriadis, 1998).

Understanding society as imaginary self-institution also has significant political consequences. If institutions are not necessary, then they can change. If the social is self-produced, then the possibility exists for reflection and radical transformation (Arnason, 1989; Castoriadis, 2003). This is the ground upon which the notion of autonomy rests, to which we now turn.

Autonomy as ontological consequence

The notion of autonomy in Castoriadis – unlike other approaches (e.g., the Italian autonomists) – is not presented as a moral ideal or demand, but as a profound ontological possibility that arises from the fundamental nature of human and social creativity. Autonomy is not simply a condition of freedom vis-à-vis external constraints, but the conscious assumption of the imaginary institution by the subject and by society (Castoriadis, 1998 pp. 101-107; Castoriadis, 1991, pp.143-145).

To understand autonomy as an ontological category, we must return to the notions of magma and emergence. Since Being is not a stable set but a dynamic multiplicity, and society is constituted through radical creative ruptures, it follows that this creation can itself become the object of conscious praxis. Autonomy, therefore, is not merely a demand of political organization but an ontological capacity of humanity to reflect upon its own Being.

Castoriadis views the ancient Greek polis as the first historical realization of autonomy – not because it established a perfect political system, but because it inaugurated the historical possibility of a self-instituting society: a society that recognizes its laws and institutions as its own, and thus as subject to change through collective action (Castoriadis, 2007).

Individual autonomy is inseparable from the social, not to be confused with individualism. The individual becomes autonomous when it recognizes the imaginary constitution of both itself and society, and is capable of reflecting upon and acting in relation to it. Unlike philosophies that ground freedom in the self-determination of will or the logic of universal law (e.g., Kant’s categorical imperative), Castoriadis grounds autonomy in the radical capacity for form-creation – and in humanity’s ability to assume responsibility for that creation.

Autonomy, therefore, is neither pre-given nor guaranteed. It is a continuous process, a struggle against heteronomy: the tendency of humans and societies to regard their institutions and values as external, necessary, transcendent (Castoriadis, 1998). Heteronomy, beyond oppression and coercion, is also the forgetting of the imaginary foundation of the social. In this sense, Castoriadis’ thought transcends liberal individualism by grounding a radical ontological project of freedom, where praxis, reflection, and creation are inseparably connected. Being, as creation, already contains the presupposition of autonomy; the question is whether subject and society will actualize it.

Conclusion

Castoriadis’ philosophical proposition constitutes a radical rupture in the history of ontological thought, for it breaks with the tradition that identifies Being with the logically determinable and causally explainable, and introduces a new category of Being as creative indeterminacy: as a magma of creative energy, a field of possibilities realized through emergence.

At the heart of this ontology lies the notion of creation as the act of emergence of the novel, without external causality or necessity. Reality, history, society – all emerge within a temporality that does not obey any teleology but opens itself to unpredictability and chaos (Arnason, 1989; Castoriadis, 1991).

Society, then, is neither mechanistic nor an object of scientific explanation, but a collective creator of forms through its social imaginary. Imaginary (self-)institution renders society open and creative. From here arises the possibility of autonomy: not as a choice between predetermined paths, but as the conscious assumption of institution, both individually and collectively.

Freedom thus ceases to be an abstract condition and becomes an ontological possibility: the possibility for a being to realize that it is the creator of meaning, that its institutions, values, and forms of life are its own constructions, and that they can be reflected upon and transformed. This freedom is not given but inherent in Being itself (Castoriadis, 1998). Ultimately, Castoriadis’ ontology of creation is, at its core, an ontology of freedom – one that still invites reflection on how it might resonate with contemporary debates in political ontology and critical theory.

Bibliography

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