1. reversing platos andi democratism 2.

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Castoriadis attempt to marry his democratic philosophy with that of the ancient Greeks: - since its inception, philosophy tended to pose itself over the common people of society, with their petty doxa (PAD 36) Plato for Castoriadis, harbours a deep hatred of democracy (OPC 3).. - accused of sophistry by Castoriadis (OPC 3), trying to carry people off in a certain direction and actually stir the physical demos in front of him. Rather its the lettered men and women of history (OPC 3) - but also enormous element of authentic creation (OPC 3) - partisan philosophy (OPC 6) and suspicion (OPC 6) - tries to fix in place the aporias (OPC 7) And yet, Castoriadis weaves himself a reading of Platos Statesman that transforms plato into a process philosophyer, a moral relativist and a radical democrat (PAD 41). And (PAD 40, underlined). - in the first seminar, Castoriadis gives an evolutionary account of Platos theories - PAD 40: Castoriadis two interpretive moves: re-interprets the laws as absolutes so that their abandonement represents an abandonemtn of absolutes per se. and then impossible of bedside counselor-ruler admitted as impossibility and read as an abandonment of dictatorship. Greece is social-historical locus where democracy and philosophy are created; thus, of course, it is our own origin (GPCD 269) social-historical: neither unending addition of intersubjective netowrks, nor their product impersonal-human element that fills every social formation given structures and materialized instititusions and works, material or not, but also that which structures, institutes and materializes - union and tension of history (IIS 108) Greece the first to question choosing/asking/judging nd therefore created politics as the collective activity whose object is the insitition of society as such (GPCD 272) thus the question of not what representation of the world is true, but what truth itself is (272) the question of justice: the constant circulation of justice in the city, who is to have what etc. (OPS 2) problem of distribution and also and open question (OPS 2) plato overturns this idea making justice a property of the whole (OPS 2, PC 247-8), a structural non-dyanmic thing about how a city is DIVIDED: (R 433a) o thus naturalization of hierarchy (OPS 2) rathet than open question SUBJECTIVITY not the pure subject of activity, possessing no constraints, inertia, physical support, norusihment or ties no subject/object. It posits its own object not just gaze, but also body and materiality (IIS 105) also the subject that participates in the social (IIS 107) not the absolute Self, but the Ego of autonomy (IIS 106) PVN: written laws, speaking and dialogue science embodied in the philosophyer in power. Against habermas: - root of universality is not rationality but creative imagination as a core composnet of nontrivial thinking. what has been imagined strongly enough to shape behavior, speech or objects, can in principle be reimagined by somebody else (GPCD 270)

IIS 369: radical imaginary is open stream of anonymous collecvtive It is psyche/soma.. that which social-historical is positing creating, bringing into being we call the social imaginary. That which psyche/soma is positing, creating, bringing into being we call radical imagination Positing of social imaginary significations and the institution IIS 369

HISTORY history is creation of total forms of human life (GPCD 269) not determined by natural or historical laws, society is self creation and creates history (269) first and foremost creation of the human indivual social subject that is embedded in society (GPCD 269) society brings into being individuals for whom there is perception, speech, reflection who are indefinitely self-reproducing as social indiviausl, private and public world, whose life and society function and instituted..(IIS 370) creation: positing news eidos, new norms, laws and determinations.. new essence new forms ***CONSTRAST with LAWS history is creation and therefore question is how to judge and choose. Question first asked in Greece. illusion of selbstverstandlichkeit.. pple who consider democracy and rationality to go without saying unable to understand what it could meen for the society where they were first created (GPCD 271) o thus we belong to that tradition o classical Hebrews have nothing to choose. Thye have been given the truth and the law once and for all by god *** IS THIS NOT THE STATESMAN? THEOCRATIC society is inherently history (IIS 371) perpetual selfalteration of society through positing and shattering of relatively fixed andstable form-figures. (IIs 371) temporality as this mode of self-alteration and creating new eidoi.

AUTONOMY project of autonomy is making =oiteself as expllicity self-instituting society, radical destruction of known institution through the creation of new ones (IIS 373) self-alienation and heteronomy are not just representation, and the issues with how society represents itself as incapable. It is strongly embodied, and materialized in the contrete institution of society, incorporated in its confluctual division, and carried through entire thing mediating and reproducing social functioning (IIS 373) society is only autonomous if it recognizes itself as the source of its norms (GPCD 280) STATESMAN if the human world were fully ordered, there would be no room for political thinking or action (GPCD 274) if full and certain knowledge were possitlbe (episteme) politicsl would immediately come to an end, and democracy would be impossible and absurd: democracy that all citizens have the possibility ofattaining the right doxa. (274) platonic/theological philsophycy operates in the postulate that there is possibly an ordering of human activity in the world UNITARY ONTOLOGY (GPCD 274) this is the source of heteronomy (PC 248) plato attempts to conceal this (OPC 5)

but plato recognizes this. OPC 30 there can be no royal man. If he came not recognized. OPC 30. So settle for laws. GREEK POLITICAL LIFE: not a single institution, static, with its articles, and constitution fixed once and for all that could be judged the germ is historical instituting process: active and stuggle around change of institutions (GPCd 274) demos contitues to modify rules under which it lives (275) absolute sovereign self-legislating, self-judging, self-governing 275) equality in front of the law (isonomia) but much more than that: formal rules of participation, and those that diditn became deprived of political rights( 275) all citizens have the right to speak, vote counts equally and there is moral obligation to speak their minds (276) in the ekklesia. Assisted b y the boule. o no professional judges o direct democracy o represnation was impossible, due to size of democracy and that this was alienation. once permanent representatives were present, political authoryt, activity and initiative expropriated from the body of citixens and transferred to restricted body of reps who use to consolidate,,, (276) o dominant idea that expertise can only be judged by other experts bureaucratic-hierarchical apparatus should be judged. Ekklesia listnes to people who have specific knowledge and then make decision. Not political experts. Political experieties, belongs to the political community. Techne is a technical occupation specific to a specific field. Plato intentional obfuscates these (OPS 36 -7) castoriadis finds this dishonest greek public space: o free speech, examination and thinking etc. establishes logos as circulation, which PLATO tries to stop. (GPCD 280) o creation of public time (281). Socio temporal benchmarks, and this becomes history (IIS 371) SUMMARY OF FIRST TWO SEMINARA In the republic, it is philosopher who has had adequate training who can rule absolutist state ((OPC 9). - But the statesman who is weaver weaves something incoherent, and disparate at different levels, and this turns out to be the wrong def too: makes way for Laws, - with electiced magistrates. This Castoriadis identifies as platos evolving democractic ideas. 3rd digression: - Plato says that the royal man never comes, and if he did, wouldnt be recognized, so must content ourselves for a city run by laws, even if this is second to the royal will of the statesman (OPS 30) - Science is the basis of statesmanship - This for castoriadis is platos evolution from the absolutist plato of the Forms, to the plato who recognizes that genuine science of human affairs embodied by the statesman is impossible. - New metaphysics mist ontoglocial,philosophyical, cosmological, anthropological, psychological (OPC 30) - There is a gap between the law (universal) and the particular. No science. - radical and entirely justified condemnation of any utopia (OPC 31) bedside counselor: reminds castoriadis of the bureaucratic regulation of modern democracies. OPC 32 Pastor of human flocks: - definition arrived at though a series of dichotomies, until one arrives at definition of pastor. -

not a paradigm, but actual thing: tending for human beings. Science of raising men in common. (33) three criticisms: 1. There are other arts that attend to raising human beings, clearly not statesmanship. 2. Cannot be true pastor, because cannot and does not tend for everything. And 3. There is always a difference in nature. Thus the pastor couldnt be human. Thus final definition: political or royal art volunatiry given and takn, exercised over a herd of human beings. (OPc 37 8)

Second definition: - 42: plato goes from the ol philosophy where city needs only livestock, agriculture and some metalwork. To a new idea that city needs the arts that simply serve to amuse - weaver of virtues (OPC 45) and OPC 26 - 7 OPC 46: if statesman appears, then collapse of social institution. Myth of cronus: First definition is intentionally given in order to write it off to allow the introduction of the myth of cronus. (OPC 40) Two rhetorical dishonesties: - identification of statesman with royal man, which was unthinkable to greek society at the time (OPC 34) - then identification of statesman as he who is episteme. And confounds episteme with techne. - For Aristotle, this was always against phronesis, faculty of judgement (OPC 36), and therefore pertinence.