The Imaginary Significations Of The IT Markets

Drawing upon Castoriadis’ (1987) notion of imaginary significations, this paper aims to advance the analysis of technology acquisition by exploring the ideological role of technology choice and consumption. The illustration of the theoretical background of this paper results in the formulation of two main research interests. First, the ways in which technological imaginaries form ideologies and how these ideologies influence institutional identities, narratives and actions associated with the evaluation of technology choice and consumption. Second, how such ideologies influenced by various socio-political, economical and technical conditions affect and constitute the technology selection process by providing a stabilized form of accountability

The imaginary constitution of financial crises

This article proposes an alternative sociological framework for dealing with the imaginary constitution of financial crises. Theorisation of financial crises is often limited by dualistic juxtaposition of the rational and irrational, moral and immoral, calculative and intuitive, thus neglecting the imaginary structuring of such dyads in the construction of financial and fiscal realities. To address this lacuna, we introduce ideas from philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis, and develop a framework that unpicks the often-suppressed, mediating and generative role of imagination in finance. On the one hand, we show how dominant forms of imagination enable the financialisation of contemporary societies, serving to sustain existing debt practices and lender–debtor relationships. On the other hand, we propose a re-animated ‘sociological imagination’ that offers potential avenues for establishing alternative social visions of the future that will enable re-thinking of the nature of debt, money and financial institutions

The concept of “Crisis” in the thought of Cornelius Castoriadis

This chapter focuses on Cornelius Castoriadis's critical and topical engagement with the crisis of the latter and stresses its relevance for contemporary critical theory. First, it examines Castoriadis's correlation of the crisis of modern societies with the concept of reification and the impact of class struggles. Crisis is discussed as being inherent to the contradictory and antagonistic constitution of the capitalist social relations and Castoriadis is situated in a critical dialog with Lukacs and Adorno. Second, the chapter critically explores Castoriadis's subsequent view of the crisis as a phenomenon ensuing from the conflict between the social imaginary significations of "autonomy" and the unlimited expansion of "rational mastery", which has led to the eclipse of the project of autonomy. Finally, it engages with Castoriadis's argument that modern societies are moving from a state of permanent crisis to a situation of decline and decomposition, manifested in the rising tide of insignificancy and new forms of barbarism

The ontological revolution: On the phenomenology of the internet

Cogitation described as calculation, the living being described as a machine, cognitive functions considered as algorithmic sequences and the ‘mechanization’ of the subjective were the theoretical elements that late heideggerian anti–humanism, especially in France was able to utilize[1], even more so, after the second cybernetics or post-cybernetics movement of the late ‘60s introduced the concepts of the autopoietic and the allopoietic automata[2]. Recently, neurologists pose claims on the traditional epistemological field of philosophy, proceeding from this ontological decision, the equation of human cognition to cybernetic systems. The emergence of the world-wide-web in the 1990s and the global expansion of the internet during the first decades of the 21st century indicate the fallacies of the cybernetics programme to mechanize the mind. We stand witnesses to a semantic colonization of the cybernetic system, a social imaginary creation and expansion within the digital ensemblistic – identitarian organization that cannot be described by mechanical or cybernetic terms. Paradoxically, cyberspace, as a new being, a form of alterity, seems to both exacerbate and capsize the polarization between the operational and the symbolic. The creation of the internet might be more than an epistemological revolution, to use the terminology of Thomas Kuhn. It might be an ontological revolution. I will try to demonstrate that the emergence of the Internet refutes any such claims, since its context and utility can only be described by means of a social epistemology based on the understanding of social significances as continuous creations of an anonymous social imaginary proposed by Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997). I will try to explore some social-semantic aspects of the cyberspace as a nexus of social representations of the individual identity that forms a new sphere of being, where the subjective and the objective merge in a virtual subjective objectivity with unique epistemological attributes and possibilities

Future Imaginings: Organizing in Response to Climate Change

Climate change has rapidly emerged as a major threat to our future. Indeed the increasingly dire projections of increasing global average temperatures and escalating extreme weather events highlight the existential challenge that climate change presents for humanity. In this editorial article we outline how climate change not only presents real, physical threats but also challenges the way we conceive of the broader economic, political and social order. We asked ourselves (and the contributors to this special issue) how we can imagine alternatives to our current path of ever escalating greenhouse gas emissions and economic growth. Through reference to the contributions that make up this special issue, we suggest that critically engaging with the concept of social, economic and political imaginaries can assist in tackling the conceptual and organizational challenges climate change poses. Only by questioning current sanitised and market-oriented interpretations of the environment, and embracing the catharsis and loss that climate change will bring, can we open up space for new future imaginings

Intangible Flow Theory

The intangible flow theory explains that flows of economic material elements (such as physical goods; or cash) are consummated by human related intangible flows (such as work flows; service flows; information flows; or communicational flows) that cannot be precisely appraised at an actual or approximate value, and have properties precluding them from being classified as assets or capitals. Therefore, although mathematical/quantitative research methodologies are very relevant for science, they are insufficient to study economy and society. Due to its prejudice against non mathematical/quantitative scientific reasoning, neo-classic economics could not be technologically prepared to reach the intangible flow dynamics of economic phenomena. Furthermore, the neo-classic solution to call people human assets or human capital, besides being ethically very questionable, offers performative non-scientific metaphors that intervene in the production of the reality they claim to represent; and sabotages the study of well delimited research questions by scientific approaches outside the realm of neo-classic economics.intangible flow, materiality, intangibility, human capital, embeddedness and performativity.

Cosmolocalism: Understanding the Transitional Dynamics towards Post-Capitalism

Over the last decades, the proliferation of ICTs and capitalist markets has created a new social-historical reality for communication, production and societal organisation, while social inequality has deepened. In this context, alternative forms of organisation based on the commons have emerged, challenging the core values of capitalism. Within this new form of egalitarian and transnational collaborative networks, a new concept of social coexistence has been proposed: cosmolocalism. This article presents the genealogy of cosmolocalism and compares it to previous conceptual universalist reconfigurations, namely cosmopolitanism and internationalism. While the current discourse on cosmolocalism focuses on production and distribution, its political dynamics and limitations remain unexplored. Our ultimate goal is to open a path of inquiry for further reflection and deliberation

La prospettiva della decrescita nell’immaginario della postmodernità.

The perspective of degrowth in the imaginary of postmodernity. The globalization of markets, the economicism, the unification of the time system through the institution of twenty-four time zones, the mercification of the bodies and life: all variables around which the significations of postmodernity are organized. All of this becomes easier to understand, if you are convinced that economy is a religion. The economy as religion is the real ‘hidden king’ of the postmodernity. This situation has not given any praise benefit; controversely a generalized disenchantment was produced. Among the many solutions proposed, one could hypothesize une société de décroissance: to become an atheist of growth and economy. So, it would be necessary to abandon a faith, the one in progress, and a religion, that of the economy, growth and development, in order to restore the spirit of gift, the improvement of conviviality and the pleasure of imaginary

The Machinic Imaginary: A Post-Phenomenological Examination of Computational Society

The central claim of this thesis is the postulation of a machinic dimension of the social imaginary—a more-than-human process of creative expression of the social world. With the development of machine learning and the sociality of interactive media, computational logics have a creative capacity to produce meaning of a radically machinic order. Through an analysis of computational functions and infrastructures ranging from artificial neural networks to large-scale machine ecologies, the institution of computational logics into the social imaginary is nothing less than a reordering of the conditions of social-historical creation. Responding to dominant technopolitical propositions concerning digital culture, this thesis proposes a critical development of Cornelius Castoriadis’ philosophy of the social imaginary. To do so, a post phenomenological framework is constructed by tracing a trajectory from Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s late ontological turn, through to the process-relational philosophies of Gilbert Simondon and Castoriadis. Introducing the concept of the machinic imaginary, the thesis maps the extent to which the dynamic, interactive paradigm of twenty-first century computation is changing how meaning is socially instituted in ways incomprehensible to human sense. As social imaginary significations are increasingly created and carried by machines, the articulation of the social diverges into human and non-human worlds. This inaccessibility of the machinic imaginary is a core problematic raised by this thesis, indicating a fragmentation of the social imaginary and a novel form of existential alienation. Any political theorisation of the contemporary social condition must therefore work within this alienation and engage with the transsubjective character of social-historical creation

From Power Over Creation to the Power of Creation: Cornelius Castoriadis on Democratic Cultural Creation and the Case of Hollywood

This article is a critical investigation and application of the aesthetic theory of Cornelius Castoriadis, one of the most important 20th-century theorists of radical democracy. We outline Castoriadis’s thoughts on autonomy, the social-historical nature of Being, and creation -- key elements that inform his model of democratic culture. We then develop a Castoriadian critique of culture produced by capitalist institutions. By also drawing on the political economic thought of Thorstein Veblen, Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler, our critique focuses on one sector of contemporary culture: Hollywood film. We show how Hollywood, as a business enterprise, uses techniques of sabotage and capitalization to control and occult the social-historical nature of creation. Lastly, by way of conclusion, we gesture toward a mode of artistic production that is able to affirm the democratic values that organize Castoriadis’s thought