Done and yet to be done: The legacy of Castoriadis

Cornelius Castoriadis has several claims to be recognized as a major figure in twentieth-century thought. His work is a key source for the paradigm of social imaginaries; he was an exemplary left-wing critic of the Soviet regime and its ideology, already at a time when such views were rare and ignored by the twin Cold War mainstreams; although he never considered himself a sociologist, his programmatic reflections on an ontology of the social-historical constitute an original and still under-appreciated approach to foundational problems of that discipline. A further domain that deserves mention is his extensive engagement with the history and cultural legacy of Ancient Greece. At a time when classical studies are under threat from utilitarian accounting and identitarian crazes, Castoriadis's efforts to bring antiquity and modernity into a mutually illuminating perspective are of major importance and merit a broader debate than has hitherto been the case. That also applies to his views on the internal tensions and paradoxes of modernity; his diagnosis of its advanced (and still dominant) versions as “societies adrift” does not seem less pertinent now than in the closing years of the twentieth century.