reversing plato’s andi democratism

7/28/2019 reversing platos andi democratism

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1.reversing platos andi democratism2. article on laptop

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 theirpetty 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 processphilosophyer, 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 theirabandonement 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 whichstructures, 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. (OPS2) 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 structuralnon-dyanmic thing about how a city is DIVIDED: (R 433a)

othus naturalization of hierarchy (OPS 2) rathet than open question

SUBJECTIVITY

- not the pure subject of activity, possessing no constraints, inertia, physical support, norusihmentor 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 inpower.

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 principlebe reimagined by somebody else (GPCD 270)


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- 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 thesocial 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 (GPCD269)

society brings into being individuals for whom there is perception, speech, reflection who areindefinitely 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 newforms ***CONSTRAST with LAWS

- history is creation and therefore question is how to judge and choose. Question first asked inGreece.

- illusion of selbstverstandlichkeit.. pple who consider democracy and rationality to go withoutsaying unable to understand what it could meen for the society where they were first created (GPCD271)

o thus we belong to that traditiono classical Hebrews have nothing to choose. Thye have been given the truth and the law once andfor 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 andstableform-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 ofknown institution through the creation of new ones (IIS 373)

- self-alienation and heteronomy are not just representation, and the issues with how societyrepresents itself as incapable.

- It is strongly embodied, and materialized in the contrete institution of society, incorporated in itsconfluctual 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 anend, 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 ofhuman activity in the world UNITARY ONTOLOGY (GPCD 274)- this is the source of heteronomy (PC 248)- plato attempts to conceal this (OPC 5)


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- 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 bejudged

- the germ is historical instituting process: active and stuggle around change of institutions (GPCd274)- 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, andthose 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 theirminds (276) in the ekklesia. Assisted b y the boule.o no professional judgeso direct democracyo represnation was impossible, due to size of democracy and that this was alienation. oncepermanent representatives were present, political authoryt, activity and initiative expropriated from the

body of citixens and transferred to restricted body of reps who use toconsolidate,,, (276)o dominant idea that expertise can only be judged by other experts bureaucratic-hierarchicalapparatus should be judged. Ekklesia listnes to people who have specific knowledge and then makedecision. 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 tostop. (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 differentlevels, 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 mustcontent 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.


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- 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 notstatesmanship. 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 - 7OPC 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.

reversing plato’s andi democratism

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