Radical imagination and the social instituting imaginary

Towards a ‘democratic knowledge’ turn? Knowledge production in the age of the Arab Spring

“…Ontologically speaking, this definition mirrors the fundamental idea of the very reality of knowledge, like society's own existence, being continuously under construction and creation -ideas raised by Castoriadis (1994). Moreover, as a process, democratic knowledge is almost sui generis, being neither entirely local, even if context-specific, nor global.…”

“…Where omission is glaring is in the knowledge practices of the present that capture new learning, new challenges and new realities that ought to supplement the inherited makhzun for the purpose of building a system of democratic knowing made up of thought, practices, ethics, struggles and adaptations, including from abroad, to help engender a 'paradigm shift' suited for the defining historical moment, especially after the 2011 Arab uprisings. This undertaking would also capture the idea of continuous self-fashioning, and on-going creation of social imaginaries as suggested by Castoriadis (1994). It is epistemological blindness to democratic knowledge, in particular, that should be of concern to Arabs today.…”

Metaphors Matter: The Ideological Functions of the Kosovo–Holocaust Analogy

“…Although in a less systematic way, Gaston Bachelard for example had already contributed to this in La poétique de la reverie (1960). Yet, the major contribution on this issue should be traced back to what Cornelius Castoriadis has called 'the rediscovery of the Kantian discovery and retreat', 22 that is, Martin Heidegger's existential-hermeneutic critique of 'transcendental imagination' as developed in the first edition of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. 23 In his Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik (1929), Heidegger suggested that Kant established a 'productive' role for imagination that antecedes both sensation and understanding, as their sine qua non and, in Kant's terms, 'originarius' precondition.…”

Acts, Events and the Creation of the New

“…by a set of determinate transformations ('laws')." 91 "Production" is understood here as the causal effect of prior conditions that operate according to prefixed laws, and "deduction" is the analysis of a particular creation into a different assortment of available elements in accord with pre-established rules. Hence, "radically new" inventions bear features that were neither already available in prior circumstances nor causally compelled by antecedent conditions.…”