Abstract

Beginning with a consideration of Castoriadis’s elucidation of autonomous thinking, both by way of the contrast he draws with the inherited tradition and in relation to his account of the demands of the political project of autonomy, we compare Plato’s story of the Cave to suggest that Castoriadis overestimates the power of questioning and of creating new social forms. We then argue that Castoriadis and Plato emerge as two extremes: whereas the first favours the power of questioning to the exclusion of receiving value, the second privileges the power of receiving over creation and creativity.