This article discusses the issue of social and cultural ‘autotranscendence’ - self-production, creativity - in the debates on self-organization. The point of departure is Cornelius Castoriadis’s idea of ‘self-creation’. First, a schisma between mechanical and ontological modeling is indicated and used to introduce the idea of a ‘creative organization’. This is further discussed in relation to Jean-Pierre Dupuy’s concept of social ‘autotranscendence’ by ‘complex methodological individualism’, with particular respect to the incomprehension of the social. Following Johann P. Arnason’s treatment of (...) the question of cultural articulation in Castoriadis, the article argues that the problem of autotranscendence presents a further problem of self-creation discernible in Castoriadis’s notions of phusis/nomos, living being/human, and constraint/magma. The article closes with a consideration of Duncan Watts, Alberto-László Barabási and Bernardo Huberman’s sketch of a network sociology. (shrink)

The article reviews Suzi Adams’s book on Cornelius Castoriadis, Castoriadis’s Ontology: Being and Creation, by debating the options and possible deficits in Castoriadis’s notion of creativity. While Adams criticizes Castoriadis for neglecting the overarching – and horizontal – worldliness that must ultimately condition creativity in various instances of interpretation, in the most expanded sense as a cosmology, the review ponders an alternative approach which focus on Castoriadis’s creativity seen as a notion of a lateral and emergent positing of the novel, (...) ‘creations ex nihilo – but not in nihilo or cum nihilo’, with the statement in one of the last exposures of his thought (Castoriadis, 1997a: 333). (shrink)

The article confronts Cornelius Castoriadis's philosophy of 'the imaginary institution of society' with issues of innovation in a knowledge society and outlines a new notion of innovation as creative organization. It will take a critical approach to innovation from a historical perspective of postwar systems theory and introduce Castoriadis's philosophy as an interesting option in this regard. It proceeds in four parts: (a) First, it debates the limits of the commonplace metaphor of diffusion and adoption in today's debate on innovation. (...) (b) Second, it will present aspects of Castoriadis's thought as an alternative, in particular his debate on imagination and the proto-institution of legein/teukhein — ordered action. (c) On this background it will treat a case from the Danish innovation industry, the firm Zentropa WorkZ's programme of 'Dramatic Innovation' as an interesting example of an innovation format addressing creativity. (d) In conclusion, it will briefly debate creative knowledge formation in a knowledge society by pondering relations between innovation and current science. (shrink)

The volume _SocioAesthetics: Ambience – Imaginary_ collects scholars from social science, aesthetics, arts, and cultural studies in case-driven debate, ranging from biometrics to luxury commodities, on how a new alignment of aesthetics and the social is possible and what the possible prospects of this may be.