Cornelius Castoriadis - Philosophy, Politics Autonomy

development is to refer both to a "potential" that is already there and to a given, definite, determined accomplishment, achievement, act, energeia; it is to oppose a "matter," already rich in as yet unexplicit determinations, to the form it is going to become -- and this form is a norm. Here we have the language of Aristotle, of Aristotelian ontology, but under one form or another this ontology underlies all Western thought. Thus, in the case of the present problem, one speaks of "development" of Third World countries by positing that there exists a definable state of maturity which these countries should attain.

Thus also, when Marx spoke of the "faculties which initially lie dormant within man the producer," he was speaking Aristotle's language. Within this language, to say that something is is to say that its form corresponds to a norm, that its eidos is defined by its telos and that it "really" or "fully" is only to the extent that it is complete, determined, defined. And this is what, even today, guides the scientist when seeking knowledge from nature: the scientist tries to translate, into his/her own domain, this conception, namely that that which is must be perfectly determined.

But the content of this determination has changed from ancient Greek to modern times. For the Greeks, "determined" signifies "finite," "complete"; and "infinite" signifies "less-determined," "incomplete," therefore ultimately " less-of-a-being." With Christianity (and neo-Platonism), the signs are reversed: the genuine being is God, and God is infinite. But this infinite God is far off, He is elsewhere: the world down here remains, so to speak, Aristotelian. The real upheaval takes place when the infinite invades the world down here. How then can determinateness, the conception of being as being-determined, be saved if there is "actual" infinity? It can be saved if determinateness is thought in mathematical terms, and, in fact, as quantitative determination: the fixed point of reference is provided by the possibility of calculating what is at hand.

This upheaval is conditioned by the confluence, the convergence, the coincidence of two great historical factors, if indeed they can be separated at all. One is the birth and the development of the bourgeoisie, along with the instauration by the latter of a novel universe of social imaginary significations. The other is the philosophical and scientific revolution, which may be symbolized by citing a few names. For example, Descartes, for whom his philosophy and his mathematics are indissociable, and of whom it must be understood that the goal he assigned to knowledge -- to make of us the masters and possessors of nature -- is nothing other than the programmatic phantasy of modern times. For another example, Leibniz, who said: Cum Deum calculat fit mundus -- a statement of decisive importance for the new onto-theology, but also for the economy today. Leibniz's God calculates maxima and minima, more generally extrema which always turn out to be optima, He thinks differential calculus and the calculus of variations, and it is while He is thinking them that the world takes form. These are also the extrema and the optima that modern economists claim to be calculating, these are the brachistochrones of development that they are trying to determine.

In this world, which is both infinite and (allegedly) calculable, no fixed forms/norms remain, save those to which quantity itself, inasmuch as it is calculable, give rise. Thus the very evolution of scientific knowledge comes to be seen more and more as a succession of "growing approximations" moving toward greater and greater precision (with respect to laws, universal constants, etc.). Thus, too, in human, in social affairs, growth and expansion, seen from the quantitative point of view, are becoming absolutely decisive: the form/norm that guides social and historical "development" is one of increasing quantities.

Why recall, so hastily and so perfunctorily, all that? In order to emphasize in the strongest possible fashion that the paradigm of "rationality," upon which everyone relies today and which dominates as well all discussions about "development," is only a particular, arbitrary, and contingent historical creation. I have tried to show this in a somewhat more detailed fashion in those paragraphs of my written report which relate to the economy, on the one hand, and those relating to technique, on the other. I will add here simply that if this paradigm has been able to "function," and to do so with a relative -- but nevertheless, as one knows, terrifying -- "effectiveness," it is because it is not totally "arbitrary": there is certainly a nontrivial aspect, in that which exists, which lends itself to quantification and to calculation; and there is in our language and in every language an ineliminable dimension that is necessarily "logicomathematical," which in fact embodies what, in its pure mathematical form, is called set theory. We cannot think of a society that is incapable of counting, classifying, distinguishing, making use of the excluded middle, etc. And, in a sense, starting from the moment it is understood that one can count beyond any given number, all mathematics is there in virtuality, and thence the possibilities of applying it; in any case, this "virtuality" today has already been developed, deployed, realized, and we cannot turn back or act as if it had never existed. The problem, however, is to reinsert this into our social life in such a way that it will no longer be the decisive and dominant element, as it is today. We must challenge the grand folly of the modern West, which consists in positing "reason" as sovereign, in understanding rationalization when one hears "reason" and quantification when one hears rationalization. It is this spirit, still operant (even here, as our discussion has shown), that must be destroyed. We must understand that "reason" is only a moment or a dimension of thought, and that it becomes folly when it becomes autonomous.