The tragic and the political: A parallel reading of Kostas Papaioannou and Cornelius Castoriadis

Critical Horizons

Volumn 7, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 303-319

  Karagiannis, Nathalie ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

Castoriadis; Papaioannou; The political; The social; Tragedy

Indexed keywords

EID: 33846383735     PISSN: 14409917     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/156851606779308152     Document Type: Article

References (69)

1. I would like to thank Johann Arnason and Angelos Mouzakitis for their comments. The 'axial age' debate has signalled that the emergence of Greek institutions was accompanied by similar institutional transformations in other areas of Eurasia. See Axial Civilisations and World History, eds. J. Arnason, S. N. Eisenstadt and B. Wittrock, Leiden, Brill, 2004.
2. Angelos Mouzakitis pointed out to me that a similar argument is made by Fotis Terzakis in To Pnevma stin Exoria. Papaioannou-Kastoriadis-Axelos (Athens, Erasmos, 2003), a work that I could unfortunately not consult while finishing this article.
3. Pierre Vidal Naquet says that Greek poetry, including tragedy, was for Castoriadis what Greek art was for Papaioannou ("Castoriadis et la Grèce Antique" in Castoriadis, Ce Qui fait la Grèce). Materially, this assertion is founded on Papaioannou's books on Art and Civilisation in Ancient Greece and Byzantine Art and two texts by Castoriadis on tragedy and poetry. However, this not only cuts poetry and tragedy out of 'art' in a way that Papaioannou, at least, would certainly reject since several pages in the very book that Vidal Naquet has prefaced are dedicated to tragedy but it also ignores Papaioannou's relatively recently published 1950 manuscript Mass and History whose basic argument is an argument on forms of theatre and tragedy.
4. "The sudden emergence of tragedy at the end of the 6th century will mark a new decisive step towards the conquest of freedom, at the same time as the Athenian demos prepares to take in its hands its destiny and as the ethical and legal reflection starts to work through a concept of responsibility according with the new sense of Right." (K. Papaioannou, Techne ke Politismos stin Arhaia Ellada, Athens, 1998 [1972],
5. Enallaktikes Ekdosis, 1998 [1972], p. 145). In the endnotes, I refer further to Papaioannou's texts that are largely unknown to the English-speaking audience.
6. K. Papaioannou, Maza kai Istoria,
7. Athens, Enallaktikes Ekdosis, 2003 [1950], p. 31.
8. For instance, Castoriadis, Ce qui fait la Grèce, 2004, p. 174.
9. Arendt's very limited (but later inflated) reflection on tragedy and the political basically takes up this idea of performance. See H. Arendt, The Human Condition, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1998 [1958].
10. Papaioannou sees, among others, tragedy being the 'Aufhebung of Logos' resulting from the encounter of Dionysianism with the spirit of Prophetism. See Papaioannou, Maza, p. 131.
11. Politics and political have two different meanings for Castoriadis, the second being the more banal power (executive) dimension of the first. This is explicitly opposed to Claude Lefort's understanding of the political (see, for instance, Castoriadis, "La Démocratie Comme Procédure et Comme Régime" in Ce qui fait la Grèce, 2004, p. 221). The distinction is not retained in this article.
12. Less central to our purposes, that the tragic is political indicates the full social significance of certain forms of art.
13. Exceptions can only be found among Hellenists, such as P. Euben's Platonic Noise (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2003)
14. whose point of departure is Ancient Greece; or C. Meier for history (C. Meier, The Greek Discovery of Politics, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1990)
15. and M. Nussbaum for philosophy (M. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness. Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986).
16. K. Papaioannou, O Marxismos san Ideologia,
17. Athens, Enallaktikes Ekdosis Kommouna, 1988, p. 146.
18. ". . . that which is called 'political instinct' bears no relation to instincts, because its first act is to render the instinctual fact of power of human being over human being problematic" (Papaioannou, O Marxismus, p. 144), through the breach of fear in front of power and through free thought.
19. Or 'peoples', as most often in Papaioannou, O Marxismus, or more significantly, 'masses' as in Papaioannou, Maza.
20. Papaioannou, O Marxismus, p. 146.
21. Ibid., p. 143.
22. Ibid., p. 147. And the phrase ends: ". . . in the principally terroristic flow of history."
23. Papaioannou, Techne kai Politismos, p. 175. This is related to Papaioannou's understanding of isonomy, by virtue of which government and obedience are not opposites but can be reversed, as central to the birth of democracy. But Papaioannou's thought is reminiscent of the Hegelian master-slave dialectic here, whilst Arendt's is a condemnation of politics as policy-making.
24. "For the citizen to emerge, for the real dialogue between man and power to be instituted, the political must break away from the sacred ... For the political to be able to conquer its autonomy, logos must break away from mythos and dogma: the learning of free dialogue, the habituation to tolerance, the full autonomy of the spirit that turns into its object whatever is or can become a sensible object of thought, these are the essential preconditions for the existence of the citizen." in ibid., pp. 122-123. Regarding myth, in particular, there is an ambiguity between the above passage (closer to the Benjaminian distinction between myth as the object of tragedy and history as the object of Trauerspiel in W. Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama, London, Verso, 1998 [1928],)
25. and Papaioannou, Maza, p. 113, where myth is equated to the tragic.
26. Papaioannou, Techne kai Politismos, p. 119.
27. "De même que nous ne pouvons vivre qu'à partir d'une éthique de mortalité, notre réflexion philosophique elle-même doit être profondément imprégnée de cette idée de mortalitéet pas seulement de mort individuelle. . . Or cela est au centre d'une réflexion sur l'histoire qui essaierait de sortir de ces mythes eschatologiques que constituent les shémas progressistes de l'histoire - qu'il s'agisse de Kant, de Hegel ou de Marx." in C. Castoriadis, "Imaginaire Politique Grec et Moderne" in Les Carrefours du Labyrinthe IV, Paris, Seuil, 1996, p. 177.
28. And on historiography, see C. Castoriadis, 1986, "La Polis Grecque et la Création de la Démocratie" in Les Carrefours du Labyrinthe II, Paris, Seuil, p. 295:
29. "La création d'un temps public ... l'émergence d'une dimension où la collectivité puisse inspecter son propre passé comme le résultat de ses propres actions et où s'ouvre un avenir indéterminé comme domaine de ses activités. Tel est bien le sens de la création de l'historiographie en Grèce." In terms that are closer to Papaioannou's, Castoriadis also once talked of 'a strong historicity' (Castoriadis, "La Démocratie Athénienne: Fausses et Vraies Questions" in ibid., p. 186).
30. "Politique: Mise en Question des Institutions Établies" in ibid., p. 225.
31. For instance in Castoriadis, "La Polis Grecque". Here too I use 'the political' for Castoriadis' 'la politique', that is, 'politics'.
32. Ibid., p. 296 and Castoriadis, "La Démocratie Athénienne."
33. Castoriadis, "La Polis Grecque," p. 285 and Castoriadis, "Imaginaire Politique," p. 167.
34. See Karagiannis "Timing the Tragic Plot: Castoriadis and Papaioannou on Time and History," paper presented in the workshop 'Time and History' at EUI, Florence.
35. Castoriadis, "Imaginaire Politique," p. 173; also Castoriadis "La Polis Grecque," p. 297.
36. Ibid., p. 285.
37. In Aristophanean comedy, by contrast, gods may also die.
38. Castoriadis, Ce qui fait la Grèce, p. 103.
39. Castoriadis, "La Polis Grecque," pp. 299-300.
40. Castoriadis, Ce qui fait la Grèce, p. 37 and Castoriadis, "La Polis Grecque," p. 300.
41. Castoriadis, "Imaginaire Politique," p. 163.
42. Ibid., pp. 168, 172.
43. And: ". . . la tragédie possède aussi une signification politique très nette: le rappel constant à l'autolimitation. Car la tragédie est aussi et surtout l'exhibition des effets de l'hubris et, plus que cela, la démonstration de ce que les raisons contraires peuvent co-exister (c'est une des 'lessons' d'Antigone) et que ce n'est pas en s'entêtant dans sa raison (monos phronein) que l'on rend possible la solution des graves problèmes que peut rencontrer la vie collective (ce qui n'a rien à voir avec le consensus mou de l'époque contemporaine). Mais par-dessus tout, la tragédie est démocratique en ce qu'elle porte le rappel constant de la mortalité, à savoir de la limitation radicale de l'être humain." (Ibid., pp. 168-169).
44. Castoriadis, "Imaginaire Politique," p. 168.
45. Papaioannou, Maza, p. 129.
46. Ibid., pp. 82ff.
47. Ibid., p. 58.
48. Although generally Papaioannou's stance towards necessity is more ambiguous. See, for instance, Maza, p. 123.
49. Papaioannou, Techne kai Politismos, p. 157.
50. "Having done this discovery in a decisive period of their history, at the same time as they were exiting a period of revolutionary struggles and were just instituting a political order based on democratic rule (isonomia). . ." (Papaioannou, Techne kai Politismos, p. 156).
51. Ibid. The phrase continues in a Heideggerian intonation: ". . . it has been announced prophetically 'in fear and tumult' as the terrifying power of Destiny that protects Being as it faces beings."
52. Papaioannou, Maza, p. 71.
53. Ibid., p. 125.
54. Ibid., p. 172.
55. And: ". . . mass as a historical power can only appear and exist under a specific conjuncture, in a certain transitional or catastrophic historical period during which what we will call 'totalitarian power of the organised society' is eroded, that is, during which its productive mechanism is invalidated, its class differentiation is annihilated and a significant part of the population is unable to insert itself in the organised forms of social life." (Ibid., p. 170).
56. Ibid., p. 121.
57. At the same time, betraying the same sense of a double direction of causality as Castoriadis, Papaioannou claims that it is the emergence of democracy (along with the victory over the Persians) that allowed the blooming of tragedy in Athens (Papaioannou, Techne kai Politismos, p. 149).
58. Papaioannou, Maza, pp. 95-97. These passages show strong Nietszchean influences, for instance in pp. 96 and 130.
59. Castoriadis' stance is different since he finds absurdity in both tragedy and Shakespeare.
60. For instance, Castoriadis, "La Polis Grecque," p. 286.
61. Castoriadis, "La Democratie Athenienne," p. 221.
62. See Giovanni Busino et al., Autonomie et Autotransformation de la Société. La Philosophie Militante de Cornelius Castoriadis, Paris, Droz, 1989, in particular Sunil Khilnani's contribution.
63. In contrast to Papaioannou, who writes: "If barbarians, like slaves, are considered by Aristotle as beings that 'lack a tongue', it is not because they do not possess the natural ability of speech, but because they are excluded from a way of life in which speech has a signification, a sense." (Papaioannou, Techne kai Politismos, p. 152).
64. Castoriadis, "Fait et à faire" in Busino et al., Autonomie.
65. An exception is a reflection on paideia in Castoriadis, "La Démocratie Comme Procédure."
66. Papaioannou, Maza, p. 81.
67. Here, contingency is unusually understood as chance determinism such as that one is born man or woman, in Greece or Zimbabwe etc.
68. Castoriadis, "La Démocratie Athénienne," p. 241.
69. For instance, explicitly in Castoriadis, "La Démocratie Comme Procédure" and Papaioannou, Techne kai Politismos.