Par-delà l’irrationnel et le rationnel : penser le social à partir du concept d’imaginaire chez Cornelius Castoriadis

Abstract

Starting from Cornelius Castoriadis’s thought, according to which societies do not rest solely on natural needs, rational structures, or economic functions, this article argues that a critique of the notion of irrationality becomes possible. The imaginary is therefore not a mere illusion or an individual psychic phenomenon, but a collective force that structures institutions, values, and forms of social life. Castoriadis criticizes structuralist and rationalist approaches (Lacan, Lévi-Strauss) that reduce society to symbolic or functional systems. He shows that the social sciences of the twentieth century progressively recognized the importance of social imaginaries, as can be seen in the works of Benedict Anderson, Florence Giust-Desprairies, and Marshall Sahlins. The aim is to demonstrate that the notion of the imaginary is central to understanding the social beyond utility and rationality, and that Castoriadis’s concepts of the “social imaginary,” “social imaginary significations,” and “magma” provide a decisive epistemological foundation for rethinking the social sciences and society itself, while avoiding the often confusing detour through the notion of irrationality.