Instituting Ecological Imaginaries with Cornelius Castoriadis

Cornelius Castoriadis is considered as one of the main representatives of contemporary ecological thought. His thinking on the subject, however, has its origins in an in-depth analysis of autonomy and the imaginaries at work to realize and sustain it. I contend that authentic ecological thinking expresses a specific—albeit universalizable—view of society. I hypothesize that reading Castoriadis and focusing on the connection he proposes between autonomy and ecology helps to distinguish among conservative and progressive ways of thinking about the relationship between humans and the environment. This will lead to a reconsideration of self-limitation as an ethical imperative that prevents ecology from being used as a pretext for domination and to a rethinking of autonomy from a relational perspective.