The first biography of one of the most significant and intriguing thinkers of the 20th century. Starting from the youthful political activism of Castoriadis in occupied Athens, François Dosse initially refers to his arrival in Paris – he was also one of the scholarship holders who traveled on the legendary "Mataroa" – his participation in the French Trotskyist movement, and the establishment of the magazine Socialism or Barbarism, which he would stamp with his mark.
Socialism or Barbarism would be the first publication of the Left that would exercise a decisive critique of the Soviet economic and social model, thus contributing to the emergence of what is known as the anti-authoritarian Left, as well as the dissemination of ideas and views that would largely set the tone for May '68.
Economist, sociologist, philosopher, psychoanalyst, political thinker, a genuine homo universalis of our times, Castoriadis would become widely known for his fundamental work The Imaginary Institution of Society (1975), as well as with other texts and books of his, most of which are also published in Greek.
His biography by François Dosse is based on thorough research over several years, part of which included discussions with about fifty people who knew Castoriadis and collaborated with him at various times.
This cosmopolitan Greek, who never stopped studying ancient Greek philosophy and drawing inspiration from the Athenian democracy of the 5th century B.C., remains perpetually relevant, both for his penetrating critique of the existing state of affairs and for the paradigm of autonomy, which he never ceased to advocate as a prerequisite for deepening democracy and the emancipation of society.
Pierre Vidal-Naquet referred to Castoriadis as a "genius," while Edgar Morin had called him a "titan of the spirit."
