Closed dialectics reduce all experience to rational determinations shaped by extrasocial forces

Evidence

Castoriadis therefore seeks to overcome the limitations of both idealist and rationalist political economies. His stinging critique of capitalism departs from “materialist-objectivist” and from “idealist-subjectivist” dialectics. For him both are “closed,” insofar as they fundamentally presuppose that “all experience is exhaustively reducible to rational determinations” (Castoriadis 1975, 54), reflecting the belief that history is defined by extrasocial forces (such as Marx’s laws) rather than society’s own laws. An open dialectics must instead be both nonmaterialist and nonidealist (56). — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 157

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Castoriadis’s ‘closed’ vs ‘open’ dialectics distinction, key scaffolding for the reader’s task of mapping speculative imagination.
• XREF: connects to: A pre-set conclusion reduces dialectical thought to arguing both sides. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 267; Negative dialectics replaces unity with what lies outside conceptual domination — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2534; Negative dialectics preserves undefined experience as a counterweight to philosophies of science — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2578