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www.cosmosandhistory.org 34

Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, vol. 8, no. 2, 2012

THE RADICAL TRAGIC IMAGINARY:CASTORIADIS ON AESCHYLUS & SOPHOCLES

Nana Bilu AbayMonash University

AbstrAct: Castoriadis entire colossal politico-philosophical-psychoanalytical project is basedaround the notion o radical autonomy, which, he argues, was most closely appropriated bythe ancient Greek imaginary and the newly born dmokrata. This paper critically examinesCastoriadis treatment o the earliest democrats in the worldthe ancient tragediansandargues, contra Castoriadis, that it was Aeschylus, rather than Sophocles, that embodied theclassical apotheosis o radical human autonomy.

Keywords: Castoriadis; Aeschylus; Sophocles; Tragedy; Ancient Greece; Greek Imaginary;Democracy; Ethics; Justice.

In The Greek Polis and the Creation o Democracy, Cornelius Castoriadis openswith the ollowing questions: How can we orient ourselves in history and in politics?How can we judge and choose? It is rom this political interest that I startand in thisspirit that I ask: In Greek democracy is there anything o political relevance or us? 1Castoriadis argues that thinking and relecting about Greece is not the same as doingso or any other randomly chosen culture, because, it is only in the case o Greece thatwe are relecting and thinking about the social and historical conditions o thoughtitselat least, thought as we know and practice it.2 Castoriadis saw Greece as beingnot only part o our own, that is, Western, history and tradition but as being our origin.

Although he recognized the diiculty in establishing the proper distance betweenourselves and our own past, and acknowledged also that this common belongingis by necessity partly illusory, Castoriadis nevertheless set out to trace the remnantso what he described as an active, intrinsic relationship between their institutionsand our own. The intrinsic relationship between Greece and our own society isstill active today because there is a strong genealogical connection between their

1. Cornelius Castoriadis, The Greek Polisand the Creation o Democracy, The Castoriadis reader, trans.David Ames Curtis, Oxord, Blackwell Publishers, 1997b, p. 267.

2. Ibid., p. 268.

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imaginary signiications and ours.3 And it is these imaginary signiications thatwe must penetrate or reappropriate i we are to understand Greece. Is this at allpossible?4 Castoriadis asks, to understand another society? It is, he answers, but onlysometimes under certain conditions, and only by some people: Castoriadis is apparentlyone o those people. He argues that the act that this distinct kind o understanding ispossible at all, points to some sort o potential universality in whatever is human orhumans.5 The universality does not lie in human rationality, as is commonly thought,but in creative imagination. It is the creative imagination that enables one to engagein nontrivial thinking, which includes the special ability to understand another society,and it is the creative imagination that is at the root o a potentially universal human

essence. The reason that it is only a potentially universal human essence, as opposedto just a universal human essence that all humans o all times and at all times have, isthat most people never realisethis essence: they never get to use their radical creativeimaginations. Why? Because they are prevented in doing so by what Castoriadis callsthe cognitive closure o the institution o society.

HETERONOMOUS SOCIETIES

The cognitive closure o a society consists in that societys inability to recognize itselas the creator o itselthe creator o its own laws, norms, and meanings: that is, thecreator o its own social imaginary signiications. Castoriadis calls this type o societya heteronomous society, as opposed to the autonomous society. A heteronomous society,

instead o being able to grasp that allsocieties, includingitsel, are sel-created, believesitsel, rather, to be grounded in something other than itselbe it in Religion, wherelaws and norms and meanings are believed to be given by God and through God indtheir legitimation; or grounded in Reason, in the belie in the unlimited expansion orational mastery,6 or, rather pseudorational pseudomastery, which is what Castoriadisblames or enabling the rise o capitalism, most orms o totalitarianism, and modernecological devastation.

Heteronomous societies legitimise their system on the basis o the inherent logic othat system. In the case o capitalism, or example, the legitimising logic can be deinedas the maximization o utility and the minimization o cost. So a capitalist society, whichis our very own contemporary society, imposes on its members a speciic set o laws,

norms, and meaningsor social imaginary signiicationswhose primary unctionis to urther propagate the heteronomous logic o capitalism. It does this in order tomaintain itsel in the particular closed reality it has created or itsel. I one were to tryto solve a problem created by capitalist societysay, or example, an environmentalproblemby changing or better managing the industries created by the capitalistimaginary, the attempt will most likely ail because it will essentially acknowledge this

3. Ibid., pp. 270-1.4. Ibid., p. 269.5. Ibid., p. 270.6. Castoriadis, from Ecology to Autonomy, p. 240.

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COSMOS AND HISTORY36

imaginary as real, thus perpetuating the problem. Playing by the established rules willnot suicewhat is needed is nothing short o a revolution that creates a newimaginary,a newhuman reality, with newmeanings and laws and norms.

Social imaginary signiications are created by societies in order to hold them together,in order to give them a guarantee that all their particular meanings, laws, norms, arethe right ones. In heteronomous societies these are abricated in such a way as to makethem appear to bepredeterminedby some extra-social principle or standard which alreadygives an answer to any question that might be posed, and which thus destroys manscreative imagination and reedom by closing his mind to the possibility o there beinganything genuinely new, dierent, originalby closing his mind to the possibility o

real change, creation, revolution. It makes o all these things an impossibility, somethinginconceivable. It also keeps othersocieties imaginaries beyond understanding.Thus, a heteronomous society, with its heteronomous individuals, suers rom a

debilitating cognitive closure, and the irst, indisputable act, Castoriadis says, is thatthis is so or almost allo the people in a given society.7 As was noted earlier, however,Castoriadis is not one o these people incapacitated by the mainstream cognitivehandicap, and hence he is able to penetrate or reappropriate the social imaginarysigniications o ancient Greece to see i there is anythingthererelevant or us: he is, insummary, engaging in non-trivial thinking by using his radical creative imagination,which is his essence, and has the potential to be the essence o all humans, as long asthey are autonomous.

GREECE AND THE AUTONOMOUS SOCIETY

And what is autonomy? Weve seen heteronomyour lives are apparently dictated byitbut what is real autonomy? Castoriadis points to Greece. Autonomy is what madeGreece great. And Greece was indeed great. It was here, Castoriadis insists, and nowhereelse, that politics, democracy, philosophy, science, historiography, impartiality, judgingand choosing, rational inquiry and thought itsel, as we know and practice it, werecreated. Autonomy is what initiated the unprecedented and hectic pace o creation inall the ields o human endeavour. And autonomy, according to Castoriadis, and withit the commencement o the most creative period in human history, begins in Athensat around 682 or 683 BC, with, irstly, the establishment o the annual election o the

thesmothetai, who were the judicial magistrates and layers down o law; secondly, withthe instating o the citizens o Sparta as equals at around the same time; and, thirdly,with the airmation o the rule onomosthe rule o law.

What is important [or us] in ancient Greek political lie, Castoriadis says, is theactivity and struggle around the changeo the institutions, the explicit (even i partial) sel-institution o thepolisas apermanent process.8 Instead o passively accepting the decreedlaws and norms as though they were set down once and or all and thus beyond reproach,

7. Italics are Castoriadis. Castoriadis, The Greek Polisand the Creation o Democracy, p. 270.8. Ibid., pp. 274-5.

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Athenians were actively engaged in constantly reorming their system and altering theirrules. This autonomous instituting process eventually led to the establishment o a directdemocracy in 508 BC, some 175 years later. And it is direct democracy, which Athenswas the irst approximation o, that Castoriadis advocated throughout his lie as theabsolute political ideal.9 The autonomous process goes on or almost our centuries,10Castoriadis says, and it is inseparable rom the coinciding explosion o humancreation. Being autonomousauto meaning by-itsel and nomosmeaning lawmeansbeingexplicitly aware that we posit our own laws,11 because autonomy is possible onlyi society recognizes itsel as the source o its norms.12

O course, allsocieties create themselves, but not all societies are capableorecognizing

themselves as their own creators, and thereore not all societies are capable o non-trivial thinking, nor o the explicitly autonomous activity o judging and choosing in anon-trivial sense. This is where Castoriadis gets a little bit controversial. He says: thisactivity o judging and choosing, and the very idea o it, is a Greco-Western activity andideait has been created in this world and nowhere else. The idea would not and couldnot occur to a Hindu, to a classical Hebrew, to a true Christian or to a Muslim. ClassicalHebrews have nothing to choose. They have been given the truth and the Law onceand or all by God, and i they started judging and choosing about that they would nolonger be Hebrew. Likewise, true Christians have nothing to judge or choose: they haveto believe and to love. for, it is written: Judge not, that ye be not judged(Matt. 7:1).13 Theweakness o this argument shall not be discussed here, but what Castoriadis is insistingon is that autonomy is undamentally dependent upon the ability to sel-consciously

judge and choose ones own truths and laws, which must be sel-created. Thus to beautonomous, it appears that one has to strictly be a number o things, including: an anti-capitalist, anti-totalitarian, anti-Marxist (because Marxism was also dependent uponReason as ultimate principle), a certain sort o existentialist (because o the ocus on sel-creation), and deinitely some kind o anti-Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Hindu atheist oragnostic.

But what about the golden Greeks? They had their gods and their cults andmythology and yet they managed to achieve the epitome o autonomous humangreatness. Yes, because in Greece, Castoriadis says, religion is kept strictly at bay bypolitical activities.14Justicein Greece is not the will o God, as it is in all other religioussocieties: it is instead a genuine human question that must remain open orever.

Autonomy, Castoriadis argues, means reedom. Autonomy is the indeterminatereedom othe creative imagination. It involves knowing that there are no ixed or pre-determinedlaws, norms or meanings that we can appeal to; knowing that we are the creators o all

9. L.D. Kritzman, B.J. Reilly and M.B. DeBevoise, The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought,Columbia University Press, 2007, p. 471.

10. Castoriadis, The Greek Polisand the Creation o Democracy, p. 275.11. Ibid.12. Ibid., p. 282.13. Ibid., p. 271.14. Ibid., p. 282.

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these social imaginary signiications and hence o our own society. What precisely doesthis mean or justice though? What isthis justice through which Castoriadis eectivelydeers the complex exposition o autonomy? Castoriadis answers with the notion o sel-limitation. He explains: In a democracy people can do anythingand must know thatthey ought notto do just anything. Democracy is the regime o sel-limitation [] it is theregime o reedomand a tragic regime.15

At this point in the argument, Castoriadis turns to hubris. To anyone unamiliar withancient Greek tragedy, the discussion ohubrismight appear here to be an extraneousdigression. However, although it certainly does not abridge Castoriadis labyrinthineconception o autonomy, the point that is made is revelatory. The term hubrismeans

excessive pride, and almost all Greek tragedies unequivocally concern themselves withit. Hubriswas also a legal term in Greece, and a crime severely punished by law. It iscommitted when one is neither willing nor able to hear the discourse and the reasonso the other, o others,16 Castoriadis explains elsewhere, and, he who is possessed byhubrisexits rom the political community o men.17 He becomes apolis, without a city.Castoriadis argues that hubrispresupposes reedom and at the same time it presupposesthe absence o ixed norms [it] exists where sel-limitation is the only norm, wherelimits are transgressed which were nowhere deined.18 Hubris is intrinsic to manprecisely because his possibilities are unlimited, and hence, the ultimate problem oautonomous man: the sel-limitation o the individual and o the political community. 19This is what the real task o ethics and politics consists in or Castoriadis, and this is whydemocracy is the regime o not only reedom but o sel-limitation.

Castoriadis also describes democracy as a tragic regime. It provides no indisputablerules that one can rely on, and no unambiguous principles that one can use as a guidein determining whether an action is right and just. The autonomous reedom allowedby authentic democracy is never without tragic overtones because the ear o slippingunknowingly into the catastrophe ohubris is unrelenting. Democracy, as Castoriadissees it, resembles a tragedya Greek tragedy, or, more precisely, an Athenian tragedy.He says, Greek tragedy: thats a being that does not exist: There is only Atheniantragedy, and that is no accident. It is only in Athens that there has been this powerulrise o democracy, and tragedy is a democratic institution in all its aspects and especiallyin its most deep-seated content.20 He reiterates elsewhere, only in the city where thedemocratic process, the process o sel-institution, reached its climax, only there could

tragedy (as opposed to simple theatre) be created.21

15. Ibid.16. Cornelius. Castoriadis, Aeschylean Anthropogony and Sophoclean Sel-Creation o Man, in Anon

(ed.), Figures of the thinkable, 2005, p. 27.17. Ibid., p. 25.18. Castoriadis, The Greek Polisand the Creation o Democracy, p. 282.19. Castoriadis, Aeschylean Anthropogony and Sophoclean Sel-Creation o Man, p. 27.20. Ibid., pp. 5-6.21. Castoriadis, The Greek Polisand the Creation o Democracy, p. 284.

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TRAGEDY

Tragedys proound connection to the rise o the democraticpolishas indeed been irmlyestablished by classicists and anthropologists alikeCastoriadis is not alone in this view.Most sources indicate that Aeschylus, the ather o tragedy, was born around 525 BC,

Athens became a democracy in 508 BC and Aeschylus irst tragedy was perormedin 499 BC. The noteworthy act that the births o tragedy and democracy directlycoincided with one another is immensely signiicant in deciphering either o these tworemarkable creations.

The french anthropologist and specialist in ancient Greece, Jean-Pierre Vernant,who was a contemporary and colleague o Castoriadis, and whose much more

rigorously researched work was, I think, crucial in orming Castoriadis own ideas abouttragedy, shows how tragic dramas themes, orm, and the almost obsessive use o atechnical legal terminology in the language o the tragic writers,22 all point to tragedyspreoccupation with the new democracy. The relection in tragedy o the Greeksintense and very real interest in politics is almost impossible to still deny. Nietzschesclaim in The Birth of Tragedy that tragedys purely religious beginnings [] exclude thewhole area o political and social concerns,23 is today regarded as being simply silly.24

Although the deinitive assertion that Greek tragedy is [] shaped by the vital needto create and sustain the polis,25 may perhaps be slightly too strong in its emphasis,the ailure to appreciate that tragedy is political is a ailure to ully appreciate the artorm itsel. Vernant gives a more balanced view26 in his investigation into the speciic

social and psychological conditions o the ith century Athenian. At the oreront othese conditions he places, on the one hand, the emerginglegal and political thoughto thenewly democratic Athensthe importance o which, it is made clear, can hardly beoverestimatedand on the other, the mythical and heroic traditionsthat had been aroundor much longer. We encounter tragedy at the centre o these two distinct but coexistingworlds and we can see that tragedy is as political as it is religious.

I Nietzsche ocused too exclusively on the purely religious side o tragedy, however,Castoriadis ocuses too exclusively on its political side. His desire to portray the idealisedGreeks as having overcome the heteronomous cognitive closure o religion, leads himto give a reading o tragedy that is itsel rather closed and limited. The text in question is

Aeschylean Anthropogony and Sophoclean Self-Creation of Man, which is, I believe, Castoriadis

22. Jean Pierre Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet,Myth and tragedy in Ancient Greece, trans. Janet Lloyd, NewYork, Zone Books, 1988, p. 31.

23. friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music, trans. Shaun Whiteside,London, Penguin, 1993, p. 36.

24.Birth of Tragedys exclusion rom tragedy o the politico-social sphere [is] one o the silliest eatures othat marvellously suggestive text. Richard Seaord, Something to Do with DionysusTragedy and theDionysiac, in M. S. Silk (ed.), Tragedy and the tragic : Greek theatre and beyond, Oxord, Clarendon Press, 1996,p. 285.

25. Ibid., p. 293.26. See, in particular, Vernant and Vidal-Naquet,Myth and tragedy in Ancient Greece.

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only in-depth analysis speciically dealing with tragedy.27But why would it even matter what Castoriadis has to say about tragedy? He was,

ater all, a politicalphilosopher, so what does his interpretation o literaturehave to dowith anything o consequence? In answer to this, I think it is exceptionally importantwhat Castoriadis says here, not least since he is basing it on real surviving evidencetwocompletetexts (Aeschylus Prometheus Boundand SophoclesAntigone) that were written inthe same period o human history around which Castoriadis has built his entire politicaland philosophical project. The same cannot be said o much o the other evidence thatCastoriadis appeals to in support o his re-imagining o the ancient Greek democraticimaginary. He regularly relies on Platos, and particularly on Aristotles, testimonies

concerning the origins o democracy, which, in light o other evidence available to usrom the time, have been shown to oten be inaccurate and heavily biased.28 Plato, thegreat enemy o democracy, as well as o poetry and tragedy, was born 85 years ater,and Aristotle 124 years ater, Athens irst became a democracy. The Golden Age oPericles was well and truly over by the time either o the two philosophers appeared onthe scenethey witnessed an Athens that was already in decline and that would neveragain recover its ormer glory.

Castoriadis was certainly right to emphasize that things had changed drasticallywithin a short amount o time, but I think his version o what happened ontologicallyis somewhat misguided. Vernant writes that within a hundred years [o tragedysexistence] the tragic seam had already been exhausted and when Aristotle in theourth century set out, in his Poetics, to establish the theory o tragedy, he no longerunderstood tragic man who had, so to speak, become a stranger. 29 Aristotle didntunderstand tragedy and Plato explicitly banished it rom his Republic. What hope thendoes Castoriadis have in opening up our comprehension o this very elusive ancient artorm and the tragedians behind it who were part o the irst generation o democrats inthe world?

As or the pre-Socratic philosophers in whom Castoriadis ondly traces the origins ohis own politico-philosophical project, not one o their works has survived in completeorm. All that is available are quotations by later philosophers and historiansthe actualtext is very ragmented. Castoriadis says that Anaximander is the irst philosopheror whom we possess reliable testimony,30 but the only ragment o his that we haveis this: for they make amends and give reparation to one another or their oence,

according to the ordinance o time. And that is quoted by the Neoplatonist Simpliciuswho lived more than a thousand years ater Anaximander.31 The rest o what we know

27. In any case, it is his most important work on the subject, and the only that has thus ar been translatedinto the English language.

28. See, or example, J.P. Sickinger, Public records and archives in classical Athens, University o North CarolinaPress, 1999.

29. Vernant and Vidal-Naquet,Myth and tragedy in Ancient Greece, p. 29.30. Castoriadis, The Greek Polisand the Creation o Democracy, p. 273.31. The quote is oten thought to begin with: Out o those things whence is the generation or existing

things, into these again does their destruction take place, according to what must needs be, but this part

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about the archaic philosopher all comes rom Aristotle, who wrote some two and halcenturies ater Anaximander, and rom Aristotles successors second-hand accounts andinterpretations. It is rom these testimonies o what Anaximander said that Castoriadisconstructed his own version oapeiron, which he deines as the element o being []the indeterminate, indeiniteanother way o thinking Chaos.32 Elsewhere he says,being is creation and destruction: the two go together. Anaximander knew that, butlittle account has been taken o it.33 This conception o Being as apeiron, or Chaos, orindeterminable cycles o creation/destruction, is central to Castoriadis thinking and itis what rames his entire philosophyit is revealing to note exactly where it all camerom, or rather, what the catalyst behind it was. 34 Castoriadis was not the only one

to carry out such elaborate reconstructions o the scant evidence, however. Nietzschewas also greatly inluenced by the Anaximander ragment in his early work;35 as wasHeidegger, who wrote extensively on it in light o his own philosophy and conceptiono Being.36

To return to tragedy now: the act that these ew tragic texts have survivedwhile almost everything else rom the period has perished makes them all the moreindispensable. They are central among the handul o meaningul pieces o evidencethat we have available to us, and should thereore be considered seriously. Castoriadis,however, oers a reading o tragedy that is ar rom impartial. He requently seemsmore inclined to draw somewhat pertinacious conclusions rom his personal vision oGreek history and philosophy, and to ind here justiications or his own political ideal,which, as he argued, had been most closely appropriated by the Greek imaginary.This Greek imaginary that Castoriadis re-imagines is o course also to be discovered atthe root o tragedy, as he shall soon show us.

It is signiicant to note that Castoriadis colleague Vernant had already written atlength about the Greek tragic imaginary some years beore Castoriadis himsel set out to

is most likely Simplicius talking rather than the quote itsel. Although both Nietzsches and Heideggerstranslations o the ragment include this sentence, there is evidence which suggests that it was in act notpart o the quotation itsel. Ancient Greek was written without punctuation and hence the diiculty ointerpretation. for a discussion o this, see Charles H. Kahn,Anaximander and the origins of Greek cosmology,Indianapolis, Hackett, 1994, pp. 166-96.

32. Castoriadis, The Greek Polisand the Creation o Democracy, p. 273.

33. Cornelius Castoriadis, World in fragments : writings on polit ics, society, psychoanalysis, and the imagination, trans.David Ames Curtis, Stanord University Press, 1997c, p. 101.34. In many regards, Castoriadis was indeed a Greek philosopher par excellence. He did not it into the

tradition o modern french philosophy [] Castoriadis precursors were the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle,and the Stoics. Peter Murphy, Castoriadis, Cornelius, in George Ritzer, Encyclopedia of social theory, Volume1, vol. 1, 2 vols., London, Sage, 2005, p. 83.

35.for example, Nietzsche, The birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music. Anaximander is also discussed atgreater length in friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, trans. M. Cowan,Regnery Publishing, 1996.

36. Castoriadis notes wryly that Heideggers interpretation o it [the Anaximander ragment]is, as usual, Heidegger dressed up as Anaximander. Castoriadis, The Greek Polisand the Creation oDemocracy, p. 289.

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do so. 37 Vernants highly inluential work on tragedy had clearly impacted Castoriadisthoughts on the subject greatly. Vernant proceeded to examine what he called themental universe, mental world, or mental context (o the Greeks), which hedeined as the speciic and particular human world o meanings [which] comprises

verbal and intellectual equipment, categories o thought, types o reasoning, the systemo representations, belies and values, orms osensibility.38 Vernants description owhat an imaginary/mental world consists o is practically identical to Castoriadis,which involves the creation o a human world: o things, reality, language, norms,

values, ways o lie and death [ where each particular society posits a] particularcomplex o rules, laws, meanings, values, tools, motivations, etc.39 However, while

Castoriadis practically skims over what little tangible evidence there is in order to carryout the project o re-imagining the tragic world, Vernant treats the evidence as thestarting point. The dierence between the two approaches could perhaps be explainedby the act that Vernant worked as an anthropologist and historian, whereas Castoriadiswas, irst and oremost, a philosopher whose philosophy in many ways depended onhis own particular rendition o ancient Greece. He set out to prove not only that his

vision o radical autonomy was theoretically possible, but that it had already beenrealised once or twice40 in the pastand it was no accident that these were preciselythe greatest moments in human history. It is due to this stunningly ambitious politicaland philosophical conviction that Castoriadis reading o the tragic texts loses (at leastactual) integrity.

RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY

Castoriadis argument inAeschylean Anthropogony and Sophoclean Self-Creation of Man, is that,the juxtaposition o these two poets [Aeschylus and Sophocles] shows us clearly anontological overthrow o enormous importance that occurred during this twenty-yearperiod.41 He says that the answers given by these two tragedies [to the question o whatis man] are diametrically opposed, and this dierence relects the unprecedented paceo cultural creation in democratic Athens and is consubstantial with it. The traditionalrepresentations were more and more radically being dismissed; mans sel-knowledge

37. Vernants The Historical Moment of Tragedy in Greece(which is reprinted in Vernant and Vidal-Naquet,

Myth and tragedy in Ancient Greece.) was irst published in 1968. Castoriadis was at this time still writing almostexclusively on Marxism.38. Vernant continues, and the modalities o action and o agent. We might describe it as a mental

world peculiar to the Greeks o the ith century were it not that such a ormula runs a severe risk o beingmisunderstood. It might suggest that a mental domain already existed somewhere, ully established, andthat all tragedy had to do was relect it in its own particular way. But no mental universe exists as such,over and above the collection o diverse practices that man ollows and constantly renews within the ieldo social l ie and cultural creation. Ibid., p. 30.

39. Castoriadis, The Greek Polisand the Creation o Democracy, p. 269.40. I.e. In Athens, and in the revival o Athensthat is, in the post-twelth century Renaissance and

Enlightenment states where modernity was created. See Murphy, Castoriadis, Cornelius, p. 82.41. Castoriadis, Aeschylean Anthropogony and Sophoclean Sel-Creation o Man, p. 12.

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was being enlarged and deepened.42 He concludes by saying that, in a quarter century,Greek sel-knowledge passed rom the idea o a divine anthropogony to the idea o manssel-creation.43 Castoriadis argument is that the ontological question o what is man?is answered by Aeschylus with a divine anthropogony: man is whatever a god madehim to be, and whatever he has he was given by the god Prometheus a long time ago.The creation o man, Aeschylus cannotthink it qua sel-creation, as Sophocles will do,44says Castoriadis, because the archaic Aeschylus is still heteronomoustrapped by thecognitive closure o his aith in the gods, not yet capableo the deeper sel-knowledge thatonly comes with autonomy. But, nothing o the sort in Sophocles, 45 Castoriadis says.Here, man creates himsel, and everything that he has, he gives to himsel. Sophocles

posits humanity as sel-creation. Men have taken nothing rom the gods, and no godhas given them anything whatsoever. That is the spirit o the ith century, and it is tothistragedy [Antigone] that the Athenians gave the laurel wreath.46

On several occasions, Castoriadis reminds us that it is o relative indierence orus to know whether Aeschylus and Sophocles actually believed the statements thatthey proposed in their tragedies. In brackets he adds, however: although they certainlydid believe them.47 A number o things are hence implied here, albeit indirectly, about

Aeschylus and Sophoclespersonally. One o them is that Aeschylus, unlike Sophocles,could not have been a truly democratic citizen, because he was himsel not yet a trulyautonomous individual. He is seen in light o this as the lesser o the two poets. Anotherthing that Castoriadis cunningly implies, here and elsewhere, is that Sophocles wassomething o an atheist, which was due o course to his deepening and very democraticsel-understanding. The importance o religion and the gods within the imaginaries oboth poets is continuously and deliberately diminished by Castoriadis reading, and this,I think, is his gravest oence.

firstly, Aeschylus wasa democrat. He was seventeen years old when Athens becamea democracy and rom all the evidence we have on his lie, he was an active and reveredcitizen o a city undergoing what he elt was an exhilarating and inspiring revolution.

Athenians were proud o their social and political achievements, and Aeschylus wasno exception. He amously ought or his polison three separate occasions during thePersian Wars, where one o his brothers was killed. His epitaph, said to have been writtenby himsel, doesnt even mention that he was a celebrated playwright and that he hadwritten some seventy tragedies over his lietime which would continue to be quoted

rom as though they were the Bible48 or generations to come: the only achievement

42. Ibid., pp. 6-7.43. Ibid., p. 38.44. Ibid., p. 17.45. Ibid., p. 37.46. Ibid., pp. 23-4.47. Ibid., p. 8.48. The Greek boy who studied Homer and the other poets [] was studying the literature and history

o his country, and the equivalent o our Bible. Desmond Lee, introduction to Plato, The Republic, trans.H.D.P. Lee, London, Penguin Books, 1974, p. xxxvii.

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o his lie he thought worthy o recording on his tombstone was that he had ought asan Athenian citizen in the Persian Wars.49 Aeschylus reiterated his support or the newdemocracy repeatedly, throughout almost all his tragedies, and even had the ultimate

Athenian citizen Pericles serving as the honorary inancer or the production o one othem, the Persians. His tragedies have courts and juries, voting and acquitting, the layingdown o laws, and constant debates about justice. There is no doubt that Aeschylus wasa democrat who was ully aware that his society was instituting its own laws, which weredecided, and thereore sel-created, by the citizens. And yet there is also no doubt that

Aeschylus was religious, and prooundly so.50 What can be said o his autonomy then?Was he autonomous in matters o politics and heteronomous in everything elsesuch

as in his Promethean anthropogony?Castoriadis mentions in passing in another text that the emergenceo autonomy inGreece was conditioned by the non-unitary Greek view o the world that is expressedrom the beginning in the Greek myths. What he means by this is that he at leastacknowledges that Greek religion was undamentally dierent rom a religion such asChristianity: it did not advocate a strictly closed theology with its promise o a totaland rational (and thereore meaningul) order in the world, along with the necessaryimplication that there is an order o human aairs linked to the order o the worldwhat one could call unitary ontology.51 Greek myths stayed out o societys democraticsel-creation, because in Greece, religion is kept strictly at bay by political activities.52Politics in Greece is secular, and I think Castoriadis is absolutely right to insist onthis. But was this secularity hostile to Greek religion, and an objection to it, or werethe two compatible and perhaps even complementary? Castoriadis would probablyargue that the ormer was the case: it is in spiteo religion that Greek politics managedits secularity (and thus its autonomy), which was itsel only possible so long as thereligion (with its heteronomous determinations) could be pushed away. A secular (andthus autonomous) politics could only have been realised by and through an essentiallynon-religious social movement. And Aeschylus, who was still under the clutches o amythical and religious tradition,53 could clearly not have been a part o this godlessrevolution.

Sophocles, on the other hand, we do not know what Sophocles thought o the gods[but] we know that he belonged to Pericles circle, as did Protagoras, who said, As orthe gods, I can know nothing; neither how they are, nor i they are, nor i they are not,

49. Aeschylus was a democrat who ought as well as wrote. His epitaph read :Beneath this stone lies Aeschylus o Athens, Euphorions sonwho died in the ields o Gela rich in wheat.His strength, his glory the grove o Marathon can praiseand the long-haired Persianhe learned it well.Introduction to Aeschylus, The Oresteia, trans. Robert fagles, London, Penguin Books, 1984, pp. 94-5.

50. fagles contends that Aeschylus is the great religious visionary. Ibid., p. 95.51. Castoriadis, The Greek Polisand the Creation o Democracy, p. 274.52. Ibid., p. 282.53. Castoriadis, Aeschylean Anthropogony and Sophoclean Sel-Creation o Man, p. 8.

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nor about how they might look.54 Castoriadis stops short o calling Sophocles an atheist,although he does suggest the next best thingthat he was most probably an agnosticlike the sophist Protagoras. How is one to explain the irrepressibly pious prayers andhymns and invocations o gods that make up a substantial part o Sophoclean tragedythen? Castoriadis rationalises that all that religious talk in Sophocles has a concretecontent55it only ever concerns the community and the things that are necessary orthe community (such as the necessity o burying the dead, regardless o whether theywere upright citizens or traitors like Antigones brother Polynices). Even in the case o

Aeschylus, Castoriadis exclaims, the irst thing we noticewhich orces itsel on us andwhich I simply present hereis huge, astonishing: Aeschylus speaks o manticism and

not o religion; he mentions the gods only in passing and rom a utilitarian perspective.The entrails o sacriicial victims have to be examined in order to see i they suit thepleasure o the gods.56 Castoriadis excitement is palpablethe gods are merely thereor utilitarian and concrete purposes.

This downsizing o religion is carried out by Castoriadis at every possible turn.Consider his interpretation o the meaning o Sophocles celebrated Antigone ode:Nothing is more awesome, astonishing, achievement-capable, than man. And I askonce again: Do we dare take the poet seriously? Are we to assume that the poet is usingthe words at random? Master o the exactitude and pertinency o words, Sophocles saysloud and clear: nothing. [] Nothing. Nothing: thereore, not even the gods. 57 Man iseven more awesome and astonishing than the gods, Castoriadis concludes, because thegods, and all o nature, can only ever be exactly what they are and nothing moretheir aculties have been given to them once and or all. Man, on the other hand, is hisown creator; he is sel-created and he gives himsel everything that he has. Castoriadisreassures us that this is Sophocles conception may be ascertained without any doubton the basis o one word [] edidaxato, he taught himsel.58 On the basis o this oneword, Castoriadis assumes a great deal indeed about Sophocles.

CONQUEST AND PUNISHMENT

TheAntigoneode, when taken in its entirety, is important in characterising Sophocles,and Castoriadis is right to use it as a prime example o the marked dierences thatseparate the two tragedians. Unortunately though, Castoriadis ails to point out most

o these dierences, concentrating instead almost exclusively on a rather orced readingo Sophoclean sel-creation, which is sharply contrasted with Aeschylus mythicalanthropogony. What is more interesting to note in this ode, however, is the manner inwhich Sophocles posits man within the natural world. Here is theAntigoneode:

54. Ibid., p. 35.55. Ibid.56. Ibid., p. 18.57. Ibid., pp. 29-30.58. Ibid., pp. 30-1.

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Numberless wonders

terrible wonders walk the world but none the match or man []and the oldest o the gods he wears awaythe Earth, the immortal, the inexhaustibleas his plows go back and orth, year in, year out []And the blithe, lightheaded race o birds he snares,the tribes o savage beasts, the lie that swarms the depthswith one ling o his nets woven and coiled tight, he takes them all,man the skilled, the brilliant!He conquers all []And speech and though, quick as the windand the mood and mind or law that rules the cityall these he has taught himsel.(Antigone, 377.)

A similar ode concerning man and nature can be ound in Aeschylus:Marvels, the Earth breeds many marvels,Terrible marvels overwhelm us.The heaving arms o the sea embrace and swarmwith savage lie. And high in no mans land o nighttorches hang like swords. The hawk on the wing,the beast astride the ieldscan tell o the whirlwinds ury roaring strong.

Oh but a mans high daring spirit,Who can account or that?(Libation Bearers, 574.)

In Aeschylus, man cannot overcome nature and cannot tame it as conidently asSophocles had described. This does not mean, however, that man is any less great in

Aeschylus vision. Even next to an overwhelming natural world, the marvel o manand his high daring spirit is astounding. Aeschylus was grateul to the earth and tothe gods and he worshipped the whole o nature, its eternal cycles o destruction andregeneration59 alike: the Earth hersel who brings all things to lie and makes themstrong, then gathers in the rising tide once more (Libation Bearers, 131.); There is thesea and who will drain it dry? Precious as silver, inexhaustible, ever-new, it breeds the

more we reap it (Agamemnon, 958.). The respect and awe that Aeschylus had towardsnature began to decrease in Sophocles, who, like his good riend Pericles, speaks oconquering and controlling all that is not human (or Athenian). Nothing in nature is amatch or man, Sophocles says, the oldest o the gods he wears awaythe Earth.

And as or all the creatures o the earth, he takes them all, man the skilled, the brilliant!

59. Contrary to what Castoriadis argues, the destruction/creation order o the world certainly does havea meaning or tragic manthe tragic divine is embedded in nature and its cycles o birth and death. It isthus very misleading to say, as Castoriadis does, that the order o the world has no meaning or man: itposits the blind necessity o genesis and birth, on the one hand, o corruption and catastrophe [] on theother. Castoriadis, The Greek Polisand the Creation o Democracy, p. 273.

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He conquers all. Man the brilliant is here set up as opposed to nature, no longer a parto it, but wishing to dominate it. Castoriadis not only ails to mention that Sophocles isespousing a direct recipe or that pseudorational pseudomastery which has gone on towreak irreparable environmental damage, but he praises this imperialist sel-conidenceand airms, such were the people about whom Pericles would say [] [we have]orced every land and every sea to make way or our daring.60

To Sophocles credit, however, he does also oer a contrasting anti-imperialist stancelater on in the tragedy: True, our dreams, our high hopes voyaging ar and wide bringsheer delight to many, to many others delusion, blithe, mindless lusts (Antigone, 689.).In act, Sophocles presents this contrast between greatness and ruinor the all rom

gracein most, i not all o his tragedies, and in the end he truly stands by Zeus otenevoked eternal law which dictates that no towering orm o greatness enters into thelives o mortals ree and clear o ruin (Antigone, 686.). In light o this, Sophocles appearsto be ar more pronouncedly conservative than Castoriadis would care to admit. Whileit is true that his tragedies relect the Athenians sel-assured superiority and their daringsel-conidence, all these things are ultimately crushed by greater orcesby the godsand the pre-ordained mighty blows o ate (Antigone, 1469) rom which no man canescape. fate in Sophocles is a hostile and malicious orce which drives the heroes andmost o their amily members to suicide, sel-mutilation and/or complete resignationrom liethe inal dismal words oOedipus the Kingare: Now as we keep our watchand wait the inal day, count no man happy till he dies, ree o pain at last ( Oedipus,1683.). The chorus sing these cautionary lines ater they recount the horrendous ate otheir king Oedipus, who has just blinded himsel upon inding his wie, who is also hismother, hanging by the neck. Oedipus has ulilled his cruel destiny. He rose to enviablegreatness and became a man beyond all power, only to be brutally destroyed by ablack sea o terror (Oedipus, 1682). Similarly, in Antigone, ater a succession o triplesuicides, the inal lines o the chorus are: The mighty words o the proud are paid in ullwith mighty blows o ate (Antigone, 1467.). Aeschylus likewise warns o the dangers oexcessive pride throughout his tragedies: from their high-towering hopes [Zeus] hurlsmortals to their destruction (Suppliants, 98.); and, man is mortal and must learn tocurb his pride (Persians, 819).

Castoriadis rightly says that in tragedy, there is above all the question o humanhubris, o the irresistible push o man toward excess and its limitations.61 It is his most astute

observation, I think, to then connect this tragic hubris/sel-limitation with democracy,whose central question also happens to be the question o sel-limitation.62 Bothinstitutions (tragedy and democracy) are conronted by the tragic dilemma that thereare no clear limitations or rules out there which man can ollowthis is what Castoriadismeans when he says that Being is Chaos. And, as a result o this dilemma being soproblematic or society (as tragedy spectacularly demonstrates), both institutions are

60. Castoriadis, Aeschylean Anthropogony and Sophoclean Sel-Creation o Man, p. 23.61. Ibid., p. 6.62. Ibid.

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orced to think o some kind o solution. This is in reality the quintessentially diicultquestion o ethics, and it is answered by both tragedy and democracy with the notiono sel-limitation, or hubris-curbing. Once again, this is why democracy is a tragicregime, and it is why tragedy is indeed deeply political.

Castoriadis is also correct to stress that ethics is a purely human aair. The desperateneed or an ethical system is brought about by the wisdom that humans learn throughsuering the consequences o living in a chaotic world. At long last those [mightyblows o ate] will teach us wisdom (Antigone, 1467.), Sophocles says. And in Aeschylus:Justice turns the balance scales, sees that we suer and we suer and we learn(Agamemnon, 250.). Tragedys oten evoked and multiaceted goddess called Justice

(dik) is to be understood as an element that is distinct rom the democratically createdethics, which is instituted through human nomos, or man-made laws. Aeschylus Oresteiatrilogy demonstrates precisely this distinction, which I would now like to consider or amoment.63

ETHICS: THE SOLUTION Of AESCHYLUS

The Oresteia traces a amilys sel-destruction. It seeks or a way out o the cycle oviolence and suering that man inlicts upon himsel and those around him. Aeschylus,the warrior-poet, seeks peace, and by the end o the trilogy he delivers it. BeginningwithAgamemnon, we are introduced to the world o Clytaemnestra. Here justice is seenrom her eyes. Her daughter, Iphigenia, girl o tears (Agamemnon, 1554), has been

sacriiced cruelly by her husband, the king o kings, Agamemnon. The chorus recalls:his [Agamemnons] spirit veering black, impure, unholy Yes, he had the heart tosacriice his daughter (218.). The chorus who both respect and ear the queen knowthat she is fury child-avenging fury (156)that is her single-minded purpose andthe justiication or her crime. Moments beore Agamemnons victorious homecoming,the chorus sings, Justice [] she steers all things towards their destined end (761.).

At this point Agamemnon enters, right in time to be brought to his destined end. Hemakes a pompous speech, ironically invokingdikand claiming to have the gods on hisside: first, with justice I salute my Argos and my gods, my accomplices who broughtme home and won my rights rom Priams Troythe just gods (797.). Agamemnonis completely oblivious to the orces that have already been set in motion and that are

about to destroy him. Clytaemnestra cries menacingly, Quickly. Let the red streamlow [] Justice, lead him in! (902.). The king obeys and the chorus cries, the endis coming/ Justice comes to birth (1000.). Agamemnon is made into a corpse by hiswies right hand, and she proclaims that her crime is a masterpiece o Justice (1430).The chorus express their outrage at the murder but admit that it is justice: Each chargemeets counter-charge. None can judge between them. Justice (1588.).

Next in the trilogy is the Libation Bearers. Here Aeschylus replaces the world o

63. In relation to the trilogy, Castoriadis mentions in passing, the much commented upon (rightly, iinsuiciently) Aeschylean vindication o public justice against private vengeance. Castoriadis, The GreekPolisand the Creation o Democracy, p. 284.

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Agamemnon, Clytaemnestras world, with that o his two new protagonists. We see thingsnow rom the eyes o the children, the next generation: Electra and Orestes. from thisperspective, Agamemnon is nothing other than a noble eagle ather (Libation Bearers,251), calling or the just revenge o his murder. Iphigenia is almost entirely orgotten.She is mentioned only once, and not even by name: my sister, sacriiced on the cruelsword (244.). That the one who sacriiced her, her murderer, was her ather, and thatClytaemnestras crime was in the name o avenging her (the major theme oAgamemnon),is never once alluded to. Clytaemnestra, Agamemnons glorious child-avenging furyacting in the name o justice, is in the Libation Bearersreduced to nothing but the despisedkiller o her childrens ather.

The change in perspective leads to more than just a transormation o roles (romAgamemnon, where Iphigenia is victim, Agamemnon murderer, and Clytaemnestraavenger; to Libation Bearers, where Agamemnon is victim, Clytaemnestra murderer, andOrestes avenger). Change in perspective also leads to a transormation64 o reality, otruth, and o justice. All is subjective. Perspective determines deinition (i.e. role), and

judgment is always dependent on this. By the end o the second play o the Oresteiatrilogy, we see that it is as Nietzsche says: all that exists is just and unjust. 65 The sameact is both right and wrong, depending on whose perspective we are looking rom.66

In the inal play o the trilogy, the Eumenides, we see Orestes kneeling at an altar.He is surrounded by the sleeping furies who have driven him here. Orestes holds inone hand a pious suppliants branch, in the other a bloody sword. He is insane. Theunbearable weight o moral complexity must be eased. The furies, stirred to action bythe ghost o Clytaemnestra, must hunt the man [Orestes] or Justice (Eumenides, 228.).Orestes pleads Athena to tell him whether he was right to commit the matricide: werewe just or not? Judge us now (482). Athena knows that she cannot settle the matteron her own, so she ounds a human tribunal. Apollo contends in the name o Zeusthat Orestes is just. This is his[Zeus] justiceomnipotent, I warn you (626), Apollothreatens. The furies are not satisied with this answer and upon their interrogation

Apollo retorts to the simple argument that it is worse to kill a ather than a mother,because the woman you call the mother o the child is not the parent, just a nurse tothe seed [] the man is the source o lie (666.). He exhibits Athena as the livingwitness (674) to this. Athena hersel employs the same argument in support o Orestes:I honour the male [] with all my heart I am my fathers child. I cannot set more store

by the womans death [] Even i the vote is equal, Orestes wins (752.). The citizensvote, and it is a tie. Orestes is acquitted and set ree rom the furies. To appease theirrage, Athena reassures the furies, you were not deeatedthe vote was tied (806.).She oers them a place in Athens and more power than theyve ever had. They accept,

64. Gould speaks o The shiting worlds o the Oresteiawhich are [] mediated by changes in theactitive identity o the chorus. John Gould, Tragedy and Collective Experience, in Silk (ed.), Tragedy andthe tragic : Greek theatre and beyond, p. 243.

65. Nietzsche, The birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music, p. 51.66. Garvie discusses this moral complexity, that is, subjectivity, in detail in A. f. Garvie, The Tragedy o

the Oresteia, in Silk (ed.), Tragedy and the tragic : Greek theatre and beyond.

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and eeling the hate, the ury slip away (908.), they become the kindly ones.Everything is solved and everyone is happy. And yet, as A.f. Garvie asks, can we

really be satisied with a solution that inds so simple an answer to the great problems ohuman lie? Garvie argues that there is a dividing line separating the Eumenidesrom theirst two plays o the trilogy. Whereas the irst two plays present moral complexities andinsoluble problems that humans still ace today, in Eumenidesa solution is apparentlyoundone, moreover, that is closely tied to a peculiarly ith-century Athenianinstitution, the Areopagus. He goes on to conclude that, The trilogy ends happily,but it may be that Aeschylus himsel was well aware that the real problems remainunresolved. And because o this knowledge, the moral complexities o the irst two

plays are given no solution,67

he says. Vernant similarly notes in relation to the play,The questions are posed but the tragic consciousness can ind no ully satisactoryanswers to them and so they remain open.68 The possibility that a tragedy as tragicas the Oresteiacould have a happy conclusive ending is passionately rejected by many,who either, along with such inluential critics as George Steiner, sternly believe thattragedies must end badly, or at least that tragic problems and questions can neverbe answered. But despite convincing arguments, and despite the elegant conusionspread by many classicists, there is no doubt that the ending o the Oresteiaanswers thequestions, however much we may dislike the answers, the way they are arrived at, or the

very idea o questions being answered.69

What exactly are these questions posed by the Oresteia? And what are the answers?The irst two plays, as Garvie argues, are indeed morally complex. Clytaemnestra andOrestes both act in the name o their own subjective justice, they seek their own personaldik, and within their own worlds, their actions are justiied. In Agamemnon, Aeschylusshows us Clytaemnestras world, and in Libation Bearershe shows us Orestes. When readas individualplays, each protagonist in his/her own world appears to be justiied. Whenread together, however, this justiication becomes problematic, that is, we begin to see itscomplexity. Thereore, one could say that the questions Aeschylus is posing are: What isthe place o subjective, personal, individual justice in a world where there is more thanone person?; How can one individuals (personal) justice be kept rom causing (personal)injustice to another individual?; How to reconcile the individual and the collective, thecitizen and thepolis?

Aeschylus ultimate desire is or peace and harmony. The last 250 lines o theEumenidesare precisely to that eect. Athena tells the furies to lull asleep that salt blackwave o anger (842); she pleads them to come to their new home in Athens, whereall the pain and anguish end (902); she tells them to sing nothing that strikes a noteo brutal conquest. Only peace (913). But it is the peace and harmony o thepolisthat

Athena, and Aeschylus, are urging above all: Here in our homeland never cast the

67. Ibid., p. 145.68. Vernant and Vidal-Naquet,Myth and tragedy in Ancient Greece, p. 33.69. Richard Seaord, Something to Do with DionysusTragedy and the Dionysiac, in Silk (ed.), Tragedy

and the tragic : Greek theatre and beyond, p. 292.

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stones that whet our bloodlust [] Let our wars rage on abroad, with all their orce,to satisy our powerul lust or ame. But as or the bird that ights at homemy curseon civil war (867.). This condemnation o civil war is repeated by the furies at 897,and again by Athena at 1017. At the close oAgamemnon, Clytaemnestra cried, I wecould end the suering, how we would rejoice (1693). The pain and destruction thatneither her nor Orestes were able to bring to an end are inally resolved in the Eumenides.

Aeschylus shows that, instead o the unconditional demand or personal justice, in thename o which both individual and collective suer, what is more important is peace.The hope is that the savage instinct (fury) that blinds the individual rom the idealo collective harmony, driving his personal justice towards acts o destruction, will be

tamed. The transormation o the wrathul furies into the kindly Eumenides is one othe solutions Aeschylus provides us with. The other is the creation o a law court. Bothare directed towards Aeschylus desire or peace and harmony, and or the preventiono destruction and suering.

Justice in the Oresteia, as in all mythical thought, is never o a morally absolutenature. We need only take one look at Clytaemnestra in her world, next to Orestes inhis, to be reminded o this. The tragic mother and son are, in Nietzsches words, bothindividually in the right, but each merely one individual beside another.70Dikis luidand indeiniteit belongs to what Vernant describes as a tragic universe o ambiguous

values where nothing is ever stable or unequivocal.71Dikcan never be resolved nordeined; it has a complexity that is indeed insoluble. Even Aeschylus proound []longing or justice72 does not blind him rom this.

The question o whether Orestes crime was just or not is not answered in theabsolute. While Apollo conidently declares that his suppliant is just, the furies seemto have perhaps an even better argument that he is not. The young god is insolent andhis conduct throughout the case is questionable.73 The furies, on the other hand, speakwith ancient wisdom and in strength o argument they reduce, i not deeat, irst Orestesand then Apollo, both o whose arguments dwindle down to the claim that the mothero the child is not the parent, just a nurse to the seed (666.). Athena,74 who acts as amediator between the two sides, casts her lot or Orestes. Her decision has nothing todo with true objective justice; rather it is, as is the case with all morality in the Oresteia,subjective. Her reason is that, since no mother gave her birth and she is purely herfathers child, she always honours the male, and thus, cannot set more store by the

70. Nietzsche, The birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music, p. 50.71. Vernant and Vidal-Naquet,Myth and tragedy in Ancient Greece, p. 26.72. Nietzsche, The birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music, p. 48.73. Apollos questionable conduct is discussed in more detail by fagles: One wonders i Apollo even

knows the rules o justice. He can only swell Orestes deence with his own windy threats; he relies onfather Zeus [] Athena cuts him short beore he makes a mockery o the proceedings. Introduction toAeschylus, The Oresteia, pp. 79-80. Also, it is impossible to orget Apollos very questionable conducttowards his priestess Cassandra.

74. That Apollo exhibits Athena as evidence that a ather is the source o lie is in Jane Harrisons wordsa desperate theological expedient to rid [Athena] o her matriarchal conditions. Worst o all, it is a kind oblackmailyou are an Olympian, Apollo thunders, you will vote or us. Ibid., p. 80.

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womans death (751.). Divine dik, despite being constantly invoked throughout thetrilogy,is never once mentioned by Athena in relation to Orestes or his acquittal.

Orestes crime is not just. But it is not unjust. The lots are equal, the jury is divided:the law court is not the voice o true justice, but it does bring the conlict to an end.Orestes acquittal is in the name o social harmony, the prevention o urther suering.

As one critic has noted, the audience oEumenidesis invited, thereore, to conclude thattheir city is ortunate in possessing a mechanism not or discerning where true justicelies, but or circumventing interminable cycles o personal vengeance. 75 The collectivesinvolvement turns the private dispute into peace, or the beneit o all involved. Harmonyis reached through a rational compromise,76 not through a redeinition odik.77 It is

the mean o democracy that Athena urges the audience to worship (710).Aeschylus ethical solution is a pragmatic endeavor. Dikmay have been with theambiguous godswe see the righteous dik o one god contrasted with the equallyrighteous dik o anotherbut ethics was in human hands. The rational nature opolitics and the democratic ethical system, where one must judge and choose, andunambiguously determine who and what to vote or, is openly embraced by Aeschylus.

THE GODS

Dik is a matter that humans should and must deal with, and can deal with througha human democracy. There is no need to obliterate the gods or this to become areality, as Castoriadis seems to suggest. And there is no need either to turn the divine

into what Plato turned it intoperect, absolute forms. Pre-Plato, the gods werenot extrasocial78 orces any more than human emotions and drives and nature areextrasocial. In Aeschylus world, humans communicated with their gods and spiritsnot passively through quiet prayers, but passionately, through shouted and chantedinvocations that demanded to be heard. forces were summoned or the power theybrought: Orestes prays to his dead ather, give me the power now to rule our house(Libation Bearers, 467); and Electra, hungry like her mother, tells the goddess o theunderworld, O Persephone, give us powerlovely, gorgeous power! (477); andelsewhere, she chants demonically, Zeus, crush their skulls! Kill! Kill! (390). Theinvitation o gods into human battles was common in Greek tragedy, where one couldnot win without divine assistance. But although the gods were blamed and praised or

whatever the inal outcome happened to have been, it waspeoplewho ought the battles75. D. Cairns, Values, in J. Gregory (ed.),A companion to Greek tragedy, Blackwell Publishers, 2005, p. 307.76. Both [the Suppliantsand Prometheus Bound] belong to trilogies which, like the Oresteia, present a struggle

between opposing rights or principles, and trace its course through successive crises to its solution in arational compromise. P. Vellacott, introduction to Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound and other plays, trans.Philip Vellacott, London, Penguin Books, 1961, p. 7.

77. See Cairns: Eumenidesintroduces no new, abstract conception odikas justice to contrast with the dikas retaliation. D. Cairns, Values, in Gregory (ed.),A companion to Greek tragedy, p. 306.

78. Castoriadis says that an autonomous society cannot have any extrasocial standards: it cannot groundits politics in either Nature, Reason, History, nor Religion. Castoriadis, The Greek Polisand the Creationo Democracy, p. 281.

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and ultimately settled matters. What determined their success was their strength, themost vital source o which they located in the divine. The more that people believedthat the divine orces were aiding them, the stronger they grew. It was mans confidencethat god was on his side that mattered, or that was what brought him the earlessnessand raw energy necessary or victory. Especially at a time o war, doubt could not betolerated. In Seven Against Thebes, the panic-stricken chorus o women howl in horroras the enemy surrounds their city. The sounds they describe are terriying: The bits,gripped between horses teeth, Are piping a song or killing (110.). Out o desperation,they cry and throw themselves at statues o their gods, praying or salvation as i theywere already conquered. Hold your miserable tongues (63), their unsympathetic king

Eteocles demands, outraged at their behaviour. Though he acknowledges that theyhave a right to honour the gods, Eteocles threatens the women with death i theycontinue to pray in a way that arouses cowardice instead o courage: Stop clinging tothese statues; make a better prayer, That the gods will ight or us [] raise with goodheart the strong cry o victory [] To inspire our men and make them earless in theield (65.). That was what the gods were to the Greeksa source o power. Theywere not prayed to or no reason, but or what they gave to their worshippers. Andthey could give whatever was asked o them. A whole pantheon o deities, each withtheir own particular power, awaited ready to be summoned (or accused) by the devoutGreek believer.79

The reality o the gods is something that is never questioned by Aeschylus. Theyare there just like the rest o nature is there. Invisible winds blow, and, in the sameway, invisible orces stir. Prayers and rituals, although perormed by actors, are urgentand serious in Aeschylus tragedy. And the ecstatic singing and dancing, and all theresounding violence, are terriying in a very real way. So real was the ear aroused bythe original ancient perormances that people were said to have ainted, and women tohave miscarried, when they saw such igures as the demonic furies wailing rom thestage.80 The authenticity with which Aeschylus approached his tragedies, and the realityo all that he allows us to witness, apparently even led to the poets prosecution: sourcesindicate that Aeschylus was brought to trial or exposing, through his tragedy, theguarded secrets o the Eleusinian Mysteriesan extremely secretive religious cult thatmost Athenians, including Aeschylus, were initiates o.81 The rituals that Aeschylus hadhis actors perorm on stage were much more than mere antasy: they were enactments

o actual cult practices, and in some moments, tragedy becameritual reality.82In Sophocles, the divine is transormed into something entirely dierent:

79. In this sense, Castoriadis assertion that the gods only served utilitarian and concrete purposes isappropriate.

80. See fagles introduction to Aeschylus, The Oresteia, pp. 89-90.81. Ibid., p. 96.82. for the argument that certain moments o tragedy have real ritual power, i.e., that drama reverts to

ritual reality, see P.E. Easterling, Tragedy and Ritual, Mtis 3, 1988, pp. 87-109. for an in depth analysiso ritual within tragedy, see also the unsurpassed Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Tragedy and Athenian religion,Oxord, Lexington Books, 2003.

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Never again will I go reverent to Delphi,the inviolate heart o Earthor Apollos ancient oracle at Abaeor Olympia o the iresunless these prophecies all come trueor all mankind to point toward in wonder []Nowhere Apollos golden glory nowthe gods, the gods go down.(Oedipus the King, 985.)

Sophocles does what Aeschylus never would have dared tohe puts religion intoquestion. O course, by the end o the play, the divine prophecies are ulilled and

everyone can rest assured that the terrible gods really do exist. They are not the same asbeore, however; nothing is quite the same in this new world that Sophocles has created.The gods are distant and mans aith in them wavers. The chorus prays: I ever, oncein the past, you stopped some ruin, they seem sceptical o even this much, come now,come down once more! (186.). The gods do not answer, and the chorus continues theirhopeless begging. Instead o invoking powerul orces through their prayer, orces whichthey themselves then spiritually embody, the broken and despondent83 suppliants clingdesperately to the altars and cry to be rescued. They are reminiscent o the hystericalchorus in Seven Against Thebesonly there, Aeschylus had them punished. In Sophoclesworld, the gods are placed beyond reach and man thus loses what once was his primalsource o strength. Humanity and the divine now lead separate existences and man

does not believe with unquestioning sincerity that the gods can hear him or that theyare anywhere near him. What was in Aeschylus mythopoeic realm an intimate andnatural connection between man and god is severed by Sophocles, who can longer indsatisaction in divine ambiguity. Like Oedipus, he has to solve everything, get to thebottom o everythinghe has to ind the truth and the truth now demands an absoluteorm. Oedipus the King inquires into and redeines the nature o epistemology in logosterms: Zeus and Apollo know, they know [] But whether a mere man can know thetruth [] there is no test, no certain proo (561.).

In Aeschylus, mans truth is his own: realities shit, choruses waver, meaningsmultiply, and allo it is true, the whole complex is the truth. The gods ampliy, andsanctiy, and we suer into our truth, which needs no veriying proo. In Sophocles

world, on the other hand, the true meaning [] is only revealed when it becomes parto an order that is beyond man and escapes him.84 This unknowable place beyondman is now the sole reality,85 and only here can something acquire the status o realtruth. faith is thus made to depend on external evidence, and the divine is exposed to

83. Stage directions, as suggested by fagles in Sophocles, The three Theban plays, trans. Robert fagles,London, Penguin Books, 1984, p. 159.

84. Vernant and Vidal-Naquet, Myth and tragedy in Ancient Greece, p. 27. Vernant says this o tragedy ingeneral; however, I cannot agree that it is a correct characterization o Aeschylus.

85. Ibid., p. 46.

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cynical questioning. The restlessly inquiring scientiic spirit,86 which went on to destroymyth completely, began in this way to take hold o the Greeks. In Sophocles tragedy, asNietzsche has said, we are already breathing the air o a theoretical world.87 Mythos isading. Thebes has been turned into a land o logos, and its gods into riddles (462) thatmust be solved. Man can longer simply say I believe; he now has to say oida, I know.88

The questions that Sophocles persisted in asking, Plato ound answers or.Ambiguous riddles were solved and eternal solutions created. The order that is beyondman was now contained within the forms. The gods were thus reduced to clear andlogical proportions. Mythology, with its contradictions and irrationality, was dismissedas a crude orm o understanding that was not able to endure the oncoming assault o

philosophy. Plato declared war on the traditional poets o mythos, and replaced theirBible with his own.89 He decided that all the poets rom Homer downwards have nograsp o truth (Republic, 600e). Platos redeinition o religion said that God is perect,

just like the Republic is perect, and is the cause not o all things, but only o good(380d). The poets stories o imperect gods thereore had to be condemned as a stupidmistake (379d) and a wicked lie (391e) that must be banished rom the state lest itshould inect its citizens with immorality.

Contrary to what Castoriadis insinuates, Sophocles isreligious but it is a dierentkind o religion: not one that eventually leads to non-religion, but one that leads toPlatonic religion. The massive change that did indeed take place between Aeschylus andSophocles did not, as Castoriadis argues, consist in mans sudden secular awareness ohis own sel-creation, but rather in his ever-increasing demand or order in the worldin nature as well as in religion. Sophocles was a stepping stone towards Plato, and thelatter completed the task o ensuring that man had ordered and conquered all that isbeyond man, including the gods. Although the gods certainly could not be dominatedquite as easily as the inerior natural world, which is no match or man, they couldnevertheless be turned into perectly good allies o mankind. The much lauded Greekemancipation rom myth was thus instigated by a pseudorational pseudomasterywhich had spilled over rom its proper place in politics.

MAN, MEANING AND POLITICS

Aeschylus and Sophocles both actively participated in the Athenian democracy and

through their tragedies espoused this particular political system as the answer to humanethics. However, whereas Aeschylus limited the radical sel-conscious sel-creation tothe autonomous running o societythat is, to the realm o politics, ethics, democracySophocles wanted to extend the autonomy project much urther. The change that took

86. Nietzsche, The birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music, p. 82.87. Ibid., p. 84.88. The name Oedipus, or Oidipous, resembles the Greek word oida(I know), a theme that Sophocles

hammers home with continual word-play. Bernard Knox, introduction to Sophocles, The three Thebanplays, p. 152.

89. See Desmond Lee, introduction to Plato, The Republic.

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place in the short period o time between Aeschylus and Sophocles involved the confusionbetween politics and practically everything else. The order that was sought in natureand religion was nothing but a relection o the man-made order that had revolutionizedthe Athenian political system. The judging and choosing, the rational ordering o lawsand society, the rational mastery that is rightly exercised within the domain o ethics andpolitics, began to overstep their boundaries and now claimed to order and create notonly laws but the whole o realitynature, gods, signiications, meanings, man.

According to Castoriadis, Sophoclean man taught himsel; he gave himseleverything that he has; he is reliant on himsel and no one elsehence his brilliance.Castoriadis autonomy o the individual dictates that one cannot appeal to anything

outside o the sel. The sel in Castoriadis is composed o the socially-abricatedindividual, which is the conscioussel, that can and must at all times judge and choosewhat relationship it will have with itspsyche, which is the unconsciousmonad sel. Thisis the reductio ad absurdum basis o Castoriadis psychoanalysis, which is in eect simply atransposition o his politics onto the individual (or vice versa). His politics deals with thesel-creating society which must judge and choose what orm it will give to the world,and his psychoanalysis deals with the sel-creating individual who must judge and choosewhat orm he will give to his own psyche. The aims o both the individual and o societyshould be autonomy. The conscious sel must be autonomous in its dealings with theunconscious sel, just as the society must be autonomous in its dealings with the world.Why? Because in reality, the world and our psyche are in a state o Chaosand Chaos is,according to Castoriadis, ormless, groundless, meaningless, indeterminate void, abyss,nothingness. Their state o Chaos is why we must give our world and our psyche orm,and the meanings which we judge and choose or them. Nevertheless, however, we mustremember that at the roots o the world, beyond the amiliar landscape, Chaos alwaysreigns supreme,90 and the socially abricated individual [] is never but a thin ilmcovering the Chaos, the Abyss, the Groundlessness o the psyche itsel.91 Castoriadisrecognised that humans have a desperate needto have some sort oguaranteeor theirmeanings, but he insisted also that they have to be aware that there is no such thing, thattheir meanings are, in act, without any ground. He says: a democratic society knows,has to know, that there is no guaranteed signiication, that it lives over the Chaos, that itis itsel a Chaos that must give itsel its orm, one that is never settled once and or all. Itis on the basis o this knowledge that it creates meaning and signiication.92

Since there is no ultimate oundation to anything, one must constantly and sel-consciously be prepared to change in order to authentically relect the reality o Chaos.Our meanings must always be completely replaceable, alterable, unstable. We have arelationship to ourselves. We are ragments and so is the world. But, alas, we areree. Meaning, or what Castoriadis means by this trickiest o words, can here only

90. Castoriadis, The Greek Polisand the Creation o Democracy, p. 273.91. Castoriadis, World in fragments : writings on politics, society, psychoanalysis, and the imagination, p. 311.92. Cornelius. Castoriadis, The Dilapidation o the West, in Anon (ed.), The Rising Tide of Insignificancy

(The Big Sleep), 2003, p. 84.

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NANA BILU ABAffY 57

ever be a logical construct that is deined, determined, clearly ordered, decidednotonce and or all, as is the case in heteronomous individuals and societies, but or acertain period o time. These constantly altered and alterable new norms, meanings,realities, are each time ixed. They can be removed and replaced with new realitiesand meanings, but each new case is treated, albeit momentarily, as though it werethe sole one. This is the cognitive closure that even autonomous societies can neverescape rom. Here truth is created as the perpetual movement o doing away withthe closure o meaning (the movement is perpetual because the closure can never beeliminated).93 And because the closure can never be eliminated, it is the task o theautonomous individual to ensure that its walls are constantly shaken.94 But even i we

ail to shake these walls ourselvesthat is, i we slip into heteronomy, Chaos will takecare o things: This labour o signiication is [] perpetually menaced [] by theChaos it encounters, by the Chaos it itsel dredges up.95 Our reassuring sel-createdsigniications, meanings, norms, identities, can only ever temporarily cover over theunderlying Chaos o the world and o our psyche. In the end, however, the Chaos willalways seep through to menace us.

Sophocles shows us something analogous in Oedipus the King. Oedipus, whoconidently believes that he is in control o his lie and identity, and that he has hissigniications all igured out, presses on boldly with his investigation, not realising allthe while that by uncovering the mystery he will utterly destroy himsel and realityas he knows it. The prophet Tiresias says to him: Are you not the best at unravellingmysteries? [] yet it was just that ortune that undid you (440.). Oedipus unleashesthe Chaos, which had quietly been hidden away all this time, and his cognitive closure isinally orced open. He is ruined. His closed signiications and meanings that had beenset up as a deence against the Chaosthis is what Castoriadis insists our signiicationsare or usdid not suice.

In Aeschylus, on the other hand, meaning has an entirely dierent status. It isnever treated as though it were simply a construct erected by man as protection againstimpending Chaos.96 Aeschylus meanings (and not just the definition o his words, but hismeanings o lie, o the world, o nature, ate, man, the godsall the things Castoriadiscalls the imaginary signiications) are always aware o the Chaos, they are open to it andcan accommodate it. His meanings do not deend against the Chaos but carry it withinthemselves. While Sophocles heroes desperately search or clarity and cohesion, while

they urgently need to discover, uncover, and know the hidden and mysterious truththe true and real meaning o their gods, ate, and identitywhich is determined byexternal acts and evidence and revealed like a detective story, Aeschylus presents us witha luid reality that is shaped by an indeterminate multiplicity o orces and meanings.

93. Cornelius Castoriadis, The Social Historical: Mode o Being, Problems o Knowledge, Figures of thethinkable, trans. Helen Arnold, Stanord University Press, 2007, p. 228.

94. Ibid.95. Castoriadis, World in fragments : writings on politics, society, psychoanalysis, and the imagination, p. 313.96. Chaos is here to be limited to the indeterminate, ineable, mythopoeic, unknowable, alogical,

amoral; as opposed to some o the other many descriptions and ormulations Castoriadis gives o Chaos.

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There is no one real truth that we must logically question our way to: there are many,and they all extend well beyond the imposed limits o logos.

In Sophocles, ate, nature, and the gods are set up as entities opposed to, and usuallyhostile to, mankind: hence their need to be controlled or conquered or explained (away).Sophocles begins questioning the gods because he is anxiously searching or the sameclear knowable order in religion as he has available to him in his polis rational man-made political system. In the same way, when his heroes demand that their prophetsexplicitly reveal their ate and identity to them, they are searching or a clear orderwithin themselves. And when they proudly declare that they are sel-taught and havegiven themselves everything they have, they are insisting that they are in control o

themselves. Sophocles shows mans supreme discomort with the state o Chaos, and hispitiul attempts to escape it. His heroes restlessly strive to conquer and explain Chaosaway by asserting their autonomous sel-suiciency. And it is precisely or these high-towering hopes that Sophocles has his heroes brutally punished by the end o thetragedy.

Whereas Aeschylus presents us with a solutiona positive and hopeul ethics o thenew dmokrata, Sophocles dogmatically dwells on the punishment o man or sins he hascommitted unknowingly. The latter does have his chorus sing some conclusive words owisdomabout the dangers ohubrisbut overall it is a conservative eort that doeslittle more than repeat what have or him become the clichs o tradition. Contrary towhat Castoriadis argues, it is Aeschylus, not Sophocles, who is the truly radical thinkerand whose tragedies epitomise the ancient meaning o human autonomy.

REfERENCES

Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound and other plays, trans. Philip Vellacott, London, PenguinBooks, 1961.

Aeschylus, The Oresteia, trans. Robert fagles, London, Penguin Books, 1984.Castoriadis, Cornelius, from Ecology to Autonomy, The Castoriadis reader, trans. David

Ames Curtis, Oxord, Blackwell Publishers, 1997a.Castoriadis, Cornelius, The Greek Polisand the Creation o Democracy, The Castoriadis

reader, trans. David Ames Curtis, Oxord, Blackwell Publishers, 1997b.Castoriadis, Cornelius, World in fragments : writings on politics, society, psychoanalysis, and the

imagination, trans. David Ames Curtis, Stanord University Press, 1997c.Castoriadis, Cornelius, The Social Historical: Mode o Being, Problems o Knowledge,Figures of the thinkable, trans. Helen Arnold, Stanord University Press, 2007.

Castoriadis, Cornelius., The Dilapidation o the West, in Anon (ed.), The Rising Tide ofInsignificancy (The Big Sleep), 2003.

Castoriadis, Cornelius., Aeschylean Anthropogony and Sophoclean Sel-Creation oMan, in Anon (ed.), Figures of the thinkable, 2005.

Easterling, P.E., Tragedy and Ritual,Mtis 3, 1988, pp. 87-109.Gregory, J. (ed.),A companion to Greek tragedy, Blackwell Publishers, 2005.

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Kahn, Charles H., Anaximander and the origins of Greek cosmology, Indianapolis, Hackett,1994.

Kritzman, L.D., B.J. Reilly and M.B. DeBevoise, The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought, Columbia University Press, 2007.

Murphy, Peter, Castoriadis, Cornelius, in George Ritzer, Encyclopedia of social theory,Volume 1, vol. 1, 2 vols., London, Sage, 2005.

Nietzsche, friedrich Wilhelm, The birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music, trans. ShaunWhiteside, London, Penguin, 1993.

Nietzsche, friedrich Wilhelm, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, trans. M. Cowan,Regnery Publishing, 1996.

Plato, The Republic, trans. H.D.P. Lee, London, Penguin Books, 1974.Sickinger, J.P., Public records and archives in classical Athens, University o North CarolinaPress, 1999.

Silk, M. S. (ed.), Tragedy and the tragic : Greek theatre and beyond, Oxord, Clarendon Press,1996.

Sophocles, The three Theban plays, trans. Robert fagles, London, Penguin Books,1984.

Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane, Tragedy and Athenian religion, Oxord, Lexington Books,2003.

Vernant, Jean Pierre and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Myth and tragedy in Ancient Greece, trans.Janet Lloyd, New York, Zone Books, 1988.

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