This fascinating comparison between two major contemporary thinkers, who had only limited contact with each other, nevertheless takes us to the heart of major issues in social theory: the interworking of institutions and symbols, their significance for relations of power and the scope for radical change in history. The authors, in charting the relations between these two views, end up casting an enormous amount of light on these crucial questions.

Charles Taylor, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, McGill University

This engaging live dialogue between Ricoeur and Castoriadis offers important insights intoinexhaustible hermeneutic interpretation and productive collective imagination, which turn around the question of the possibility of radical novelty in thinking and social being. The publication of the debate is accompanied by a set of perceptive interpretations and commentaries that are philosophically significant in their own right.

Dmitri Nikulin, Professor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research

Suzi Adams has assembled an important collection of essays that offer crucial insights into the significance human production and creativity have for history, politics, and action. Ricoeur and Castoriadis in Discussion represents a major contribution to our understanding of the social imaginary’s critical role in a world beset with social and political challenges.

Roger W. H. Savage, Professor of Systematic Musicology, University of California, Los Angeles

Suzi Adams has made an important contribution to our understanding of French intellectual life in recent years by assembling a series of thoughtful essays by noted authors around an encounter between two major figures: Paul Ricoeur and Cornelius Castoriadis. In their conversation, translated here in English for the first time, the two philosophers join forces to tackle the question of human creativity in history.

Vincent Descombes, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris