The "imaginary" boat. Imaginary and memory in the social and political transformation

Abstract

This article explores, through the imaginary, the conditions of possibility of social and political change. Taking as starting point L’institution imaginaire de la société of Castoriadis, the article looks for ways to defend the possibility of a radical novelty without falling into the idea of ​​a transcendent imaginary, nor in the imposition of an individual will. To do this, the social imaginary is approached from that of memory. The memory is approached as writing, as Derrida thinks it from the analyzes of Freud and discovers how memory and imaginary can enlighten themselves by becoming metaphor for each other. To understand the imaginary as memory and the memory as writing makes it possible to consider the human action as fundamentally creative and collective. Our action being constitutive of our reality, it is thus possible to understand the possibility we have of constituting another reality.