George Vassilacopoulos

On the other side of xenophobia: philoxenia as the ground of refugee rights.

The question of Australias moral responsibilities to onshore asylum seekers is typically framed in terms of the assessment of governments’ responsibilities towards competing international humanitarian and national interests. Our paper invites us to rethink the starting assumptions of this approach. We argue for the adoption of a conception of ‘unconditional hospitality’ as our ethical guide to receiving Australias onshore asylum seekers. To this end, we elaborate a Greek-Australian concept of ‘philoxenia’ as a form of unconditional welcoming of uninvited strangers and we discuss the implications of its adoption in relation to the issues of political sovereignty and maintenance of border controls. We argue that, in the current situation, Australians should distinguish between the moral principles that should guide our assessments of liberal governmental policies, and the principles that should guide the Australian people acting in their capacity as citizens. From the application of the concept of philoxenia to Australian political life, we derive the political maxim ‘act as if there were no borders’. We suggest that this maxim can serve to guide Australian citizens in making their ethical decisions and demands upon the state in a less than ethical world order.

The time of radical autonomous thinking and social-historical becoming in Castoriadis

This paper examines Castoriadis’ concept of time as ontological creation in relation to the activation of the project of autonomy. We argue that since Castoriadis presents as a practitioner of the creation of time as radical autonomous thinking, this is the standpoint from which to assess his claims. Through an examination of Castoriadis’ claim that the practice of autonomy depends upon it being activated by a willing singularity who accepts the Chaos of society and of the world, we argue that Castoriadis’ position presupposes an effective contrast between the autonomy of significance that he advocates and the heteronomy of insignificance that he laments. If, as we suggest, both these orientations accept the Groundlessness of the world, then Castoriadis’ appeal to the awareness of a willing singularity is not sufficient to distinguish the practice of radical autonomy. To this extent, his elucidation of the radical imaginary time of ontological creation remains incomplete.

Cave Dwellers or Labyrinth Diggers? Castoriadis and Plato on Philosophy and Politics

ABSTRACT Beginning with a consideration of Castoriadis’s elucidation of autonomous thinking, both by way of the contrast he draws with the inherited tradition and in relation to his account of the demands of the political project of autonomy, we compare Plato’s story of the Cave to suggest that Castoriadis overestimates the power of questioning and of creating new social forms. We then argue that Castoriadis and Plato emerge as two extremes: whereas the first favours the power of questioning to the exclusion of receiving value, the second privileges the power of receiving over creation and creativity.