Tra valore e immaginario: musement e magma a confronto

Abstract

In this paper we will discuss the relations between the musement as conceived by Charles Sanders Peirce and the magma formulated by the Greek philosopher and psychoanalyst Cornelius Castoriadis. According to us, interpreting these concepts reciprocally may be helpful to think about different ways in which values and meanings emerge from an imaginary background and establish world and its subjects by constituting forms and figures. More specifically, we will examine the connections between indetermination and determinability of values, generality and vagueness of forms and singularity of figures, imaginary instituting and social instituted meanings. Moreover, we will explain how coming and going of stabilisation of forms and openness to the figural dimension represents the effective semiotic activity and the possibility of holding over time. Finally, we will show how figural and imaginary dimension keep together and go through perception and fiction, norms and social changing by the so-called by Peirce «law of liberty».