ABSTRACT
The theorization of history has been inextricably interwoven with the theorization of the social in its modern sense. History emerged as the field where the internal dynamic attributable to society was manifested. Society was seen as the subject of history in a path of continuous evolution — and not only by theorists within the idealist tradition. If society is seen as fully closed and determinable structural wholes, there is no 'outside' to force a change. Hence these structures either remain diachronically the same — which is untenable — or they already contain the seeds of their alteration in the form of predeterminations, introducing once again transhistorical principles or constants. While Castoriadis focuses on the principles behind a nondeterministic theory of history, the preceding theorization of the processes of social reproduction through the psyche and of the unavoidable points of indeterminacy inherent in these processes provides a more detailed theorization of historical 'openness' and indeterminacy.
