The death of Cornelius Castoriadis in December 1997 evoked respectful front-page coverage in France’s leading newspapers. Writing in Le Monde (30 Dec. 1997), the well-known sociologist Edgar Morin eulogized his friend, singling out Castoriadis’s concept of autonomy, in which the latter stressed moments in history when society carved out autonomy from the state. For Castoriadis, these included Athenian democracy, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, and the modern workers’ movement.