The imaginary of practice. Points of application for a critical theory of practice using the example of contemporary diagnoses (with Thomas Alkemeyer). In: Regine Herbrik / Tobias Schlechtriemen (eds.): Einsatzpunkte und Spielräume des sozialen Imaginären in der Soziologie (=Österreichische Zeitschrift für Soziologie, Sonderheft 18). Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2019, pp. 117-138.

According to the starting point of the article, current practice theory tends towards an ordering bias. Ultimately, it does not provide a systematic place for thinking and detecting moments that elude or resist the success of practices. Accordingly, it thematises problems almost exclusively as internal problems of execution, but not as problems of reference dealt with in practices. With Castoriadis' concept of the imaginary as a creative force that can unfold in doing things differently, we introduce an observation concept into practice theories that allows praxeological analysis to detect and express what transcends a given order towards something that is inherent in it but has not (yet) unfolded.

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As an example, Castoriadis' scientific land gain in contemporary diagnoses is indicated, a historical type of symbolic representation of society that generates problems of reference against whose horizon of meaning the symbolic order in modernity is developed. Using the empirical example of the practices of an eco-village informed by environmental discourses, it is shown that, beyond planning rationality, there is always a potential for criticism inherent in such a design that opens up alternatives to the existing. On this theoretical and empirical background, the article leads to a (self-)critique of current practice theory and an outlook on concepts of practice that promise to escape the bias of order.