Two of the most interesting attempts of the 20th century to conceptualise, assess andunderstand the production, functioning and institutionalisation of social imaginarymeanings were made by, first, a major thinker in the post-Kantian philosophical an-thropological tradition, the German philosopher Ernst Cassirer, and, years later, byFrench-Greek philosopher and psychoanalyst Cornelius Castoriadis. Both offer waysof thinking and understanding the current political contexts, and point to and offerconcepts for articulating difficulties and obstacles facing us today. The affinities be-tween Cassirer’s philosophy of symbolic forms and Castoriadis’s take on social imag-inary significations are many and striking, despite the fact that Castoriadis never ex-plicitly referred to his predecessor. This article pinpoints some of the affinities, andmakes an argument for the political topicality of both thinkers still today.