Ideology

Origins of the ideology

Etymology

Idéa : idea (idea: female substantive in Latin ) and logos ( Greek ) : to know, science, speech: speech on the ideas. Ideology is thus a composite term.

in Greek, ε δος related with ἰδε ν “to see” would rather give the direction of “image”.

Plato, which considered that the ideas were eternal. Aristote, which was opposed to Plato, preached the observation of the natural phenomena more. --ask justification for appearance in etymology -->

Origins of the ideology term

The term Ideology , appears at the end of the 18th century: it was forged in 1796 by Destutt de Tracy ( Mémoire on faculty to think ), to indicate the study of the ideas, their character, their origin and their laws, as their relationship with the signs which express them.

One employed, as of second half of the 18th century the expression of positive Sciences , to indicate the contribution which sciences could bring to the progress of the human spirit (Condorcet), in order to stigmatize the Obscurantisme with the time. Friedrich Hayek thinks that Turgot and of Alembert, was already in this type of research.

In the continuation of the Lights, the Ideologists , group animated by Destutt de Tracy, (Cabanis, Volney, Garat, Daunou), wanted to found a science of the ideas, to dissipate the myths and the Obscurantisme. In the line of Sensualisme of Condillac, which sought already the origin of the ideas, they wanted to make a scientific analysis of the thought.

The ideology is then regarded as system of thought coherent, independent of the historical conditions. This design accompanies all the 19th century, simultaneously with the deployment of the scientific thought and the Industrial revolution. What guides these thinkers, it is the search for a total and coherent system, which articulates around the application of sciences to the social phenomena.

Polarization is made between scientific ideology and Croyance.

At the 19th century, Marx proposes to cease regarding the ideology as a neutral system and gives a critical lighting on the original concept of ideology: he sees the ideology like a system of opinions being used the interests as social classes. (see Marxist Idéologie#Analyze)

Current meanings of the ideology term

A derived definition is that of a Doctrine Politique providing a principle single of explanation of reality, likely to inspire an action plan quickly and constituting a coherent whole of ideas accepted without critical reflection. The ideology is a concept much broader than that of Doctrine (which is the intellectual dimension of the ideology), because it calls upon the dimension of the “psychological behaviors” and falls under a very important collective process: the concept of ideology does not exist that within the framework of a “company of masses”.

The ideology can be seen under the sociological angle : the ideology was defined by Guy Rocher like a “ a system of Idée S and judgments, explicit and generally organized, which is used for describing, explaining, interpreting or justifying the situation of a group or a community and which, being inspired largely by values, proposes a precise orientation with the historical action of this group or this community ”

Another author, Jean Baechler, however gives a finer and more complete definition of the ideology.

At the beginning, the ideology is the whole of the mental representations which appear since men tie between them bonds, sociations.
These representations form then a whole of state of consciousnesses related to the political action, in other words with the conflict way or not in which the human ones organize their social life. The core of these state of consciousnesses nonverbal, i.e. is composed of emotional impulses; these states idéels are brought up to date in various types of register and can be inférés starting from the objective and material demonstrations to which they give place.
the ideology is in the contents and not in the container. There exists discursive kind which can be issued ideological as tel.
On the whole, for this author, an ideology is a discursive formation polemizes, neither true nor distorts, effective or ineffective, coherent or incoherent, elaborate or not, normal or pathological, thanks to which a passion seeks to carry out a value by the exercise of the capacity in a company.

The epistemological analyzes bring a reformulation a little more moderate of the ideology: this one, having allowed the conceptualization of sciences, is also analyzed as for its neutrality, its construction and its bases. And Marxist criticism is only one possible angle of study of those. The German philosopher Christian Duncker calls upon the d'" need; a reflection criticizes concept of idéologie" (2006). In its work, it tries to introduce the concept of the ideology into the foreground, like the concern narrowly connected of epistemology and the history. the ideology term is defined in terms of system of representation which explicitly or implicitly clamp the absolute truth.

In the totalitarian system , Hannah Arendt writes that the ideology is consubstantial with the totalitarian phenomenon and that it shows several indissociable characteristics. On the one hand, it forms a system of final interpretation of the world, it posts an omniscient and “omni-explanatory” claim of this one, which they are the last or future events. In addition, she affirms her irrecusable, unfalsifiable character. She is never taken in defect and émancipe of reality. Another characteristic of the ideology is its “logicism”, its aptitude to be obtained an internal coherence, to permanently integrate contradiction in a logical process. The ideology from this point of view, Arendt writing, is exactly what she claims to be: the logic of an idea.

Ideologies in social sciences

Saint-Simon (count of)

See detailed article Claude Henri de Rouvroy, count of Saint-Simon

Saint-Simon (the count of) (1760 - 1825, was one of the first to recover the concept of ideology in order to make of it a complete philosophical system, entirely founded on sciences , by excluding any contribution from the Religion S, since it was atheistic. He played a very particular part in the diffusion of the ideology.

Saint-Simon, very influenced by the Ideologists, in particular Doctor Jean Burdin, builds between 1801 and 1825 a total system that Pierre Musso qualifies Philosophie of the networks. For Saint-Simon, the relations of the individuals in company are, by Métaphore with the Physiologie, which was under development full at this time, comparable to the organic networks of the human beings (blood networks, nervous system.). He introduces also the concept of Capacité of the network.

The name of " new christianisme" was actually misleading for a system which, fascinating Isaac Newton like supreme reference, claimed to replace God by the universal gravitation. On the spiritual level, sciences replace the religion. On the temporal level, the economists replace the policies.

The system of government must include/understand three rooms, (room of the inventors, room of execution…). Saint-Simon introduces the exclusive belief into industrial progress. Its system was very impresses of Religiosité, especially in the last years.

In the search of a coherent system (1825)

The concern of the search for a coherent system which one already found in the school of the ideologists, one moment forgotten by the wars of the Empire and the Restoration, re-appears towards 1825 , in the context of the beginning of the reign of Charles X.

The end of the year 1825 and the year 1826 were thus, in France, one moment of reflection on a total philosophical system. One can consider that it is one period hinge in the history of the ideas. The thinkers who took part in this reflection were mainly Auguste Count, Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin, Fourier… and probably Lamennais, which was engaged in the reflection of the catholics.

This period initiated a great number of movements of various natures: ideologies , Utopie S , which will give birth thereafter to the great theories on the Libéralisme, like with the various forms of Socialisme.

Saint-Simonism: continuation

Positivism of Auguste Count

Characteristics of the first ideologies

The ideas of Saint-Simon and Auguste Count have some in common Religiosité and a " foi" absolute in the Progress of the human society by sciences, technology, and industry.

Both exclude the Métaphysique, and replace the finality by the scientific Explication of the Phénomène S.

They are unaware of the classic authors of Greek antiquity and Roman, which had been redécouverts as of the Moyen-âge and with the Renaissance. They rest neither on the Présocratiques, nor on the ancient Philosophie.

In particular, the Greek Philosophy which the large Moslem scientists had inherited (Avicenne, Averroès…), transmitted to Europeans by the contacts with the Islamic Civilization as of the 12th century, is not taken into account.

Political design of the ideology

Analyzes Marxist

Historically, the term of ideology entered the social reflection with the Marxisme which gave him a critical direction immediately, the ideology being the contrary of science. It is presented initially in the form of a vision of the world , i.e. a intellectual construction which explains and justifies an existing social order, starting from natural or religious reasons. But this vision is actually only one veil intended to hide the continuation of egoistic material interests by reinforcing and extending the domination of a class of privileged: to reinforce the capacity in place, the ideologies of the dominant class are presented so that the interests of the dominant class appear to be the interests of all. The ideology is thus a superstructure of the company of which it emanates and which it supports. The critic of Karl Marx of the ideology is initially a critic of the Misère that this ideology hiding place, misery which lies in the social reports/ratios at the same time result and engine of this misery. The first misery is the obligation with work implied in the organization of the company by the Capital in which any person deprived on the one hand of this capital sees herself in the obligation to sell her labor force, in more modern terms, to sell her vitality. According to Friedrich Engels “the ideology is a process that the so-called thinker undoubtedly achieves consciously, but with a false conscience. The true driving forces which put it moving remain to him unknown, if not it would not be an ideological process. ”.

Authors, (philosophers, sociologists) like Habermas, Hannah Arendt, Althusser, Thompson… will develop a critical design of the ideology. Althusser uses the concept d'" apparatuses idéologiques" of state (academic school, army, universities, institutions). The studies of Thompson concerning the ideology in our modern culture approach cultural and political dimensions of the ideology compared to the communication of mass, characteristic of our contemporary world. The ideology relates to the " how the “direction” establishes and systematically maintains relations asymmetrical of to be able ".

Situationnist analyzes

The ideology also found its criticisms in the Internationale situationnist, which makes criticism of the ideology the condition Sine qua non of the relations of its members between them: the representation of the world answering that of oneself (“ the world of the dream is the dream of the world ” Raoul Vaneigem) each one is responsible for the whole of a project in which it is found; in fact, to finish some with the Spectacle, where “ truth is one moment of the forgery ” (Guy Debord) social organization where “ all that was directly lived is moved away in a representation ” ( the company of the spectacle Guy Debord)), spectacle which is regarded here as the completed shape of the Capital.

More clearly, for the International situationnist, any revolutionary organization must criticize “ radically any ideology as a separate capacity of the ideas and ideas of the separate capacity ”.

Political typologies of ideologies

The nationalism of Charles Maurras

Bond between epistemology of sciences and ideology

It is interesting to raise the question of the scientific research, of the evolution of the scientific knowledge under the angle of the ideology.

At the 19th century the Scientisme, ideology appeared besides according to which the scientific knowledge must make it possible to escape ignorance in all the fields and thus to organize humanity scientifically.

Quotations

Today, the concept of ideology often takes a negative meaning, as show it the following formulas:

“the ideology, it is what thinks of your place” according to Jean-François Revel.
“the ideology is the idea of my adversary” would be one of the least bad definitions of the ideology ” according to Raymond Aron.
“the ideology deforms by taking form” Edgar Morin.
“the ideology is the direction with the service of the capacity” Thompson.
“What makes the force of the ideologies, it is not their accuracy but their mobilizing capacity”, Philippe Braud.
“the ideology is exactly what she claims to be: the logic of an idea” Hannah Arendt.

But of many authors rather regard the ideology as a fate:

“ideology is complex of ideas or representations which passes to the eyes of the subject for an interpretation of the world or its own situation, which represents the absolute truth to him, but in the form of an illusion by what it is justified, is dissimulated, concealed themselves in a way or another, but for its immediate advantage” Karl Jaspers.
“an ideology is a system (having its own logic and its rigor) of representations (images, myths, ideas or concepts according to the cases) endowed with an existence and a histories role within a given company. Without entering the problem of the reports/ratios of a science to its past (ideological), let us say that the ideology as system of representations is distinguished from science in what the pratico-social function carries it in it on the theoretical function (or function of knowledge)” Louis Althusser.
“the ideology is not the antithesis of a knowledge or a reality, like illusion, ignorance or distorts conscience, but the form and the means of a collective organization. It is not a method of seeing, but a constraint of making. ” Governed Debray.
“the ideology is a thought against. It there forever “one” but of the rival ideologies, translating values and aiming at concrete effects which encounter others and seek to be propagated in other heads. The ideologies are used for three things: to help to interpret reality, to connect which adopts them and to be opposed to other groups. ” François-Bernard Huyghe.

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