Abstract
Interpellation is perhaps one of the most problematic theses developed by Althusser. It triggered a wide range of critique from different orientations, both from those sympathetic (or even followers) of Althusser and from those who were more hostile to him. Althusser’s theory of the critique of ideology can be epitomized in the following thesis: ideology interpellates individuals as subjects. How does interpellation work in Althusser’s theory? According to Althusser, “all ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects, by the functioning of the category of the subject.” The existence of ideology is conditioned, or dependent, on the constitution of the subject: “the existence of ideology and the hailing or interpellation of individuals as subjects are one and the same thing.” Here, we encounter the double-function of ideology:There is no ideology, writes Althusser, except for concrete subjects “and this destination for ideology is only made possible by the subject: meaning, by the category of the subject and its functioning.” Since ideology in general has no history, the category of the subject is constitutive of all ideology despite its determination and date. It is only with the rise of the bourgeois ideology that it appears under the name of the subject (soul in Plato, God, etc.).
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Notes
- 1.
Althusser 2001, p. 175.
- 2.
Althusser 2001, p. 155.
- 3.
Ibid., p.
- 4.
Ibid., p. 181.
- 5.
Althusser 2007, p. 185.
- 6.
Ibid., p. 185. On this note, Althusser argues that “all classical philosophy depends on the categories of subject and object.”
- 7.
Althusser 2001, p. 175.
- 8.
Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: (notes towards an investigation)
- 9.
Althusser 2008, p. 99.
- 10.
Althusser 2001, p. 45.
- 11.
Dolar 1993, p. 78.
- 12.
Zupančič 2000, pp. 41–42.
- 13.
Pfaller 1998, p. 229.
- 14.
Žižek 2014, p. 51.
- 15.
Ibid., p. 52.
- 16.
Žižek 2000, p. 115.
- 17.
McGowan 2014.
- 18.
Ibid.
- 19.
Althusser 2014, pp. 264–246.
- 20.
Pfaller 1998, pp. 230–231.
- 21.
Nonetheless, the most elaborated version of Althusser’s interpellation can be found in the work of Pêcheux (1982).
- 22.
Ibid., pp. 240–241.
- 23.
Ibid., p. 240.
- 24.
Ibid.
- 25.
Althusser 2001, p.118.
- 26.
Althusser 2003a, p. 75.
- 27.
Ibid., p. 78.
- 28.
Althusser 2003a, p.78
- 29.
Lecercle 2006, p. 165.
- 30.
Lecercle 2006, p. 165.
- 31.
Lecercle 2006, p. 165.
- 32.
Mulvey 2009, pp. 771–772.
- 33.
Ibid., p. 712.
- 34.
Prince 2009, p. 89.
- 35.
Ibid.
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Hamza, A. (2016). Interpellation. In: Althusser and Pasolini. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56652-2_13
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