Abstract
The concept of ‘ideology’ originated during the late eighteenth century as a protest against religious superstition and monarchical authority. At the time of the French Revolution, Destutt de Tracy (1754–1836) attacked the divine right of the king to rule and challenged orthodox religious traditions associated with the Roman Catholic Church. Committed to Enlightenment principles, the philosopher de Tracy viewed ideology as a ‘science of ideas’ based on the objective knowledge gained from the physical senses, not from abstract metaphysics or principles of religious faith and sacred political authority. Through reason, logic, education, and empirical investigation, social scientists could not only understand political reality but also control and change the social environment. According to de Tracy, intellectuals must play a critical role in forging sociopolitical change. Because government authorities often distort reality, conceal information, and communicate falsehoods, social scientists had the responsibility to unmask these distortions and illusions. When Napoleon Bonaparte gained power at the start of the nineteenth century and later faced political defeats, he denounced Destutt de Tracy and his philosophical group as idéologues who spread false doctrines that undermined state authority.
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Notes and References
Carl J. Friedrich, Man and His Government: An Empirical Theory of Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), 89–90; Gary Alan Fine and Kent Sandstrom. Friedrich, Man and His Government: An Empirical Theory of Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1963), 89–90; Gary Alan Fine and Kent Sandstrom, ‘Ideology in Action: A Pragmatic Approach to a Contested Concept,’ Sociological Theory, 11 (March 1993): 21–38.
John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money ( London: Macmillan, 1936 ), 383–84.
Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture ( New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985 ), 17–70.
John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, ed. George Sher (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1979 ), 10.
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© 1995 Charles F. Andrain and David E. Apter
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Andrain, C.F., Apter, D.E. (1995). Political Philosophies, Ideologies, and the Quest for Meaning. In: Political Protest and Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377004_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377004_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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