Geuss, Raymond - Idea Critical Theory

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T H E ID E O FC R I T I C L T H E O R Y

Habermas and the Frankfurt School

R Y M O N D G E U S S

C M B R I D G E U N I V E R S I T Y P RE SSC M B R I D G EL O N D O N N E W YORK N E W ROCH ELLE

M E L B O U R N E S Y D NE Y


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Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of CambridgeThe Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP32 East 57th Street, New York, NY10022, USA296 Beaconsfield Parade , Middle Park, M elbourne 3206, Australia Cambridge University Press1981

First published 1981Printed in the United States of Americaritish Library Cataloguing nPublication Data

Geuss, RaymondT h e idea of critical theory. - {ModernEuropean philosophy

1. Frankfurt School of SociologyT ide II . Series301 .01 M24 80-42274ISBN0521 24072 7 hard coversISBNo52128422 8 paperback


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C O N T E N T S

Editors introductionPrefaceList of bbrevi tionsIntroductionIdeology

Ideology in the descriptive sense2 Ideology in the pejorative senseIdeology in the positive sense4 Ideologiekritik

InterestsI Real interestsCritical theoryI Cognitive structu re2 Confirmation

EpistemologyWorks citedIndex

pageviiXxi442

2 2264545555575889698


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E D I T O R S I N T R O D U C T I O N

The purpose of this series is to help make contemporary Europeanphilosophy intelligible to a wider audience in the English-speakingworld, and to suggest its interest and importance in particular to thosetrained in analytical philosophy.

Of course, as everyone knows, the labels analytical and European(or continental ) are very unsatisfactory. Many of the philosophers whohave influenced the recent tradition of analytical philosophy in important ways were born and bred on the European mainland, and, even ifsome moved later in their lives to the United States or to England, theyfirst developed their thought in Europe and within the context of theEuropean philosophical tradition. Some of them, indeed, may clearlybe regarded both as continental and as analytical philosophers in theirown right. More generally, there has recently been a striking increasein the number of philosophers engaged in work of conceptual analysison the continent of Europe. There is a long tradition of such work inScandinavia and, for example, Poland; but it is now being more andmore widely taken up in other countries, most notably perhaps in Germany.

Moreover, the universities of Europe which have been very little ornot at all influenced by the analytical tradition - and these still includenearly all of those in France and Italy, and the great majority of thosein German-speaking Eu rope and in Eastern Europe - have by no meansrepresented any unitary tradition. The disagreements, amountingsometimes even to lack of any genuine communication, between, forinstance, Hegelians, Marxists, phenomenologists and Thomists haveoften been deep. But these disagreements are still small in comparisonwith the barriers of mutual ignorance and distrust which have persistedin recent times between the main representatives of the analytical tradition on the one hand and those of the main philosophical schools ofthe European continent on the other hand - schools which are alsodominant in Latin America, Japan and even some universities in theUSA and Canada. And these barriers are inevitably reinforced by the


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E D I T O R S ' I N T R O D U C T I O Nfact that, unti l very recendy at any rate, even the best students from theuniversi t ies s i tuated on e i ther s ide tend to emerge from their s tudieswi th such d ivergent a reas of knowledge and ignorance , competencean d incom pete nce , that they are hard ly eq uip pe d even to en te r intoinformed discussion with each other about the nature of what separatesthem.

The first book in this series was one by Charles Taylor on Hegel, andin in t ro du c ing it we note d the appro pr ia tene ss of such an inau gu ra t ion ;for, as we said, i t is by reference to Hegel that one may indicate moststarkly the difference between the two tradi t ions to whose intercommunicat ion the ser ies seeks to contr ibute . This second book by Raymond Geuss submits to deta i led conceptual scrut iny certa in centra ltheses of the Frankfurt School of phi losophers and, in part icular , of i tsmost d is t inguished contemporary he i r and successor , Ju rgen H a b e r mas . Habermas and the Frankfurt School s tand expl ic i t ly in the l ine ofdeve lopment , reac t ion and counter - reac t ion to the phi losophy of Hege land to that of his successor - in so far as he is to be taken, controversially, as his successor - Marx. The Frankfurt School themselves certainly conceived of their own relationship to Marx in this l ight; andwh atever on e may th ink to be the best way to un d er st an d Marx* re la t ionto Hegel , there can be no doubt of the impor tance and cont inuing influence of the School 's reemphasis of what they took to be the Hegeliane lements in Marx ' thought . The i r fur ther e labora t ions of the charac te r istically Marxist notions of ideology and of false consciousness, and inpar t icu la r H ab erm as ' own notable a t tem pt to a r t icu la te the co nt r ibut iontha t critical phi losophy ' can make towards the deve lopment of a maximally enlightened self-awareness, l ie at the heart of this influence; andi t is these not ions and this a t tempt that Raymond Geuss se ts out to examine .

T h e r e is a fur th er re m ar k conta ined in tha t ea r l ier in t ro duc t ion tha tbears par t icu la r re levance to the un de rs t an din g of Haberm as work :'T h e d ivergences tha t l ie be hin d the development of these barr iers canpro per ly be un de rs too d only by re fe rence back beyond He gel to K ant ,to the very different ways in which different schools of philosophy havereacted to his work and to the further counter-react ions of th irsuccessors . ' For Habermas, as Geuss makes c lear , is a lso to be considered as,in cer tain im po r tan t ways, a t rans cend enta l ph i lo sop her .W he the r the use tha t Ha be rm as makes of h is t rans cen den ta l her i tageis an advantage or , as Raymond Geuss argues, a disadvantage is , nodoubt , a properly debatable matter . But whatever the diff icul t ies ofprinciple there may perhaps be in the way of an a t once genuinely dissent ient and yet ful l understanding of the general Kantian t radi t ion a t


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E D I T O R S I N T R O D U T I O N X

any ra te does not depend on acceptance of i t . Indeed , the t ransformat ion of the divergent react ions to that t radi t ion into veri table barr iers isa re la t ive ly recent phenomenon. Brentano , wr i t ing on the phi losophyof m in d at th e end of th e last ce ntu ry , freque ntly re fe rre d to J. S. Milland to o ther contemporary Br i t i sh phi losophers . In turn , G. E. Moorerefers to Br en ta n o. Bergso n discusses Will iam Ja m es frequen t ly in hisworks . For Husser l one of the most impor tan t phi losophers was Hume.The thinkers discussed seriously by Russell include not only Frege andPoincare , bu t a lso M eino ng. H ow u nf o rtu na te , th en , that those whohave followed in their footsteps have refused to read or even to respectone another , the ones convinced tha t the o thers surv ive on undisc ipl ined rhetoric and an i rresponsible lack of r igour, the others suspect ingthe former of aridity, superficiali ty and over-subtle trivialisation.

But already, even in the short space of t ime since the writ ing of thatearl ier introduct ion, there have been further s igns of a renewed respectfor and will ingness to l isten to each other. Hopes should not - as yet, atany ra te - be exaggerated. The distance and the differences remain forthe moment a t leas t as grea t as the poin ts of rapprochement and ofcommuni ty of in te res t . Never the less , Habermas provides one exce l len texample of a major contemporary phi losopher f rom the cont inent wi tha real interest in and knowledge of some of the most important centra lareas of analytic philosophy; and, as Raymond Geuss shows very well ,his wo rk provid es readi ly accessible g ro u n d for s t im ulat ing an d frui tfuldeba te be tween phi losophers of both t rad i t ions .

Geuss boo k thus const itu tes a very na tu ra l and app ro pr ia t e m em be rof this series, whose aim it is to present contributions by philosophersw ho have wor ked in the analyt ic t rad i t ion , bu t who now tackle pro blem sspecifically raised by philosophers of the main tradit ions to be foundwith in contemporary Europe . They a re works of phi losophica l a rgument and of substance ra ther than mere ly in t roduc tory resumes. Webel ieve that they may contr ibute towards the cont inuing formation of ar icher and less parochial framework of thinking, a wider frame withinwhich mutual cr i t ic ism and st imulat ion wil l be a t tempted and wherem u t u a l d i s a g re e m e n t s w ll a t least not rest on ignorance, contempt ord is tor t ion .


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P R E F A C E

To Robert Denoon Cumming I am indebted for over a decade of instruction and encouragement. I have profited particularly from discussions of the issues treated in the following pages with Richard Rortyand Quentin Skinner and from comments on the penultimate versionof the m anuscript by Hide Ishiguro an d Alan Montefiore. Many of theideas in this book derive from Sidney M orgenbesser w ithout whose constant help it wouldn t have come into being. It was a p leasure to workwith JeremyMynott Jonathan Sinclair-Wilson, and Francis Brooke (allof Cambridge University Press) on the preparation of the manuscriptfor publication. Finally special thanks to John Loesch.


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A B B R E V I A T I O N S

I Haberm as, Jiirgen, Erkenntnisund Interesse, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp(second edition) 1973.KK Hab ermas, Jiirgen, Kultur und Kritik Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,1973-LS Hab ermas, Jiirgen , Legitimationsprobleme im Spatkapitalismu

Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1973.N2 Haberm as, Jiirgen , Nachw ort to second edition ofErkenntnisundInteresse.PP Haberm as, Jiirgen, Philosophisch Politische Profile, Frankfurt:Suhrk am p, 1971.PS Adorno , T h . W. etal, Der Positivismusstreitin der deutschenSoziolgie, Neuwied und Berlin: Luchterhand, 1969.T G Haberm as, Jiirgen and Luhm ann, Niklas,Theorie der Gesellschaftoder Sozialtechnologie - Was leistet die Systemforschung?, FrankfuSuhrkamp, 1971.

T P Habermas, Jiirgen, Theorie und Praxis, Frankfurt: Suhrkam p(fourth edition) 1971.TW Habermas, Jiirgen, Technik und Wisserischaft als Ideologie,Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1968.WL Wellmer Albrecht, Kritische Gesellschaftstheorie und PositivismFrankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1969.W T Habermas, Jiirgen, Wahrheitstheorien inWirklichkeitund Reflexion:Festschriftfur WalterSchulz Pfullingen: Neske, 1973.ZL Habermas, Jiirgen ,ZurLogik derSozialwissenschaften, Frankfurt:Suhrkamp, 1970.ZR Habermas, Jiirgen, ZurRekonstrukUon deshistorischen Materialimus, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1976.

English translations:T i\ Haberm as, Jiirgen, Knowledgeand Hum an Interests, translated by

Jeremy Shapiro, Boston: Beacon Press, 1971.T 2 Hab ermas, Jiirgen, Legitimation Crisis, translated by Thom asMcCarthy, Boston: Beacon Press, 1975.


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L I S T O F B B R E V I T I O N S

T 3 A d o rn o T h . W . e t al. The Positivist Dispute in German Sociologyt ranslated by lyn Adey an d David Fr isby New York: H ar p er1976.

T 4 H a b e r m a s J i i r g e n Theory and Practice t rans la ted by J o h n Vier te lBoston: Beacon Press 1973.T 5 H a b e r m a s J i i r g e n Toward a Rational Society t r ans la ted by Je rem y

Shapiro Bos ton: Beacon Press 1970.T 6 Wellmer Albrecht Critical Theory of Society t rans la ted by John

C u m m i n g New York: Seabury Press 1971.


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> < I N T R O D U T I O N

This book deals with a c la im made about the work of Marx. In out l inethis claim runs as follows:Itiswidely recognized that M arx wasa revolutionary figure, but the exact na tureof the revolution he initiated has not, in general, been correcdy understood. Ofcourse, Marx did dramatically change many people s views about an importantsubject-matter, human society, but in some ways the greatest significance of hiswork lies in its implications for epistemology. Marx s theory of society, if properly construed, does clearly give us knowledge of society, but does not easily fitinto any of th e accepted categories of know ledge. It obviously isn t a formalscience like logic or mathematics, or a practical skill. Its supporters generallydeny that it is a speculative world-view of the kind traditionally provided byreligion and philosophy, yet neithe r would it seem to be correcdy interpre ted asa strictly empirical theory like those in natural science. Finally, it isn t ju st a confused melange of cognitive and non-cognitive elements, an empirical economicsfortuitously conjoined with a set of value jud gm ents and m oral comm itments.Rather Marxism is a radically new,, kind of theory ; to give a prop er philosophicaccount of its salient features requires drastic revisions in traditional views aboutthe nature of knowledge.

In what follows I will be concerned with a particular version of thisc la im p ro po un de d by a g r ou p o f Ge rm an ph i losophe rs known as theFrankfurt Scho ol . I will use the ter m Fr an kf urt School to includ e not

only H or kh ei m er , A do rn o , an d the early Marcu se, bu t a lso such figuresas H ab erm as and W el lmer . T h e m em be rs of th e Fra nkf ur t School th inkth at Fr eu d, to o, was a con ceptu al revo lut io nary in m or e or less the sensein which M arx was, an d th at th e theo ries of M arx an d Freud exhibitsuch strong similar i t ies in their essent ia l epistemic st ructure that froma phi losophical p oin t of view they don t rep re se nt two different kindsof theory, but merely two instances of a s ingle new type. The generalname given to this new type of theory of which Marxism and psychoanalysis are th e two m ain instances is cr it ica l theo ry. T h e Fr an kfu rtaccount of the essent ia l dist inguishing features of a critical t heo ryconsists of three theses:1. Crit ical the orie s hav e special sta nd in g as gu ide s for h u m a n action in

that :


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INTRODUCTION(a) they are aimed at producing enlightenment in the agents whohold them, i.e. at enabling those agents to determine what their trueinterests are;(b) they are inherently emancipatory, i.e. they free agents from akind of coercion which is at least partly self-imposed, from self-frustration of conscious human action.

2.Critical theories have cognitive content, i.e. they are forms of knowledge.

3. Critical theories differ epistemologically in essential ways from theories in the natural sciences. Theories in na tural science are objectifying ; critical theories are reflective.

A critical theory, then, is a reflective theory which gives agents a kindof knowledge inherently productive of enlightenment and emancipation.In Frankfurt usage a positivist is a person who holds: (a) that an

empiricist account of natural science is adequate, and (b) that all cognition must have essentially the same cognitive structure as natural science. If all theories in na tura l science have an objectifying stru ctu re ,then to assert that all cognition has the structure of natu ral science is toassert that all cognition is objectifying cognition. So positivism can beseen as the denial of reflection, i.e. as a denial that theories could beboth reflective and cognitive.Critical theories are particularly sensitive to the kind of philosophicerror embodied in positivism. It is perfectly possible, the members ofthe Frankfurt School will claim, for persons with quite woefully mistaken epistemological views to produce, test, and use first-order theories in natural science, but this is not the case with critical theories.There is a close connection between having the right epistemology andability to formulate, test, and apply first-order theories which successfully produce enlightenment and emancipation. For this reason positivism is no particular obstacle to the development of natural science, butis a serious threat to the main vehicles of human emancipation, criticaltheories. One basic goal of the Frankfurt School is the criticism of pos-r}itivism and the rehabilitation of reflection as a category of valid knowl-^)edge.T he m ain aim of this book, then , is to come to a clearer understanding of what a critical theory is supposed to be. In the interests of simplicity and concreteness I will focus on one purported instance of acritical theory, the critical theory of society which supposedly arosefrom the work of Marx, and will restrict myself to only occasional passing references to psychoanalysis. The very heart of the critical theory


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I N T R O D U C T I O N 3of society is its criticism of ideology. Thei r ideology is what p revents theagents in the society from correctly perceiving their true situation andreal interests; if they are to free themselves from social repression, theagents must rid themselves of ideological illusion. Can Ideologiekritikform the basis of a critical theory as defined by the three theses?I have tried to avoid as far as possible the question of whether theFrankfurt reading of Marx is or is not correc t. T o answer this questionwould require a full-scale analysis of Marx s workinmore detail than Icould give, and it isn t clear how th e answer to this historical questionwould bear on my main concern, the possibility of a critical theory (inthe sensedenned by the three theses). I have decided to focus my discussion on the views of Habermas because his work is the most sustained a ttem pt by a member of the F rankfurt School to get clear aboutthe underlying epistemologic l assumptions of the critical theory, andso raises the issues that interest me in a particularly striking way.

Although it is not my intention to give a systematic exposition of thephilosophical views of Habermas (much less of Adorno, Horkheimer,or Marcuse), I have tried to make my discussion as self-contained aspossible and presuppose no acquaintance with his work.1Th e book setsitself the modest task of explaining clearly what a critical theory is supposed to be.The reader interested in the history of the Frankfurt School can profitably consult Jay1973).Kortian (1980)isagood introduction to Habermas. I have been strongly influencedin my treatment of the Frankfurt School by the excellentTheunissen 1969).


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1IDEOLOGY

1 I D E O L O G Y IN T H E D E S C R I P T I V E S E N S ET he term ideology is used in many different ways; this is at least part lydue to the fact that social theorists have propounded theories of ideology in the course of trying to answer very different questions. I will tryto distinguish three different research contexts within which theoriesof ideology have been developed; corresponding to each of these threeresearch programs there will be a family of ways in which the termideology is used .1

The first of the three research programs I wish to distinguish is theprog ram of an em pirical study of hum an groups - call it anthropology.T her e are various things one m ight wish to study about a given hum angroup. One might study the biological and quasi-biological propertiesof the group - the birth-rate, the distribution of blood-type or humanphenotype among the subgroups, the resistance to or incidence of various kinds of diseases, etc. Or one might wish to study the cultural orsocio-cultural features of the group - the kinship system, pattern ofland-tenure, artistic traditions, religious and scientific beliefs, legal institutions, values, agricultural technology, etc. Although this distinctionbetween the biological properties of a group and its culture or socio-cultural system is rough and imprecise,2 let us suppose that we knowclearly enough what a cu lture or a socio-cultural system is that we canmake it an object of empirical investigation. T hu s, for any given hu m angroup we can undertake to describe the salient features of its socio-cultural system and how they change over time. If we have at our disposal descriptions of several human groups, we may begin to look foruniversal or invariant features which all cultures exhibit or for relationsof concomitance among apparently distinct socio-cultural features; we1Need less to say, the following discussion makes no claim to exhaust the various senses inwhich the term ideology and its derivatives have be en used . Vid eLichtheim(1967);Barth(1975); and Larrain {1979).Kroeber and Klu ckhoh n (195a) distinguish over a hu nd red senses of culture. Vide alsoD . Kaplan and R. Manners (197s).


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IDEOLOGY IN THE DESCRIPTIVE SENSE 5may try to elaborate a typology of human cultures, classifying themaccording to their similarities and differences; if we are bold, we mayhazard hypotheses about why certain features are found in certain societies or why certain historical changes take place.In the course of this kind of empirical inquiry we may subdivide thesocio culturalsphe re into different par ts for further study. T h us , vulgar Marxists distinguish between (economic) base and (ideological) superstructure. Many twentieth-centuryanthropologistsseem to prefer atripa rtite sch em e, which distinguishes technology (or technology/economy), social structure, and ideology, and even more complicatedschemes have been suggested.3 A theory of ideology, then, can arise inthe course of pursuing the project of describing and explaining certain features of or facts about human social groups; ideology in thefirst sensewilljust refer to on e of the pa rts into which the socio-cultural system of a human group can be divided for convenient study.Depending on how the particular division is m ade, the ideology of thegroup will be more or less extensive, but typically it will include suchthings as the beliefs the members of the group hold, the conceptstheyuse, the a ttitudes and psychological dispositions they exhibit, th eirmotives, desires, values, predilections, works of art, religious rituals,gestures,etc. 4 I will call ideology in this very broad sense (including atleast all of the above listed elements) ideology in the purely descriptivesense. In this broad and rather unspecific sense of ideology every human group has an ideology - the agents of any group will have somepsychological dispositions, use some concepts, and have some beliefs.In particular ideology in this sense oesnot compriseonlythose beliefs,habits, attitudes, traits, etc. ll the members of a group share. H um angroups contain variety, diversity, and conflict. The more detailed andcomplete we wish our account of a given group to be, the more it willhave to contain descriptions of such differences ofbelief motivation,preference, attitude, etc. Furthermore, this sense of ideology is non-evaluative and non-judgm ental * - on e isn t praising or blaming agrou p by asserting that its members have an ideology in this sense.

An ideology in this merely descriptive sense will contain both discursive and non-discursive elements. By discursive (or conceptual orSahlins distinguishes technology, social structure, and ideology (1968, pp. 141).Servicehas:technology, economy, society, polity, and ideology (1966). Kaplan and Manners give:ideology, social structure, technoeconomics, personality (197a, p. 89). Probably there is nocanonical division ofthesociety into parts which would be applicable to all societies; in factit is often claimed thatacriterion of the primitiveness ofasociety is the extent to which itlacks division between economy, society, kinship system, etc.4VideKaplan and Manners (pp.112f)-8Vide Kaplan and Manners(p. 113).


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6 IDEOLOGYpropositionaP) elements I mean such things as concepts, ideas, beliefs,and by non-discursive elements such things as characteristic gestures,rituals, attitudes, forms of artistic activity,etc. 6This distinction betweendiscursive and non-discursive elements is not the same as the distinctionsometimes made (by Plamenatz, for instance) between explicit and implicit elements.7 Clearly, discursive elements can be either explicit orimplicit - agents can hold a particular belief explicitly or merely tacitly- but the distinction between explicit and implicit would seem to haveno clear application to most non-discursive elements. It is hard to seewhat could be meant by calling a particular melody or gesture implicitor explicit in the sense under consideration here. Nevertheless, Iwould like to leave open the possibility of distinguishing between explicit and implicit non-discursive elements at least in som cases. Itdoesn t seem so odd to speak of attitudes, for instance, as being explicitor implicit.8

Finally neither of the two distinctions made above is identical withPlamenatz s distinction between unsophisticated and sophisticated elements of an ideology.9A belief can be quite explicit but unsophistica ted,as can a taste or pre ference.

Since I don t want to try to give definitions of the terms used in thesedistinctions, perhaps an examination of an example will clarify theiruse. If one examines the religion of a group, one might discover thatthe performance of a particular ritual plays an important role - onemight think here, for instance, of the role Baptism o r the Eucharist playin Christianity. Of course, if the ritual is particularly important, it isunlikely that the agents who perform itwill lack a term for it, but still aritual is a set of actions, of things done, not itself a concept or belief.10On p. 345 ofZRHabermas speaks of dienichtpropositionalen Zeiehensystemeder liter-atur, der Kunst, und der Musik. This is anotheroneofthosedistinctions which are easierto see than to formulate exactly. One might want to claimthat llthe elements of an ideology are symbolically organised - certainly paintings, pieces of music, dances etc. arehighly organised, but the organisationisnot conceptual;apiece ofmusic mayhaveameaning, even if one wishes to speak this way (I don t particularly) a grammar, but that meaning isnot aproposition. Naturally, too, by beliefs I don tmeanjust simple empirical beliefs, but also normative beliefs, metaphysical beliefs etc.

Plamenatz, pp. 17^2iff*Tastes, preferences, and predilections, too, can be either explicit or implicit. Certain of mytastes and preferences may simply express themselves in my customary mode of behavior.I may show no tendency to make much of them; I may in fact not even realize thatIhavethem. We may wish to contrast this kind of case in which my tastes and preferences aremerely implicit with other cases in which I recognize, articulate, and cultivateaparticulartaste or preference. Thatinthis second case I may be abletoglory in my predilections onlyifIhave certain beliefs, does not imply that the predilections, tastes, or preferences themselves re beliefs.

Plamenatz, pp. i8ff10VideBurkert, esp. chapter11.


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IDEOLOGY IN THE DESCRIPTIVE SENSE 7The religion is part of the ideology of the group; the ritual is a non-discursive element of the ideology. Given that rituals can have a longlife - baptism and eucharist in some recognizable form have beenarou nd for at least a couple of millennia, and , even if one takes strictercriteria of identity, the particular form of the rituals defined for theCatholic Church by the Council of Trent standardized a practice thatremained more or less unchanged for half a millennium - it is likelythat at differen t historical periods the ritual will have been associatedwith quite different sets of implicit beliefs and attitudes. Peasants in theAbruzzi in 1600 and English Catholics in Toronto in 1950 both participated in the same ritual of baptism, but, given the enormous otherdifferences between these two groups, it would be amazing if the members of the two groups had the same implicit attitudes toward the ritua l,beliefs about it, etc. Again what sorts of beliefs and attitudes most people in the society naively associate with the ritua l, or express by participating in it, may be very different from the conflicting theologicalinterpretations conceptually sophisticated members of the society giveto the ritual. So at one extrem e one has a set of ritual actions, a non-discursive element in the ideology, and at the other a pe rhaps verysophisticated, explicit theology - a body of systematically interconnected propositions - and in between varying kinds of more or lessexplicit and m ore or less sophisticated beliefs, attitudes, habits, etc.

For certain purposes it may be useful or desirable to single out forfur the r study certain subsets of the set of all the beliefs, attitudes, concepts, etc. a gro up of agents has or uses. Since there doesn t seem to beany uniquely legitimate way to subdivide what I have called the ideology in a purely descriptive sense, there will be a plurality of such divisions, and, corresponding to each distinguished part, a narrower, butperfectly legitimate descriptive sense o f ideology. 11Thu s, I may decidethat I would like to retain a close connection between ideology andidea, and hence use the term ideology to refer only to the beliefs ofthe agents in the society, i.e. only to the discursive elements of theideology (in the pure ly descriptive sense).

Habermas,in strong contrast to the earlier members of the Frank furtSchool, does seem to use the term ideology to refer in the first instanceto the beliefs the agents in a society hold. The obvious next step, then,is to try to divide the set of all the beliefs the agents in the society holdinto more or less na tura l parts. One might then start to use the termideology yet m ore narrowly to refer to some subset of the set ofall the

Of course, certain divisions may be more useful or illuminating than others. My general'purely descriptive sense' of ideology corresponds roughly to Mannheim's 'total sense' (cf.Mannheim, pp.54ft );my 'narrower version'ofideologyto his 'special sense' (p. 77).


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8 IDEOLOGYdiscursive elements. Habermas discussion of ideology suggests that hecountenances two major ways of subdividing the set of all the agentsbeliefs, and hence of distinguishing between kinds of ideologies in thevery narrow sense: (1) One can distinguish between ideologies (i.e.subsets of the set ofallbeliefs) on the basis of differences in their manifest content, 12 i.e. by reference to differences in what the beliefs arebeliefs about So a set of beliefs about superhuman entities who arethought to supervise and enforce standards of human behavior may becalled a religious ideology, while a set of concepts for talking abouteconomic transactions is an economic ideology. (2) O ne can distinguishbetween ideologies in this very narrow sense in terms of their functionalproperties. By functional properties I mean the way the elements ofthe ideology influence action.13 So in this sense a set of beliefs of nomatter wh tmanifest content which significantly influences econom icbehavior could be called an economic ideology, a set of beliefs andattitudes which significantly influences religious practices a religiousideology.In many cases th ere will be a close connection between the two sensesof ideology - or at least between concrete ideologies in the two senses.Thus a religious ideology can be either a set of beliefs ostensibly aboutsuperhu m an entities, i.e. a set of beliefs with a religious manifest content or a set of beliefs and attitudes which in fact function to regulateor otherwise influence religious behavior or practices. There is the obvious difficulty with this second sense of ideology that the re isn t anysuch thing as specifically religious behavior (except perhaps for someritual behavior) or purely economic behavior or what have you; actionsand institutions d on t come neatly boxed into well-defined and easilyidentifiable types. Often one may not know how to classify a particularbit of behavior or an institution - is it a religious ceremony, an economicinstitution , a political institution, or some combination ofall three? Furthe rm ore the re may be differences between the classification the participating agents would p refer to give and the classification we, as outsideobservers, might prefe r. Even if there aren t difficulties in principleabout the basic classification of a certain bit of behavior as a religiousritual , it may also have political or economic aspects, overtones, or implications. The more indeterminate the notion of religious behavior isUTW 160[Ti 311].Habermas speaksof der manifesteGehalt von Aussagen. Some of theessays inTWare translated in T 5, but the one cited here is translated as an appendix to

T i .13Non-discursiveelements cannot be about anything in the way in which propositions can,but they can have functional properties,so die religious ideology in this functional sensemight well be taken to include pictures, chants, etc.


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I D EOLOGY I N THE D ESC R I P TI V E SEN SE 9allowed to become, the less well-defined will be th e beliefs which mightinfluence such behavior.

But despite the generally close connection between ideologies in thetwo senses, it is important to retain the distinction because some of themost inte res ting cases will be ones in which th ere a re significant differences between the manifest content of the beliefs in an ideology andtheir functional properties - a set of religious and philosophical* beliefsabout the nature of the gods may actually serve to regulate economicand political transactions. It will in general be an important fact abouta given society how the various kinds of acts and institutions are individua ted , how large a class of acts are considered to be purely economictransactions or acts to which religious beliefs are directly relevant,14 inother words, what kinds of beliefs, beliefs of what kind of manifest content, will be able to function as ideologies for what domains of action.

In these senses, then, the gro up may have more than one ideology -it may have a religious ideology ndan economic ideology, and the twomay not appreciably overlap. Ideologies in these narrower senses aredifferent from ideology in a purely descriptive sense in an im portantway: Every human group is composed of members who havesome beliefs, and so every human group has an ideology in the descriptivesense, but not every group will have an ideology in each of the possiblenarrower senses - since hunting-and-gathering bands have no state,and,a fortiori, no state-finances, they won t have a fiscal ideology eithe r.

In additio n to speak ing of the political ideology of the grou p or theideology for economicbehavior social theorists and others often speakof the ideology of the gro up simpliater. Sometimes the ideology of thegroup seems to mean nothing more than:(a) the set of all those concepts and beliefs which do not contribute toproduction in virtue of the material character of prod uction 15(b) the set ofall the m oral and normative beliefs 16(c) the set of beliefs the agents have about themselves as social agen ts.17But often the ideology of a grou p seems to mean the world-view orworld-picture of the group. This notion of ideology as world-view is

not identical with our original ideology in a purely descriptive sense .T h e ideology of a group in the purely descriptive sense comprises llGeertz (1971), gives examples of the way in which the sphere of what is identified as'religious behavior can vary even within the 'same' religious tradition.1JCohen , pp. 47;33 45-7,88ff.McMurtry, pp.i5f 128, i3off 140.u Plamenatz, pp.33ff. For a related use vide Barry, p. 39.

1TIn the eutsche IdeologieMarx speaks of ideology as theagents''Illusionenund Gedankenubersich selbst,' Marx, vol. 3, pp.4


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10 IDEOLOGYthe beliefs members of the group hold (or perhaps - if thisnotion seemtoo all-encompassing and too indiscriminate to be of any use at all - itincludes the characteristic beliefs widely shared am ong the members ofthe group), but of course not all the beliefs the members of a grouphold belong to their world-view. Even beliefs which are widely sharedand quite distinctive of members of the group need not belong to theworld-viewin the most normal sense of 'world-view.'

The intuition which motivates the introduction of a concept of 'ideology as world-view' is that individuals and groups don't just'have*randomly collected bundles of beliefs, attitudes, life-goals, forms of artisticactivity, etc. The bundles generally have some coherency - although itis very hard to say in general in what this coherency consists - the elements in the bund le are complexly related to each oth er , they all s6me-how 'fit,' and the whole bundle has a characteristic structure which isoften discernible even to an outside observer. By an 'ideology in thesense of world-view then is meant a subset of the beliefs which constitute the ideology of the group (in a purely descriptive sense) whichhas the following properties:(a) the elements in the subset are widely shared among the agents inthe group(b) the elements in this subset are systematically interconnected(c) they are 'central to theagents'conceptual schem e' inQuine ssense,i.e. the agents won't easily give them up 1 8(d) the elements in the subset have a wide and deep influence on theagents' behavior or on some particularly important or centralsphere of action(e) the beliefs in the subset are 'central' in that they deal with centralissues of human life (i.e. they give interpretations of such things asdeath, the need to work, sexuality, etc.) or central metaphysical is

sues.19Th ese properties are no m ore than very loosely defined, and wh etheror not any purpor ted 'world-view' has any one of them is a question ofdegree -j u s t how wide an influence on the agents' actual behavior musta set of elements have in order to qualify as part of the world-view ofthose agents? Also there isno canonical principle of order ing or weight

ing the various p roperties. So even if there w ere to be agreem ent thatthese five properties specify what we mean by the 'world-view' of agroup, there would still be much room for disagreement in particular18W V.O Quine, 1963, pp.4affAt KK391 Habermascalls 'world-pictures' Interpreiarionen der Welt, der Natur, undderGeschichte imGanzen.'


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IDEOLOGY IN THE DE SCR IPTIVE SENSE 11cases about what should count as 'the' world-view or 'the' ideology ofthis particular group. Whether or not every human group will have aworld-view (in the way that every group has an ideology in the purelydescriptive sense) will depend partly on how strictly one construes thefive properties, but also partly on how one decides to pick out humangro ups. U p to now we have tacitly allowed groups to be picked out anyway at all. Of course it would not be correct to assume that any groupof agents individuated by some biological, ethnic, economic, social, political, or linguistic criterion willshare th e sam e, one world-view. This ,of course, is quite a strong (and quite an implausible) empirical assumption.

T he last descriptive sense of 'ideology'1 would like to consideriswhat1 will call 'ideology in the prog ram matic sense.' This sense is related tothe sense in which the term 'ideology' is used by Daniel Bell and otherproponents of the endof ideology' thesis. Bell calls an ideology 'a wayof translating ideas into action'20 and defines a total ideology'as an 'all-inclusive system of comprehensive reality, it is a set of beliefs, infusedwith passion, and seeks to transform the whole of a way of life.'*1So a'total ideology'is(a) a program or plan of action22(b) based on an explicit, systematic model or theory of how the societyworks(c) aimed at radical transformation or reconstruction of the society asa whole(d) held with more confidence ('passion') than the evidence for thetheory or model warrants.23The addition of '(d)' makes this no longer a descriptive or non-jud gm en tal use of the term 'ideology' but rather a pejorative use. Evenwithout '(d)' however, the definition is still rather tendentious in thatthe presence of (c)' makes it artificially easy for Bell-style liberals todeny that they have an 'ideology'(because, presumably, liberals are not20Bellin Waxman, p. 88.2'Bell in Waxman, p. 96.Bell is not very careful in attributing this notion to Mannheim.This is not the definition Mannheim gives of'total ideology when he introduces it inIdeology and Utopia(pp.55f.);there is no implication thata total ideology* (for Mannheim)

isaprogram ofactionfor the transformation ofawhole way of life.VideFriedrich andBrzezinski,p. 75: Ideologies are essentially action-related systems ofideas. They typically contain a program and a strategy for its realization.31may be reading more into the phrase'infused with passion than is intended. I m obviously trying to assimilate Bell s view here with that of e.g. Popper, who seems to thinkthatatheory ofthesocietyas awholecanhave so little evidentiary supportthat anydegreeof confidence in it as a guide to radical transformation of society is more than is warranted. Vide Popper, 1971,ch.9; Popper, 1964, sectionsaiff


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12 IDEOLOGYat present in the US and the Western European countries in favor ofradica l transformation of society as a whole )- I will call (a) and (b) ofBell s total ideology without (c) and (d) as necessary components) anideology in the programmatic sense. 24

2 IDEOLO GY IN THE PEJORA TIVE SENS EThe second research program within which a theory of ideology mayarise is a prog ram of criticism of the beliefs, attitudes, and wants of theagents in a particular society. This research program is initiated by theobservation that agents in the society are deluded about themselves,their position, their society, or their interests. The aim of the project isto dem onstrate to themthat they are so deluded. It might turn out thatone can only convince them that they are deluded if one can explain tothemwhy they hold the beliefs and attitudes they do, or one might havean independent theoretical interest in understanding and explaininghow it came about that the agents developed this delusion, and whythey continue to suffer from it - the theoretical interest will be all thegreater, the more the delusion seems to have the result that the agentsact contrary to what is manifestly in their own true interest. Still, inessence thisisnotan explanatory project like the first research prog ramin section 1. Rather the point is to free the agents from a particularkind of delusion. In most of the interesting cases the ideological delusion to be rooted out (it is claimed) is not an empirical error even of avery sophisticated kind, but something quite different.

T he basic use of the term ideology in this pro gram is a negative,pejorative, orcritical one. Ideology is (ideological) delusion or (ideologically) false consciousness. 25 I will use the term form of consciousness to refer to a particular constellation of beliefs, attitudes, dispositions, etc. 26 So the basic question posed in this research program is: In2*Clearly if ideology means ideology in the programmatic sense* liberals do have an ideology - they have a general view of society and how it works, and, more important, ageneral view about how it ought to work. Part of that general view is that certain kinds ofdecisions should be decentralized. This might seemtomake the notion of a programmaticideology vacuous: that is, the program foraction may be the action of otinterferingwith certain parts of the economy and society. Still it seems to me not just a quibble todistinguish between cases like those ofperhapscertainhunting-and-gatheringsocieties inwhich people just don t make and implement certain kinds of plans for social action at all,and cases in which people espouse laissez-faire as a doctrine, and acton the theory thatsociety is best run when certain possible kinds of centralized planning are avoided.

WL73, 95,104[T6 71, 90,99],TP435ff** LS4 8(T2].So a form of consciousness is an ideology in one of the narrowerdescriptivesenses, i.e. a particular systematically interconnected subset of the set of all the beliefs,attitudes, etc. the agents of a group hold. I will henceforth use this term form of consciousness because I wouldliketo reserve ideology to mean ideology in the pejorative


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IDEOLOGY IN THE PERJORATIVE SENSE 13what sense or in virtue of what properties can a form of consciousnessbe ideologically false, i.e. can it be an ideology in the pejorative sense?I will consider three kinds of answers to this question:(a) a form of consciousness is ideologically false in virtue of some epis

temic properties of the beliefs which are its constituents;(b) a form of consciousnessisideologically false in virtue of itsunctional

properties;(c) a form of consciousness is ideologically false in virtue of some of itsgenetic properties.

In the next few pages I will try to explain what I mean by each of thesethree ways of answ ering the question: W hat makes a form of consciousness an ideology?I. By the epistemic properties of a form of consciousness I mean suchthings as whether or not the descriptive beliefs contained in the formof consciousness are supported by the available empirical evidence, orwhether or not the form of consciousness is one in which beliefs ofdifferent epistemic type (e.g. descriptive beliefs nd normative beliefs)are confused. I will now consider four ways of using the term ideology ;in each case a form of consciousness will be considered to be ideologicalin virtue of some epistemic properties.

1.A form of consciousness is an ideology if it is essentially dep en den ton mistaking the epistemic status of some of its apparently constituentbeliefs. As an example of what I m ean by mistaking the epistemic statusof a belief consider the early positivist view that a proposition has cognitive content o r is cognitively meaningful if and only if it is empiricallyverifiable, that is, if and only if it has some kind of observational content. To take a belief which isnot empirically verifiable as being cognitively meaningful is to make a mistake about its epistemic status. Th us,on this view, all theological forms of consciousness are to be rejected asideological because a theological form of consciousness is presumably astructured set of beliefs, attitudes , etc.which depends essentially on theassumption that there can be cognitively signific nt discourse aboutgods.Since beliefs about gods are no t empirically verifiable - they don thave cognitive content - a theological form of consciousness is basedon a mistake about the epistemic standing of one of its central constitutive beliefs. Note that to say that alltheologic l forms of consciousness

sense i.e.falseconsciousness. So from now on , ideology unless further specified meansideologyin the pejorative sense. AlsoKK334, TP 310 [T4 857],EI 16[Ti 8], WL 96,105 [T6 901, 100]. [Note that in this last passage Bewu/Jtseinsformationen ( formsofconsciousness ) is mistranslated as information of consciousness. ]


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14 IDEOLOGYare ideology for the positivist is not to say that all forms of religiousbelief are ideology (in the pejorative sense); the positivist can have noobjection to religious beliefs as long as they don t pre tend to be formsof knowledge.This usage of ideology is not dependent on accepting the verification theory of meaning. I might well reject the verification theory ofmeaning and still, for instance, think that value jud gm en ts had verydifferent conditions of verification from descriptive beliefs, and hencea very different epistemic standing. I might then want to call forms ofconsciousness ideological if they presented value judg m en ts as statements of fact.27

2 A form of consciousness is ideological if it contains essentially anobjectification*mistake, i.e. if it contains a false belief to the effect thatsome social phenom eno n is a natural p henom enon , or, to pu t it ano therway, human agents or subjects are suffering from ideologically falseconsciousness if they falsely objectify their own activity, i.e. if they aredeceived into taking that activity to be something foreign to them,

28especially if they take that activity to be a natural process outside theircontrol.

3. A form of consciousness is ideologically false if it contains a falsebelief to the effect that the particular interest of some subgroup is thegenera l interest of the group as a whole.294.A form of consciousness is ideologically false if it mistakes self

validating or self-fulfilling beliefs for beliefs which are not self-validating or self-fulfilling. The notion of a self-validating or self-fulfillingbelief is modelled on Merton s notion of a self-fulfilling prophecy. 30If we think members of a subgroup G are lazy, unreliable, and unintelligent, and hence act toward them in ways which make them becomelazy, unreliable, and unintelligent, the belief that the members of Gare lazy etc. is self-fulfilling. T here is no thin g inh r ntly wrong withholding self-fulfilling beliefs, as long as oneknows that they are selffulfilling. What is objectionable is theus of self-fulfilling beliefs in acontext of justification of action where the ir justificatory force dep en dsGustave Bergmannuses 'ideology' in this sense: 'avaluejudgment disguised as or mis-taken for a statement of fact I shall call an ideological statement ' Brodbeck,p.129).N 40ofand TG246where Habermas claims that Marx develops the notion of ideology'als Gegenbegriff zu einer Reflexion . . . durch die falsches BewuBtsein, namlich dienotwendigen Tauschungen eines Subjektsiiberseine eigenen,ihm fremd gewordenenObjektivattonen zerstonwerden kann.' The classic Marx passage is the chapter on thefetishism of commodity production in thefirstvolumeo Kapital Marx, vol. 23, pp.8ff.S*TG 289; KK 336, 391; and the discussion in Partm of LS. Standard loci from Marxare vol. 3, pp.35gff, 374ff.30Merton, pp.42iff.


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IDEOLOGY IN THE PERJORAT1VE SENSE 15on misconstruing them as non-self-fulfilling, i.e. depends on mistakingtheir epistemicstanding.31

I I . The second kind of answer to the question, What makes a form ofconsciousness an ideology?, was: A form of consciousness is an ideologyin virtue of some of its functional properties. I will consider three specific versions of this functional approach.1. A form of consciousness is an ideology in virtue of the function orrole it plays in supporting, stabilizing, or legitimizing certain kinds ofsocial institutions or practices. Habermas regularly speaks of an ideology as a 'world-picture' which stabilizes or legitimizes domination orhegemony (Herrschaft).32 It is in virtue of the fact that it supports orjustifies reprehensible social institutions, unjust social practices, relations of exploitation, hegemony, or domination that a form of consciousness is an ideology.But, of course, the above isn't yet an unambiguous view. One must

distinguish between the function of support ing , fostering, or stabilizinghegemony and th e function of justifying or legitimizing hegem ony .Any set of beliefs which legitimizes or justifies a social practice willthereby tend to support it, bu t th e converse is not the case: a belief thata given ruling class is strong and ruthless, so that any resistance to thedominant social order is futile, may wellbe abelief the acceptance ofwhich by large segments of the population will have the effect of stabilizing the existing relations of dom inance, but it is unlikely that such abelief could be used t justi y these relations.33 So 'herrschaftsstabili-sierendes BewuGtsein' is not identical with 'herrschaftslegitim ierendesBewuBtsein.'

Note further tha t neither of these two kinds of 'consciousness' is identical with the kind of consciousness intended in the famous slogan def-inition of ideology as sociallynecessary illusion.' The statement Formof consciousness/ stabilizes hegem ony' can be interp reted in twodif-ferent ways: (a) 'Form of consciousness/ contributes to the stability ofhegemony (but it is an open question whether or not this contributionis sufficient to insure that the hegemony remains intact)' - 'stabilize' isused he re as an 'attempt-ve rb.' (b) 'Form ofconsciousness/is successfulin causing the hegem ony to remain in tact' - 'stabilize' is used he re as aNote thatmost self-fulfilling beliefs are beliefs which embody anobjeccificationmistake.Anideology for Habermanis 'herrschaftslegitimierendesWeltbild* ora herrschaftsstabili-sierendes Weltbild. TG iaof ajgff a46f 258;TW 7a [T5 99I;LS 34[Ta 19];etc. ZR53;TG57ff 279,289.Although it might be used by an individualtojustify some action e.g. refusal to join anabortive uprising.


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i 6 I D E O L O G Ysuccess-verb. So at best (nam ely, if stabil ize is in te rp re te d as a success-verb ) F or m of consciousness/stabilizes hegemony means tha t form ofconsc iousness / i s a sufficient condi t ion for the cont inued existence ofgiven re la t ions of dominance, not that i t isnecess ry for the funct ioningor reproduction of the society. Similarly, the fact that some beliefs in aform of consciousness are used to legit imate some social practice orinsti tution in no way implies that those beliefs are the only ones whichcould be used, much less that the practice in question would cease toexist if they could no longer be used to legitimize it.

We also require further clarification of the notion of Herrschaft. Iwill d ist inguish several sem antic co m po ne nts in th e not io n of H er rschaft. 34

A. H errs ch aft m ean s the po w er to rep res s, i .e . to enfo rce frustra t ionof som e given hu m a n p ref ere nc es. B ut this is c learly not an ad eq ua teor suff ic ient c hara cter iza t ion of Herrschaft. W ha t is at issue h e re is thecritical use of th e term ideology. B ut that me ans tha t to show thatsom ethin g is an ideology sho uld be to show that we ou gh t som eho w totry to e l iminate i t . I t seems unreal is t ic under the present condit ions ofhuman l i fe to assume tha t any and every pre fe rence human agentsmight have can be satisfied, or to assume that all conflict between thepreferences of different agents will be peacefully and rationally resolved. ome f rus tra t io n - even som e im pos ed frustra t ion - ofsome h u man prefe rences must be leg i t imate and unexcept ionable . But then toshow that a form of consciousness is an ideology in the sense that i tfunction s to su p p o rt H err sc ha ft is no t yet to give any reas on at all toeliminate it.

B. H errs ch aft is th e exercise of po w er within a pol it ica l o rd e r an d isl inked with some kind of claim to legit imacy. If a group of invaderssimply ransacks a country, doing and taking what they want by sheerforce, they will clearly be fru str atin g the pref ere nc es of the agen ts o nwho m they act , bu t they ar e no t exercising H errs cha ft in th e sensei n t e n d e d h e re . Normative r epress ion is f rus t ra t ion of agen ts pre fe r ences which m ake s a claim to legit imacy th at is acc epte d by those ag en tsbecause of certain normative beliefs they hold. 35 Herrschaft is powerto exercise normative repression. This , too, is not yet an adequate acco un t of H errsch af t for the obvious reasons : T h e re is no th in g w rongwith su pp or t in g or legi t imizing H errsc haf t if the c la im the H errs ch aftmakes to legitimacy is valid.

C. Herrschaft is normally unequal ly dist r ibuted; i t is the dominat ionThe following discussion is based primarily on TG 246^ 854 s85ff ZR 336.

STG 254.


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IDEOLOGY IN THE PERJORATIVE SENSE 17of on groupoveranother. So, in general, a society in which Herrschaftis exercised will be one in which some groups have a much hig he r levelof frustration of their preferences than others do. The society may beextraord inarily repressive, as many egalitarian comm unities are , bu t, aslong as the power to repress is equally distributed, it would be odd tospeak of Herrschaft being exercised.

But this concept of Herrschaft snot adequate for use in our accountof ideology, either. Unless unequal distribution of the power to exercisenormative repression were lw ys illegitimate, showing that a form ofconsciousness supp orted or legitimized this distribution of power wouldin no way imply that the form of consciousness was to be rejected.Marxists at least do n t think that questions of the legitimacy of socialinstitutions can be answered abstractly, that is, apart from consideration of the actual historical situation in which such questions arise.Marxists are also committed to the view that at certain levels of development of the material forces of production an unequal distribution ofrepressive normative power is historically necessary, i.e. necessary forthe society to maintain and rep rod uceitself. If a certain distribution ofpow er is necessary there seems no point in questioning its legitimacy.

We probablywould like to call unequal distribution of power to exercise normative repression Herrschaft. Feudal lordsdoexercise H errschaft over their serfs, even if such Herrscha ft shistorically necessary(at some particular moment in history). Showing that a form of consciousness supp orts unequal distribution of power does not in itself giveus reason to reject the form of consciousness - unlesswe lso know thatthis distribution of power is not at pre sen t necessary.

D. To say that a society imposes surplus repression on its membersis to say that it frustrates their preferences to a greater extent than isnecessary for it to maintain and reproduce itself.38 So surplus repression refers to the total amount of aggregate repression in the societywithout reference to how this repression sdistributed am ong the members. If Herrschaft is defined as above in C, let surplus Herrschaftmean more Herrschaft than is needed for the society to maintain andThis is Habermas' senseof surplusrepression' (vide EI80[Ti 571 ],TG 290) which isprobably not the same as Marcuse's, p. 32, where surplusrepression' means 'restrictionsrequired by social domination.' If 'social domination* means 'unequal distribution o f normative power,' then there can be repression 'required by social domination' which is ot'surplus' in Habermas' sense. Thus in a 'hydraulic' society, the priests asaclass may havemore normative power than the peasants, and the priests may typically impose a certainamount of repression on the peasants in order to insure their continued domination -this repression is 'surplus1 on Marcuse's view. f this drastically unequal distribution ofnormative power is the only way in which a society which hasavery low level of productivity and depends on large-scale irrigation can function and reproduceitself the 'repression' extracted by the priests to maintain their position is not 'surplus' inHabermas'sense.


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l8 IDEOLOGYreproduce itself.37 We could then define ideology as a form of consciousness which supp orts or legitimizes surp lus Herrschaft. But whyshould we reject a form of consciousness if we discover that it supportsor legitimizes surplus Herrschaft? Is surplus Herrschaft always illegitimate? Why?38

2. The second kind of functional definition takes ideology to be anyform of consciousness which hinders or obstructs the maximal development of the forces of material production. This view is usually associated with a readin g of Marx which takes him as positing the development of the forces of material production as an inheren t goal of hum ansocieties.3* It isn t hard to see a connection between this notion andsurplus repression - if a form of consciousness hinders the development of the forces of production it will obviously impose on the agentsin the society more repression than they need suffer - but any connection with surplus Herrschaft is harder to see. Perhaps one could makean argument from the plausible motivation of agents - no agents in thesociety would have a motivation to impose more repression than necessary unless the surplus repression differentially benefited some grou pin the society more than others. Then the members of the privilegedgroup would have such a motivation.

3.Finally we might call a form of consciousness which served to masksocial contradictions 40 an ideology. Since masking social contradictions might include such things as diverting attention from them, aform of consciousness might successfully mask social contradictionswithout containing any false beliefs. The concept of a social contradiction is too complex and obscure to be adequately treated he re . Notehowever, that if we take the major contradiction in a social formationto be the contradiction between the relations of production and theforces of production, and ifwe take this contradiction to consist in thefact that the relations of production fetter the development of theforces, it is not difficult to see how one might move from this thirdfunctional approach to ideology to thesecond.4137Inmost normal cases, where there is surplus repression, there will also be surplus 'Herr-schaft,' for what could motivate agents collectively to impose upon themselves morerepression than is needed, unless the 'fruits' of that surplus repression are distributedunequally? In that case the beneficiaries oftheunequal distribution will haveastake in itscontinuance.

T he question is whetherIllegitimaterepression' isaseparate category. Might there not beHerrschaft. surplus repression, etc. which is not illegitimate? Might there notalsobe kindsof illegitimate repression which are not either surplus or instances of Herrschaft? Thisquestionwillbecome important in Chapter 3.Vide Cohen (1978). The members of the Frankfurt School recognize this strand in Marx,but think it is a mistake,WL73 T6 7of]Larrain,pp.45ff.41VideCohefi,chs. vt, x, xi.


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IDEOLOGY IN THE PERJORAT VE SENSE 9Ideology in the pejorative or critical sense was to be some kind ofdelusion orfalse consciousness. Granted that an ideology in one or another of the above functionar senses would be something eminently

worthy of being rejected by the members of any known human society,would such an ideology be rejectedbecause it is a delusion or because itis in somesensefalse A form of consciousness may contain all kinds ofnon-discursive elements; it isn t clear how such elem entscould be false.Even the beliefs in a form of consciousness might be worthy of beingrejected or given up on all kinds of grounds other than that they aredelusions - they may be obnoxious, insensitive, immoral, nasty, ugly,etc. If I know that a form of consciousness I hold contributes to moremassive frustration of my own preferences than necessary I may feelthat I have groun ds to give it up or change it, but does that mean thatI think it is false* or some kind of delusion? The sense in which it is adelusion must be one which depends on a claim that,i I were to cometo know something about the functional proper ties of this form of consciousness, I would no longer retain it. T he form of consciousness qualifies as false or a delusion because my retaining it depends in some wayon my being in ignorance of or having false beliefs about its functionalproperties.III . The third major way to answer the question, In virtue of what is aform of consciousness an ideology?, is: In virtue of some of its geneticproperties, that is, by virtue of some facts about its origin, genesis, orhistory, about how it arises or comes to be acquired or held by agents,or in virtue of the motives agents have for adopting and acting on it.

Thus, Runciman claims that for the later Engels a form of consciousness is ideologically false in virtue of the fact that the beliefs and attitudes which compose it are rela ted in a causal sense to the social situation and thereby to the interests of the believer. 42 So, presumably, aform of consciousness is an ideology in virtue of something about itscausal history. Karl Mannheim holds a similar view, that forms of consciousness are ideological because they are expressions of the class position of those who hold th em , that is, because their origin can be tracedto the particu lar experiences of a particu lar class in society with its characteristic perceptions, interests, and values.43 Finally, the analogy between psychoanalysis and social theory which is so dominant in much

Runciman,p.212.The Engels passage on which this is based is one in a letter to Mehringfrom 1893 (translated in Tucker, p. 648) which states: 'Ideology is a process accomplishedby the so-called thinker consciously, but with false consciousness. The real motive forcesimpelling him remain unknown to him; otherwise it simply would not be an ideologicalprocess.'


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I EOLOGYoftheworkof themem bersof theFrankfurt School suggests that ideologies mightbeconstruedas'collective rationalisations,' i.e.assystemsof beliefsand attitudes acceptedby theagentsfor reasons which theycouldnotacknowledge.44Butwhat does 'could not* mean here?This genetic approach seemstopose more problemsfor the understanding thandid the functional approach.45Whyshould anythingwemight learn abouttheorigin, m otivation,orcausal historyofaformofconsciousness giveus(rational) groundsfor rejectingit,much lessforrejectingit as'false consciousness*or as a'delusion?'Ofcourse,if theform ofconsciousnesshas an unsavory causal history this might makeus verysuspicious of it - we mayexamine thebeliefs it contains withm ore thanourusual careandmay think twice abouttheimplicationsofadoptingtheattitudes- butthat doesn'tin itself giveus good groundsto rejecttheformofconsciousness. Also if a formofconsciousness isan'expression'of theclass-positionofa groupinsocietynotmerelyin thesense thatit aroseout oftheir experience'butalsoin thesense thatitis ppropri te onlytothose who share that class-position,e.g. if itspeaksonly to their particular needs, problems, and values, then it may beirrelevanttothoseofuswhodo notshare that class-position.But to saythatit isirrelevantto us is not to saythatit is adelusion- it certainlywouldn't seemto be anykindofdelusionforthem ifwedorejectit, it isbecauseit is 'notappropriate 'for us andthatissomethingwe may determine withoutanyknowledgeofits causal history.Thecausal historymay explainwhyit isinappropriate,but thecausal history isn't itselfthegroundsfor rejectingit; itsinappropriatenessis.

Bynowthere is a long history of criticism of the genetic fallacy' -one hasn't shown anything aboutthetruthorfalsityofa beliefbyshowing how it arose, one must clearly distinguish 'context of discovery'from 'context of justification.'Ifthe genetic approach toideologyin thepejorative sense isto get offthe ground ,itmust somehow show thatthe'genetic fallacy,' granteditsvalidityfor scientific statements, isnotnecessarilyafallacyforformsofconsciousness.I have already tipped myhand as to how this argument might proceed. When speakingof theanalogy between psychoanalysisandsocialtheory above,Isaid that ideologies mightbeunderstood assystemsofbeliefs and attitudes accepted by the agents for reasons or motives

which those agentscouldnotacknowledge. SupposeIhavea belief, attitude,orhabitof action whichIhave adopted andcultivatefor unacknowledged and unacceptable motives; perhaps I have adopted andcultivateahabitofvirtuous actionof acertain sortforcom pletelynar- T W i5 g f m S l .Mannheim,pp.ayiff, *8 ff, z86f,*giff.


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IDEOLOCVY IN THE PERJORAT1VE SENSE 21cissistic reasons which I don t acknowledge and which I would find unacceptable. Even though my motives or reasons for acting in the way Ido may be unacceptable, the habit of action may be a habit of virtuousaction, i.e. I may consistently do the right thing for the wrong reasons.In this case, coming to acknowledge and recognize my own motives mayin fact bringme to stop cultivating the habit of action, but then again itmay not, and in either case the habit of action may remain the righthabit of action for me to cultivate, an d I may still recognize tha t it is theright habit (although I may cease to have the strong motivation I hadto continue to cultivate it). But in the case of ideologies it isn t ju st thatthey are said to have been adopted for un cknowledged motives or reasons, but for motives which could not be acknowledged by the agents.This presumably means that i the agents had to recognize and acknowledge thatthese were their motives, they would thereby not onlyno longer be motivated as strongly as they were to continue to acceptthe ideology, but they would see that there isno reason for them toaccept it.One might w onder w hether cases like this really exist - cases in whichthe onlymotive or reason for adopting a form of consciousness is amotive whichc nnotbe acknowledged - and one might also legitimatelyask for further clarification of the sense in which a motive cannot* beacknowledged. Finally one might wonder whether this kind of analysiscan be extended to other cases involving the causal history or originand genesis ofa form of consciousness. But i these potential objectionscan be deflected, there might be a chance of showing that the geneticapproach to ideology can yield a sense of ideology as delusion or falseconsciousness. The form of consciousness is false in that it requires ignorance or false belief on the part of the agents of their true motivesfor accepting it.

Sothe term ideology is used in a pejorative sense to criticise a formof consciousness because it incorporates beliefs which are false, or because it functions in a reprehensible way, or because it has a taintedorigin. I willcall these three kinds of criticism: criticism along the epi-stemic, the functional, and the genetic dimensions respectively.46 It is48Niklas Luhmannsums up some of the standard views about ideology (before dismissingthem all) thus: Nichtin der kausalen Berwirktheitliegtdas Wesen dcr Ideologic, auch

nicht in derinstrumentellen Verwendbarkeitbei der es nicht urnWahrhek sondern umWirkungengeht, undschliefilichauch nicht darin,dafisie die eigentlichen Motive ver-birgt' (p. 57). Of these thefirstand third refer to the 'genetic' dimension, and the secondto the'functional.'Habermas criticises Luhmann because his functionalist theory of ideology leaves no room for a sense in which ideology could be 'false,' i.e. for lacking ananalysis of the 'epistemic dimension' (TG a3 .ff).As will become clearer later, the reasonHabermas insists that it must be possible to call an ideology 'false' is that he thinks this isthe only way to avoidakind of pernicious relativism.


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2 2 I D E O L O G Yextremely important to determine which of these three modes of criticism is basic to a theory of ideology - does the theory start with anepistemology, with a theory of the prope r functioning of society and ofwhich forms of social organisation are reprehensible, or with a theoryof which origins of forms of consciousness are acceptable and whichunacceptable? Still, although one or another of these three modes ofcriticism may be basic, interesting theories of ideology will be oneswhich assert some connection between two or more of the three modes.p n e of the senses in which the Critical Theory is said by its pro ponentsto be dialectical (and hence superior to its rivals) is just in that it explicitly connects questions about the inh eren t tru th or falsity of a formof consciousness with questions about its history, origin, and functionin society.

3 I D E O L O G Y I N T H E P O S I T I V E S E N S E

T he descriptive and explanatory project outlined in section 1 and thecritical project discussed in section 2 are not the only two research program s in which a concept of ideology might come to figure. It isn t justa neutral fact about human groups that each has a culture or socio-cultural system, a set of characteristic attitudes, habits, beliefs, modesof artistic expression, perhaps even a characteristic world-view; participating in a culture is a way of satisfying certain very deep-seated human needs. Hum ans have a vital need for the kind of meaningful lifeand the kind of identity which is possible only for an agent who standsin relation to a culture.47 Traditional religious world-views owe theirpersistence to their ability to meet some of these basic needs. They dothis by providing agents with approved models of action, goals, ideals,and values, and by furnishing interpretations of such important existential features of hum an life as birth and death , suffering, evil, etc. Inaddition to such basic existential needs, human agents and groups havemore m un da ne needs, wants, and interests which a given set of habits,beliefs, and attitudes, a given culture, can satisfy more or less adequately. Starting, then, from the wants, needs, interests, and the objective situation of a given hu man grou p, we can set ourselves th e task ofdetermining what kind of socio cultural system or what world-viewwould be most ap prop ria te for that group , i.e. what ideology (in somedescriptive sense of the term) is most likely to enable the members ofthe group to satisfy their wants and needs and further their interests. I47Vide Konnen komplexe Gesellschaften cine verniinftige Iden titat ausb ilden? (in ZR),

sectionsV,V I , an d VIIof BewuBtmachende oderrettende Kritik- DieAktualitat WalterBenjamins (in KK), sections II. 6 and 7 and III- 4 of LS, and TG pp. 163^


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I D E O L O G Y I N T H E P O S I T I V E S E N S E 3willcall this the task of producing for the group an ideology in thepositive or laudatory sense. Ideology in this sense is quite differentfrom ideology in either the descriptive or the pejorative senses.Whereas an ideology in any of the descriptive senses is something onefinds (or perhaps postulates hypothetically for explanatory purposes),and an ideology in the pejorative sense is something one finds and isolates in ord er to criticize, an ideology in the positive sense isn t something out there to be found by even the most careful empirical investigation. It might be a desideratum for a particular society that it havean ideology in this sense, but the ideology is something to be constructed, created, or invented; it isaveriteafaire.4Possibly the first sketch of this program of constructing an ideologyin the positive sense for a hum an group occurs in Lenin s hat is to beDone?49 H er e Lenin argues that the beliefs and attitudes most of themembers of the working class actually have arenotbeliefs and attitudesappropriate to their objective situation. Not only doesn t the proletariatnow have a set of beliefs and attitudes which will enable it to satisfy itsbasic needs and further its vital interests, but left to its own devices( spontaneously ) it won t ever develop an approp ria te form of consciousness; at best it can aspire to a trade-union consciousness which isa debased form of bourgeois ideology. 50 The correct proletarianworld-view m ust be introduced into the proletariat from the outside bythe members of a vanguard party (many of whom may well be of bou rgeois orig in). When Lenin calls upon party intellectuals to help thelabour m ovem ent . . . elaborate . . . an independent ideology foritself 51 he is obviously not using the term ideology in a descriptivesense. He is not calling on them to find out what beliefs and attitudesthose in the labor movement actually have - to elaboratethem wouldmerely yield some further form of bourgeois ideology. Nor is he usingthe term in a pejorative sense- he is not suggesting tha t party intellectuals disseminate some form of false consciousness among the workingclass. The independent ideology for the labor movem ent is the set ofthose attitudes and beliefs which would best enable the workers to restructure society in their own interest.

If we are looking for a characterization of it that will make positiveideology a separate category, distinct from ideology in the pejorativesense, it isn t sufficient to say that a positive ideology enables the agen tseffectively to satisfy som e of the ir needs and desires. First, th ere must


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I D E O L O G Ybe some restrictions on the kinds of wants, desires, and interests a positive ideology is to satisfy - we will want to exclude overtly sadistic desires, desires to enslave, exploit, or dominate others, etc. Then theremust also be some restrictions on the way in which the needs and desiresof the group are satisfied - we will probably want to disallow consciousor empirical falsehoods or patently inconsistent beliefs, inculcation ofattitudes of hysteria or paranoia, etc. Suppose that the members ofsome gro up have very strong aggressive desires, and suppose furthe rthat they cling hysterically to a set of patently false beliefs which focustheir hostility on the members of some powerless minority. This set ofbeliefs may be quite effective in enabling them to satisfy their aggressivedesires without fear of retaliation , but if we allow it to count as an ideology in the positive sense, the distinction between an ideology in thepositive sense and an ideology in the pejorative sense will becomeblurred.

In certain cases the problems which make these fur the r restrictionson the notion of ideology in the positive sense necessary may not arise.Thus Lukacs argues in eschichte und Klassenbewufltsein that the beliefwhich would enab le the members of the prole tariat of a capitalist societyto further their own interests most effectively are precisely those beliefswhich would comprise a scientifically correct account of capitalist society.52 Fu rtherm ore, the correct beliefs are not merely useful to theproletariat in a general way, they are indispensable - a vital necessity- if the pro letariat is to reorganize the whole of society in its own interest. T h efirst p ar t of this claim might seem to be a triviality - what couldbe more obvious than that agents will generally be more effective inrealizing their interests if they have true beliefs - but for Lukacs it is byno means a triviality. He holds that, in contrast to the proletariat, thebourgeoisie could and can act to further its interests unconsciously orunder the influence of one or another form of false consciousness.Thus , a political order suitable for the maximal development of thecapitalist mode of production was created in the English Civil Wars bymem bers of the incipient bourgeoisie in the course of pursu ing variousreligious fantasies. The more the members of the bourgeoisie knowabout the true nature of capitalist society, the less effective they will bein the class struggle, because the more hopeless they will realize theirsituation to be in the long run.53 So the bourgeoisie, paradoxiallyenough, has an interest in being self-deceived.

If, then, the distinction between ideology in the positive sense and" L uk ac s . pp . 87 , i5if 357 "."Lukacs , pp. 87, 141, i48ff Stff Vide infra pp.851".


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I D E O L O G Y I N T H E P O S I T I V E S E N S E 2 5

ideology in the pejorat ive sense is not as sharp as one might havehoped, this is part ly a reflection of the fact that historically satisfactionof on e s intere sts and op pre ssio n, pu rsu i t of a sen se of ident i ty a n d falseconsciousness have been al l but inextr icably l inked. Thus, the majorway in which ideologies (in the pejorative sense) have tradit ionallym ain tain ed them selves is by ha rne ssin g wh at a re in them selves perfect lylegi t imate h u m a n asp irat ion s, such as th e des ire for a sense of col lectiveidenti ty, so as to create a si tuation in which the agents can satisfy legit im ate exis tent ia l nee ds only on con di t ion of accep t ing the repre ss ion th eideological world-view imposes.5 4

T h e p re ce d in g discuss ion has be en art if icially simplified by th e tacitssumpt on t ha t the agents wants , needs , des i res , and in teres t s are re l

at ively fixed, as if we could isolate them and hold them constant whileasking which of on e or ano th er pro po sed ideology would sa tis fy al a rger number o f them to a g rea te r ex ten t . Perhaps the exis tent ia lneed s me nt io ne d above a re need s a ll hu m an s have , bu t t hey a re qu i t eabstract an d e ven the con crete forms th os e ne ed s will tak e in differe nth u m an societies will vary cons iderably . Cer ta inly m ost o t he r hu m a n desi res , wa nts , an d n ee ds are notor ious ly var iable . A pro po sed ideologymay genera te new wants and in teres t s . Some of these may be an acknowledged par t of the ideology; o thers may ar i se as indi rec t and per haps even un in tended consequences o f adopt ing the ideo logy . But aproposed ideology may a l so deny s tanding to cer ta in wants , des i res ,an d n ee ds th e agen ts to w ho m i t is ad dr es sed in fact ha ve ; i t m ay enjointhose who adopt i t to s top at tempting to grat i fy these desires or even tot ry to suppress or e l iminate them in themselves . Thus , Chr i s t iani tybre ak ing into th e anc ient wo rld do esn t only pr es en t i tself as a set ofbeliefs an d pract ices which will satisfy ce r tain h u m a n n ee ds an d long ings; i t a lso ar t iculates and fosters the development of a whole new setof des i res , wa nts , an d ne ed s , an d an athem at izes th e sa tis fac tion an dfur ther cul t iva t ion of var ious recognized and highly regarded needsand desires , e .g. desi re for sel f-asser t ion, honor , fame, reputat ion. I t i smerely naive to assume that one can cons t ruct a typical agent in theRo m an Em pi re in the t im e of Au gus t ine , de t e rm ine tha t agen t s want s ,needs , and in teres t s , and then comparat ively evaluate the extent towhich c ivic humanism, Manicheanism, P la tonism, var ious mystery re l i gions, and Chris t iani ty respect ively would satisfy these given needsand des i r es . The course o f ind iv idua l deve lopment the onfessionsd e scr ibes is qui te complex and we have no reason to bel ieve that the process of de ter m ini ng w hat would be a sui table ideology for som e h u m an4Habcrmas most detailed discussion of this is TG 23 9- 26 7.


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6 I E O L O G Ygroup would be any less complex. We will have to return to this question at the end of the third chapter.

4 IDEOLOGIEKRJTIKThe members of the Frankfurt School hold three theses about Ideologiekritik:1.Radical criticism of society and criticism of its dominan t ideology(Ideologiekritik) are inseparable; the ultimate goal of all social re

search should be the elaboration of a critical theory of society ofwhich Ideologiekritik would be an integral part.2. Ideologiekritik is not just a form of moralizing criticism, i.e. an ideological form of consciousness is not criticised for being nasty, immoral, unpleasant, etc. but for being false, for being a form of delusion. Ideologiekritik is itself a cognitive enterprise, a form ofknowledge.3. Ideologiekritik (and hence also the social theory of which it is a part)differs significantly in cognitive structure from natural science, andrequires for its proper analysis basic changes in the epistemologicalviews we have inherited from traditional empiricism (modelled as itis on the study of natural science).In this section I will discuss various ways in which Ideologiekritik mightproceed, with particular attention to the questions: (a) In what sense isthe particular k ind of Ideologiekritik under discussion cognitive? (b) Inwhat sense would a pro per account of the kind of Ideologiekritik und erdiscussion require revisions in our inherited epistemology? The formsof Ideologiekritik I will discuss in this section will all focus very narrowly on one of the three modes of criticism.I. To begin with the first mode of Ideologiekritik - criticism along theepistemic dimension - to what extent can this kind of criticism be accommodated within a traditional empiricist framework? The membersof the Frankfurt School take what they call positivism to be the mostconsistent, plausible mod ern version of empiricism.T he Frankfurt School s positivist begins by identifying:(a) those statements or propositions which are potentially true or false;(b) those.statements or propositions which have cognitive content (i.e.which, if tru e, would be knowledge );(c) those statements or propositions which can be rationally assessed(i.e.which are warrantedly acceptable or rejectable).


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IDEOLOG1EKRITIK 27Sta tement s wi thout cognitive content are not t rue or false, but (cogni-tively) me an ingle ss , an d th er e is no sense in which the y can be rat ional lydiscussed and evaluated. The posi t ivis t program gets i ts bi te f rom i tssecond step in which i t identifies (a) through (c) above with:(d) those s ta tements or propos i t ions which are. scientifically te sta b le;(e) thos e s ta tem en ts o r pro po si t ions which h ave obse rvat iona l

con t en t . 5 5The identification of (d) with (a) through (c) may be called sc ient ism -roughly, the view that the only rat ionali ty is scientif ic rat ionali ty; 5 6 theidentification of (e) with (a) through (c) means that only statements withobservat ional content are even potent ia l ly knowledge, and that onlythey are subject to rat ional discussion and evaluat ion.

So the posi t ivis t , when confronted with a form of consciousness, cansubject it to two kinds of criticism:(a) scientific criticism: reject those beliefs in the form of consciousness

which are empir ical ly false or not wel l -supported;(b) positivist Ideologiekritik : separate clear ly cognitive* f rom n o n -

cognit ive beliefs; reject al l (second-order) bel

Documents

Geuss, Raymond - Idea Critical Theory