One of the most controversial concepts in the history
of social thought has been the concept of ideology.
Some scholars have emphasized the epistemological
aspects of ideology, others its sociological components,
and still others its psychological or cultural features.
An examination of these approaches will provide the
components of ideology on which most scholars appear
to agree.
At the outset it is necessary to distinguish between
ideology as concept and ideology as political doctrine.
The analysis of ideology as a generic concept (e.g., its
nature and function) constitutes an intellectual activity
of quite different order than the analysis of ideology
as a body of political beliefs (e.g., conservatism, liber-
alism, socialism). Similarly, it is quite impermissible to
confuse someone's (e.g., Marx's) analysis of the concept
of ideology with
his own ideology or political doctrine
(i.e., Marxism). It is of course true that one's analysis
of the concept of ideology may be conditioned
“ideologically” (in the second sense)—as indeed Marx's
was—but these questions are analytically distinct. We
are concerned in this article only with the analysis of
ideology as a concept in social thought.
Epistemological Approaches. Historically this is the
earliest approach to ideology, and its chief exponents
were the French Ideologues of the latter part of the
eighteenth century, mainly Étienne Bonnet de Condil-
lac, Pierre J. G. Cabanis, Antoine Louis Claude Destutt
de Tracy and Claude Adrien Helvétius. One of the
earliest uses of the term “ideology” was in Destutt de
Tracy's Élémens d'idéologie, 4 vols. (1801-15).
In this approach ideology is based upon a sensa-
tionalist theory of knowledge. The basic assumption
is that all ideas, all knowledge, and all the faculties
of human understanding—perception, memory, judg-
ment—rest on sensory data. The validity of an idea
can be ascertained only in terms of its congruence with
sense impressions. The study of the origin and devel-
opment of ideas in terms of sensations is the only
guarantee against errors in cognition and judgment.
In expounding the sensationalist point of view, and
in seeking to extend scientific methodology to the study
of ideas and knowledge, the Ideologues posed a sharp
challenge to the rationalistic tradition of the eighteenth
century, especially Cartesianism. For them, knowledge
was a process of inductive generalization from partic-
ular sensations.
In developing their philosophy the Ideologues relied
heavily on Francis Bacon and John Locke. Condillac,
widely acknowledged as the founder of the school of
ideology, praised Bacon for having developed the
scientific method which in turn had proved so essential
in the study of physical nature; Bacon, he thought, was
the first to understand the truth that all knowledge
comes from the senses.
Condillac similarly praised Locke for having revolu-
tionized philosophy by launching a systematic attack
upon rationalism. He was particularly impressed with
Locke's concept of tabula rasa and the concomitant
rejection of innate ideas. However, Condillac argued,
Locke had not gone far enough in locating the source
of ideas in experience and observation—which, them-
selves, according to Condillac, could be reduced to
sensations.
Condillac's central objective was to do for philoso-
phy what Bacon had done for science. He was inter-
ested in a scientific approach to the study of man and
ideas. He was particularly impressed with Bacon's
warning against idola (“idols, phantoms, or miscon
ceptions”) as sources of error in knowledge. (This has
led some scholars to trace the genesis of “ideology”
to Bacon's idola; for example, Karl Mannheim, p. 61.)
Condillac wished to reconstruct philosophy into an
analytical method for the study of the nature, sources,
and implications of ideas.
Condillac's philosophy was further developed and
formally systematized by Cabanis and de Tracy.
Cabanis based ideas on sensations, but he approached
the study of the mind from a physiological rather than
an epistemological point of view. Knowledge of the
physical nature of man, he held, was the basis of all
philosophy. Physiology, moral philosophy, and the
analysis of ideas constitute “three branches of a single
science: the science of man” (Van Duzer, p. 43).
Physical sensibility, according to Cabanis, is the basic
factor in knowledge, as also in the intellectual and
moral life of man. Just as physical life is a series of
movements originating in impressions received by the
various organs, so psychological phenomena result from
movements initiated by the brain. These movements
are received and transmitted by the nerve endings of
the various organs. It is sensibility that makes us aware
of the external world; sensations bring the outside
world within the mind, as it were. Sensations differ
in intensity, duration, and so on, depending on the
physiological functioning of the individual (his age, sex,
physical constitution) and environmental conditions.
In his Élémens d'idéologie, Destutt de Tracy set out
to systematize the philosophy of sensationalism and to
put it into textbook form. While crediting Condillac
with the creation of ideology, and Cabanis with its
further development, Destutt de Tracy proceeded to
introduce his own variation upon it. The importance
attached to sensation and physiology had inclined
Condillac and Cabanis toward a materialistic inter-
pretation of the mind. Destutt de Tracy went further
by directly viewing ideology as a part of zoology.
Human psychology—“the science of ideas”—should be
analyzed in biological terms, without attention to
moral or religious dimensions. Only in this way could
an objective science of the mind be realized. According
to Destutt de Tracy, “One has only an incomplete
knowledge of an animal if one does not know its intel-
lectual faculties. Ideology is a part of zoology, and it
is above all with reference to the study of man that
this science has importance” (Germino, p. 48). There
is thus no qualitative distinction between man and
lower animals; metaphysical, philosophical, and reli-
gious conceptions must be discarded because they are
not subject to scientific investigation.
The political and moral implications of sensa-
tionalism were developed largely by Helvétius.
Helvétius relied on early utilitarianism in emphasizing
a principle that the later utilitarians were to label “the
greatest happiness of the greatest numbers.” Morality,
politics, and legislation were to be directed toward
maximizing pleasant sensations and minimizing un-
pleasant sensations. Helvétius believed in ethical and
political relativism, in limited government, in the need
for harmonizing public and private interests, and in
the possibility of human progress through education
(this a residue of the Enlightenment). In other words,
the political implications of sensationalism could be
called “democratic.”
It is not surprising, then, that the Ideologues should
have vigorously opposed Napoleon and his imperial-
istic dictatorial policies. Nor is it surprising that
Napoleon should have reciprocated with intense, hos-
tility, and should have pejoratively labeled the group
Idéologues, denoting “visionaries” or “daydreamers.”
That is where the term “ideologue” originated and that
is how it came to take on a derogatory connotation,
which it has retained to the present day.
The Ideologues' treatment of the ideology concept
entailed some difficulties. Despite their appeal to sci-
ence, a great deal of their analysis was strikingly
speculative and intuitive. Moreover, there was consid-
erable confusion, especially found in Cabanis and de
Tracy, concerning physiology, psychology, and epis-
temology. Finally, their approach to ideology is not
directly relevant to twentieth-century understandings
and concerns.
