180129 SE Ideology and ideology criticism (2024S)

"Ideology" is an equally central and controversial concept in political philosophy and critical theory formation: from Marxism to the Frankfurt School and psychoanalysis to post-structuralist and post-colonial approaches. At the centre of the debates - alongside the question of whether ideology can be reduced to a "false consciousness" or the systematically distorted representation of reality - is the controversy as to whether an ideology-free society is conceivable or whether we are ultimately all caught up in ideologies, since these form the unquestionable convictions of individual and social subjectivities. Ideology critique thus faces the challenge of determining the place from which it speaks, as well as clarifying to what extent it must claim an epistemically privileged standpoint for itself. However, this applies not only to the critique of ideology, but to critique in general so that ideology critique becomes the touchstone for every critical endeavour.
Based on these questions, we will first discuss central texts on ideology and ideological criticism in the context of critical theory by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Theodor W. Adorno and Rahel Jaeggi. We will then look at positions of Louis Althusser, Stuart Hall, Paul Ricoeur, Slavoj Žižek and others.