Date: Sun, 31 Jul 1994 10:37:32 -0400 (EDT) From: Philip Goldstein <pgold-AT-strauss.udel.edu> Subject: materialism, ideology James Herron wrote The basic point is that, say, relations of production are not constituted as such apart from how they are meaningfully constitituted in the minds (or, intersubjectively, in the cultures) of people. This is a classic idealist position (hugely influential in anthropology, by the way). My argument was that for something to be 'meaninfully constituted' it at the very least had to be cognized. Althusser defines ideology as people's imaginary understanding of the relations of production. This definition is close to the view which you state above, but this definition is not idealist. The reason is that ideology presupposesa science which defines these relations "objectively." EVen this distinction between science/ideology has broken down in recent years, though, so that ultimately there is no way to escape ideological constructions of relations of production even if you grant that they must be cognized. Aren't idealism/materialism an old fashioned opposition which no longer works because discourse, a material force, intervenes to undermine the difference? Philip Goldstein Associate Professor of English and Philosophy University of Delaware (Parallel) ------------------
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