File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1994/marxism_8Aug.94, message 68


Date: Sat, 13 Aug 1994 07:52:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: Philip Goldstein <pgold-AT-strauss.udel.edu>
Subject: Re: Althusser


 	Pete Bratsis disputes my claim that Althusser's distinction 
between science and ideology was his most important view. "I would have 
to disagree that Althusser's most influencial contribution
was his distinction between science and ideology." Bratsis goes on to 
claim that what was most influential was the theory of subjectivity 
and/or ideological interpellation. " But here the relevent distinction is not
science as opposed to ideology.  Here Althusser presents was is now more
common a view, ideology as actual physical practices * not beleifs * and
also presents a vairly complex theory of subjectivity by way of his notion
of ideological interpellation.  I think that this essay has shaped the
problematic for a whole generation of cultural studies." I have trouble 
with this view, which is fairly widespread. On the one hand, to see 
ideology as "actual physical practices" is to adopt a scientific 
standpoint -- certainly an ideological position won't allow it. On the 
other, Althusser disallows any general distinction between science and 
ideology and, hence, any general theory of ideology. I mean in the 
later work, not For Marx. Science/ideology works only within a particular 
discourse or discipline, and the opposition presupposes that the 
discourse has developed a formal or "scientific" mode of analysis. This 
position is comparable to Foucault's, especially in The Order of Things, 
but Foucault's view has been more popular because Foucault disavows 
science/ideology, which carries bad connotations of dogma, authoritarian 
powers, non-ideological truth, etc. I think the position that ideological 
interpellation does not presuppose some formal or scientific practice to 
be comparable -- a concession to all the bad connotations of Marxist 
science. 
Philip Goldstein

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005