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
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