Abstract

Starting from the marginal status allotted to ideology in the present day field of political philosophy, caused both by what I consider to be a “semantic narrowing” and by what I call “semantic contamination”, this article points to the possibility of a conceptual reconsideration of ideology within contemporary political philosophy. In line with Michael Freeden, my standpoint is one according to which the concept of ideology can be recovered by political philosophy as an analytical tool, because it plays not only an important normative role, situated at an abstract level, but also a very important role when it comes to explaining political reality. This requires, of course, an interdisciplinary approach, bearing in mind the influences that political philosophy itself receives in our time. Virtually,I believe that the political-philosophical perspective on ideology should open, in an interdisciplinary manner, towards related fields such as political sociology, political anthropology or discourse analysis, specific to communication sciences.