Two paradoxes seem to characterise the method of the critique of ideology. The first has to do with the fact that ideologies are “both true and false” (Adorno). The second has to do with the fact that the critique of ideology seems to carry both a normative and a descriptive dimension. The article argues that these two paradoxes disappear when the critique of ideology is addressed by way of a Hegelian mode of immanent critique. Such an approach highlights both the (...) specific normative claim of the critique of ideology and the specific problematic which it exemplifies. (shrink)

The successive announcements concerning the “end” of ideology or its “return” fail to register the major shift in its use as a concept in social theory: its redefinition in a culturalist perspective. The article begins by recalling the Marxist definition of the concept, comprising three ideas: the distortion of reality, the legitimation of domination, and the loosening of ideological “hold” through its critique. The article then notes the gradual abandoning of the term, before looking at the terms which presided over (...) its culturalist redefinition. The article then examines the contours of a possible renewal of the critical concept paving the way for a renewed critique of ideology. Such a reconstruction is notably based on the theory of recognition. It locates in the idea of the loosening or undoing of ideological hold the thrust of an internal critique. (shrink)

Aux prises avec le débat entre libéralisme et communautarisme, la problématique de la diversité culturelle s'est souvent fourvoyée dans une opposition rigide entre différence et égalité, commun et singularité. Le pragmatisme de John Dewey offre des pistes pour penser la pluralité culturelle et la reconnaissance non pas entre des identités culturelles figées mais sous forme de processus permanents de constitution réciproque du commun et des singularités culturelles. En incluant le rôle culturel des médias dans ce processus, Dewey offre une approche (...) de la pluralité culturelle considérée comme le socle même de la démocratie.Struggling with the debate between liberalism and communitarianism, the issue of cultural diversity is often misguided in a rigid opposition between difference and equality, and mutual singularity. John Dewey's pragmatism provides avenues for thinking about cultural diversity and recognition not between fixed cultural identities but as ongoing processes of reciprocal constitution and common cultural singularities. Including the cultural role of media in this process, Dewey offers an approach to cultural plurality considered the cradle of democracy. (shrink)