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It is now generally
recognised by serious scholars that
Marx does not use the expression
‘false consciousness’.
Nevertheless, the assumption that
for him ideology is in some sense
or other a ‘false consciousness’
may be said to dominate the literature.
The most explicit guidance he offers
on the subject points, however,
in a quite different direction,
towards the conclusion that for
him ideology is not an epistemological
category of any kind. The key passage
normally cited in support of the
dominant view is shown to be incapable
of bearing any such interpretation.
Finally, the slogan of ‘false
consciousness’ itself is traced
to its single textual warrant, a
reference in Engels’s correspondence.
The adventitious and aberrant character
of this reference makes it quite
incapable of sustaining the myth
that was later to grow up around
it.
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"Ideology and False Consciousness"
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Source: “Ideology
and False Consciousness” was
written for “Marx Myths and
Legends” by Joseph McCarney
in April 2005, and rights remain
with the author, as per Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
Licence 2.0.
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Biographical information
Joseph McCarney
was a retired teacher of philosophy
and a founder member of the Marx and Philosophy Society. His writings on
Marx and Marxism include The
real world of ideology, Harvester
Press, 1980 and Social theory
and the crisis of Marxism,
Verso, 1990. His most recent book
is Hegel on History, Routledge,
2000. He was a contributor to Radical
Philosophy and a member of the
editorial advisory board for Historical
Materialism. His main area of
interest was the Hegel-Marx
relationship.
Sadly, Joe died on Wed 1st August 2007 in a car accident near his home in Lewes, Sussex. UK. An obituary for Joe by Andrew Chitty is published in the Guardian, Thursday September 6, 2007. Joe had recently set up a site for his work which is available at http://www.josephmccarney.com/ |