ABSTRACT
Nothing is easier than forgetting how much enlightened thinking was about what we would now call the psychology of the individual. Liberal individuals had come a long way from their Democritean origins. Enlightenment might also appear to be indistinguishable from the class interest of an enlightened bourgeoisie. Marxism itself still stuck to a version of enlightened universality translated into the world of sociology. The Marxist theory of ideology, and in particular the idea of ‘false consciousness’, certainly cast grave doubts on the possibility that all men could come to share the same belief-system, but Marxism added the twist that the fundamental fault did not lie in the available belief-systems. Pluralism is the version of liberalism which suits moral sociology best. Discourse groups locked up in their own language worlds could continue to exist without attracting much notice in a robust civil society comprised of many well-organised interest groups with a strong sense of their own identity.
