ABSTRACT
Ideology' signifies any one of those intellectualized political doctrines which have become current in the last two centuries. Nationalism, Communism, Populism, and Consciencism would be examples of ideologies in this sense of the term. Marx describes how in 1845 he and Engels settled in Brussels, and 'resolved to work out in common the opposition of our view to the ideological view of German philosophy, in fact, to settle accounts with our erstwhile philosophical conscience'. The connection between ideological commitment and academic self-esteem is sometimes supported by a fallacious identification. Academic criticism is another kind of thing altogether, in both its quality and range. The argument depends, therefore, upon an equivocation in the meaning of 'criticism' and rests upon an undistributed middle term. The academic can only understand them better if he leaves improvement in other hands.
