ABSTRACT
Raymond Geuss is a philosopher who teaches in the Faculty of Social and Political Science at the University of Cambridge. His major work, The Idea of a Critical Theory (1981), is largely devoted to a critique of the Frankfurt School, but it contains some suggestive reflections on the concept of ideology in general. In particular, Geuss distinguishes between what he terms ‘descriptive’, ‘pejorative’ and ‘positive’ meanings of ideology, along with a distinction between ‘epistemic’, ‘functional’ and ‘genetic’ types of ideological distortion. A body of ideological beliefs may be actually untrue; or they may be true, but functional for the maintenance of some unjust political power; or they may spring from some discreditable political motive of which those who hold the beliefs are unaware. His book contains much interesting material on such key issues in the theory of ideology as rationalisation, self-deception and the relation of beliefs and desires.
