ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the intimate connection between the notion of 'idolatry' and a concept in more current use, that of 'ideology'. It also examines certain central problems in the theory of ideology and shows how they are illuminated by a study of the connection between 'ideology' and 'idolatry'. The chapter argues that the opposition between 'ideology' and 'materialism' may be misleading in so far as it is premised upon a materialism conceived of as absolute disenchantment. The counterweight to ideology is provided by Paul de Man's claim to have uncovered what he calls 'Immanuel Kant's materialism'; and that his argument becomes still more innovative. If Karl Marx is right to understand ideology as a form of disenchantment, there may be a difficulty in understanding materialism and ideology as necessarily opposed polarities. It is often just where materialism is most zealously and literally pursued that its involuntary kinship with idealism is most in evidence.
