Ideology and Social Science

This paper constitutes one of the early chapters of a study which deals with the fundamental structural features of the various forms of ideology-from religious and moral discourse to politics and to art-taken individually as well as in their manifold interconnections; with the material and social conditions and mechanisms that determine the emergence and subtle transformations of particular ideologies; with the complex instruments and institutions required to secure the more or less enduring impact of ideological systems; and, last but not least, with the intricate relationship between ideology and social science considered both as specific modes of discourse and as determinate social complexes which fulfill a multiplicity of important functions in the global framework of social practice.