Ideology as Relativized A Priori: On the Mind’s Relation to the Social World
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: We propose an account of the subject’s cognition and its relation to the world that allows for an articulation of the phenomenon of ideology. We argue that ideology is a form of what we call ‘a priori activity’: it transcendentally conditions the intelligibility of thought and practice. But we draw from strands of post-Kantian philosophy of science and social philosophy in repudiating Kant’s view that the a priori is necessary and fixed. Instead, we relativize the a priori: we argue that it is contingent, and therefore revisable. More precisely, it is conditioned materially, in that it is enmeshed with and shaped by material social practice. We conclude with some remarks about the possibility of agency over the relativized, materially conditioned a priori—that is, about the possibility of critique.
Source: Political Philosophy
DOI: 10.16995/pp.16337
Authors: Sabina Vaccarino Bremner, Chloé de Canson
Institutions: University of Pennsylvania, University of Groningen
Language: English
Topic: Marxism and Critical Theory
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4405308202