Between Philosophical Criticism and Ideological Apologetics (on the Levels of Existence of Human Ideas)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of the correlation of Philosophy and Ideol­ogy. The deep opposition of these two phenomena is that Philosophy is critical thinking, while Ideology is apologetic consciousness. Ideologies are also sa­turated with critical invectives against opponents, but this criticism is only a preparatory action before the main act of ideology – the postulation of one’s own indisputability. The declaration of absolute truth is the credo of an Ideolo­gist, not a Philosopher, who understands the unattainability of absolute truth. There are three levels of existence of human ideas. The first is the actual Ideas, breakthrough guesses; this is a personalized level, where each idea is marked by the author. The second level is the space of ideologems, ideological constructions that still retain the memory of their personal authorship, but have already over­grown with a “party” shell. Ideologems are clusters of not creative-authorial, but already secondary, relaying consciousness; these are “ideas – passwords” by which corporations are self-determined and delimited in the public space. Fi­nally, the third level of the existence of ideas is Ideologies, firmly fixed ideologi­cal complexes that have indisputable dogmatics. Ideologies are the final station of the path from “love of truth” to “will to power”.