EVELYN GRÖBL-STEINBACH SCHUSTER
Probleme der Ideologiekritik
Criticism of ideologies tries to lead the social participants to an adequate knowledge about society and themselves, so it may imply the problem of adopting a paternalistic attitude. It presupposes a superior epistemic position in relation to this one of the members of society. They are seen as not autonomous and unable to recognize the world and the society as they are. Some types of criticism of ideologies do not only try to improve the knowledge of the social participants but intend to help them in getting correct insights in a right social order and their own interests.
There are two different types of criticism of ideologies. One of them focuses only the illusive opinions of the social participants, the other one focuses the wrong organization of society as the main reason for adopting illusive opinions. This type has to criticize the whole society in order to conceptualize the idea of ideology.
Both types try to replace the everyday knowledge of the social participants by some kinds of better knowledge. So the paper deals with the question which kind of knowledge has to be claimed by the second type of criticism, because criticizing society would need the epistemic position of interested social participants in action driven by values and interests, but not theories.