“Ideology” vs. Metaphysics: Destutt de Tracy and Maine de Biran

The article analyzes one of the episodes of the theoretical confrontation between “ideology” and metaphysics. Particular attention is paid to the fact that the conception of Maine de Biran, the ancestor of French spiritualism of the 19^th century, emerged in the framework of the school of “ideologists” (idéologues) and gradually constituted in discussions with one of its leading representatives. Destut de Tracy, the author of the term “ideology” (idéologie), rejected the possibility of revealing the essence of things due to the inaccessibility of knowledge about their first reasons. For him, metaphysics is the art of imagination, which has no solid support in experience. The basis of all reliable knowledge, in his opinion, is the science of ideas that is alien to metaphysical dogmatism and focused on the description of phenomena. The early Biran takes a similar position, insisting that man knows the nature of any forces only by their consequences. Later, Biran, starting with distinguishing between active and passive perceptions, comes to confrontation with “ideology.” He highlights the doctrine of will-efforts, not reduced to physiological conditions, in which he sees the basis of the human person. In the late period of Biran’s creative activity, the rejection of anti-metaphysical sensualism leads him to a special form of religious anthropology. In fact, in the local confrontation between “ideology” and metaphysical spiritualism, initial success is on the side of the Biran tradition. But the further development of the history of philosophy suggests that the arguments of both sides, in the new conditions, continued to find their supporters, stimulating the emergence of new concepts. Therefore, the theoretical dispute was not completed at all, it continued at a new developmental stage of European culture, and the opposite approaches were perceived for a long time by many philosophers as having not exhausted all their potential.

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