Ideology and History: on Some Theoretical Aspects of the Analysis of Intellectual Collisions of the 20th Century

In modern socio-political and humanitarian sciences, the stable connection between the dynamics of the evolution of ideological systems and world history has virtually never been questioned. The underlying reason for this relationship is rooted in the particular psychology and behavior of homo sapiens. It was in the 20th century, in the process of further evolution of the three main ideological trends — conservatism, liberalism and socialism, which actively influenced political processes, that the nature of the perception of ideology in the public consciousness and science began to change radically, clearly indicating that, in contrast to the ancient Greek historical tradition, the ideological continuum, which finally took shape in the era of modernity, will most likely never “come to an end” (A. Toynbee). The primary objective of the article is to attempt to explore some of the most promising areas of debate around the problem of the status of the concept of “ideology” in contemporary political theory, as well as to identify the significance of the ideological legacy of the twentieth century for the analysis of very specific and complex issues, the formulation and solution of which largely determine the general configuration of contemporary world political culture. The methodological basis of the work is Clifford Geertz’s paradoxical characterization of the problem of the place and role of the concept of “ideology” in the intellectual history of the twentieth century. The meaning of the paradox is that it was precisely during this historical period that “the very term “ideology” became completely ideologized”. A typical example of the formation of the process of “ideologization of ideology” is the criticism by the British political theorist M. Freeden of the concept of the “topology of ideologies” developed by the American philosopher R. Geuss. The central point of Freeden’s program is the “rehabilitation of ideology as a social phenomenon and as an analytical tool” and its transformation “from a simple class or mass phenomenon into a general characteristic of political thinking”. In the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries, the center of theoretical discussion shifted sharply toward debates around the theory of “essentially contested concepts”, developed by W. B. Gallie back in the mid-1950s, and his historical methodology for analyzing the “deep conservatism” of universal philosophical concepts and ideological constructs. Direct confirmation of this tendency is the attempt to revise this theory by J. Kekes, which testifies to the possibility of reinterpreting Galli’s ideas from the standpoint of conservative political philosophy. The results of theoretical discussions, associated with a variety of ideological collisions, indicate that within the framework of a general philosophical approach, we can talk about completely equivalent ways of interpreting ideologies, each of which is legitimate and, ultimately, cannot be refuted by rational arguments. In this regard, W. B. Gallie’s arguments are practically invulnerable. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.