“IDEOLOGY” AS A SYSTEM: DESTUTT DE TRACY
The paper analyzes the philosophical system within which the term “ideology” was first used. The focus of de Tracy’s philosophical project, his desire to give economics, morality, politics an epistemological rationale, his interpretation of the formation of ideas science as a “first philosophy” are revealed. De Tracy’s system is a rethinking of the theoretical attitudes of the Enlightenment in contexts of revolution, consulate and empire. Like his great predecessors, he shared the theory of progress, anticlericalism, hatred of despotism and prejudices. But he refuses to see the teaching of a social contract as the basis of future political life. Revolutionary terror encourages him to forget the influential idea of the 18th century. At the same time, the idea of representative rule based on the Constitution was connected to the revolution for him. De Tracy’s political liberalism is associated with the development of this idea, with his desire to give it complete, consistent form.