What Role Do Presuppositions Have in Ideology?

I was reading a friend’s status update on Facebook (which, as you know, is where all good thoughts come from) that involved being on the “left”, “right” or “middle”.  This tugged at a thought I have not thought much about.  Specifically, how ideologies are formed and their impact on thinking.

I do not want to say that ideologies are necessarily a bad thing.  After all, it seems that once one has a reasonably fully thought out system of values and beliefs, one has an ideology.  On the other hand, one does not want to go full hog on an ideology as well.  For, the inference that a thought cannot be right because it conflicts with one’s ideology is a bad inference.  Systems of thought must be flexible enough to change given new, or perhaps unnoticed, evidence.

This has applications in the philosophical world as well.  It can be argued that, for example, epistemic internalism and epistemic externalism are held as an ideology.  For a further example, that, say, Virtue theory, or Utilitarianism, are held as a result of some kind of ideology.  The questions remain, “where do these ideologies come from?” and “how do they affect philosophizing?”


Since an ideology is a result of some kind of process of thought, I tend to think that the ideology is not a “given”.  That is, one is not born an epistemic internalist.  On the other hand, it seems that ideologies are not something one changes easily either.  This is not to say that this does not happen.  As far as political ideologies are concerned, I have known an extreme Republican become an extreme Democrat over the course of a year (which is not that long a time, really).  Ideology is not a given, nor does an ideology change overnight.  Since it is not a given and it does not happen overnight, my suspicion is that one begins with a set of values (however those are formed) or some other kind of presupposition and attempts, perhaps through reason perhaps through bare intuition, to find those rules of conduct or statements about what is real that best fits with those values.  For example, a philosopher friend of mine once said, “Any ontology that does not include my own existence must be rejected.”  I do not find this to be controversial, but there are definitely ontologies (including perhaps Buddhism) that deny this.  I tend to think that this is a version of an ideology.

I have proffered a (very brief) account of how an ideology is formed and how it affects philosophy.  Namely, that an ideology is formed based on the basic values that one has and is used to reject some or another philosophy or presupposition because they are contrary.  I have heretofore avoided the very sticky question of what an ideology is.  The Oxford American Dictionary gives two definitions: “a system of ideas and ideals, esp. one that forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy” and (archaic) “the science of ideas; the story of their origin and nature”.  I think this can be applied to philosophy as well: “a system of ideas and ideals that form the basis for a philosophical theory”.  Let us just stick with this definition for the moment.  However, I welcome alternate definitions in the comments.

The definition of an ideology contains how it affects philosophy, viz., it forms the basis for a philosophical theory.  Thus far, we have answered the two questions given above the fold.  A further and more interesting question remains.  Should ideologies affect philosophizing?  Suppose the answer is “yes”.  Then it seems philosophers will be mired in philosophical disagreement until the end of the era of humanity, for disagreements have accompanied philosophy as long as there has been at least more than one philosopher (sometimes you don’t need even that many).  This seems like a sad face result.  Suppose the answer is “no”.  One wonders what we are supposed to use to begin with.

Please add your comments to the fold.