Ideology

Ideology, French philosophic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries that reduced epistemological problems (concerning the nature or grounds of knowledge) to those of psychology (as in the work of Étienne Condillac), before advancing to ethical and political problems. The Idéologues, by analysis of ideas, viewed the simple sensory elements of Condillac’s sensationalism as generating, by successive composition, the totality of the psychic and spiritual sentiments and, finally, of the social, moral, and political sentiments as well. Named by Destutt de Tracy, the movement had as active members the Marquis de Condorcet, Maine de Biran, and Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis.