In the history of ideas the word 'ideology' has been given a variety of different meanings. Those various different meanings attributed to the word can be divided into two main groups: the negative and positive ones. The ideology as defined to be "fal...
In the history of ideas the word 'ideology' has been given a variety of different meanings. Those various different meanings attributed to the word can be divided into two main groups: the negative and positive ones. The ideology as defined to be "false consciousness" or class consciousness conditioned by a particular social group belongs to the former, and the ideology as taken to be synonymous with Weltanschauung to the latter.
Since the discourse on the ideology in the former sense has so often been delivered and, accordingly, has become one of the most popular and hackneyed subjects, the present study, confining its attention only to the ideology in the latter sense, put a special emphasis on the relation between ideology and science.
The main stream of philosophy of science in the first half of this century was formed by the so-called L'ogical Positivism' or 'Logical Empiricism'. Logical positivism can be characterized in terms of its heavy reliance on mathematical logic for formulating and dealing with its problems. Scientific theories were to be conceived, according to logical positivism, as being axiomatic systems, and their connection with experience was to be achieved by Correspondence Rules. One of the main results of this view of science is that there is no logic of discovery and that there should be no tint of subjective elements in scientific theories, since they are axiomatic systems formulated with precise rules and grammer.
In the past two or three decades, however, a new movement has occurred in the area of philosophy of science. A series of similar views has been advanced against the Received View of logical positivism. Some of them tured to a radically new, non-positivistic approach to the problems of philosophy of science. This is particularly the case with the so-called 'Weltanschauung analysis' represented by such contemporary scholors as T. Kuhn, N.R. Hanson, P. feyerabend, etc.
The general discussion about the relation between ideology and scientific activities was given in Chapter Ⅱ; chapter Ⅲ was concerned with logical positivist's anti-ideological view of science; and finally, in Chapter Ⅳ the major feature of Weltanschauung analysis as an alternative to the Received View has been considered.