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Origin and history of ideology

ideology(n.)

1796, "science of ideas," originally "philosophy of the mind which derives knowledge from the senses" (as opposed to metaphysics), from French idéologie "study or science of ideas," coined by French philosopher Destutt de Tracy (1754-1836) from idéo- "of ideas," from Greek idea (see idea) + -logie (see -logy). With connective -o- because the elements are Greek and the Greek combining vowel is -o- for nouns of all declensions. Destutt published his Eléments d'idéologie 1801-1815.

The term ideology did not become widely employed in the nineteenth century, however, and I have not found that Emerson ever used it. It was only after the appearance of Karl Marx's long unpublished The German Ideology and Karl Mannheim's Ideology and Utopia in the period between the world wars of the twentieth century that the term became an omnipresent one. [Lewis P. Simpson, "Mind and the American Civil War," 1989]

Meaning "systematic set of ideas, doctrines through which the world is interpreted" was in use in English by 1907, earliest in socialist and communist writing, with reference to class; from 1918 it came to be used of socialism and communism themselves (along with fascism) and later more broadly still.

Ideology ... is usually taken to mean, a prescriptive doctrine that is not supported by rational argument. [D.D. Raphael, "Problems of Political Philosophy," 1970]

also from 1796

Entries linking to ideology

idea(n.)

late 14c., "archetype, concept of a thing in the mind of God," from Latin idea "Platonic idea, archetype," a word in philosophy, the word (Cicero writes it in Greek) and the idea taken from Greek idea "form; the look of a thing; a kind, sort, nature; mode, fashion," in logic, "a class, kind, sort, species," from idein "to see," from PIE *wid-es-ya-, suffixed form of root *weid- "to see."

In Platonic philosophy, "an archetype, or pure immaterial pattern, of which the individual objects in any one natural class are but the imperfect copies, and by participation in which they have their being" [Century Dictionary].

Meaning "mental image or picture" is from 1610s (the Greek word for it was ennoia, originally "act of thinking"), as is the sense "concept of something to be done; concept of what ought to be, differing from what is observed." Sense of "result of thinking" first recorded 1640s.

Idée fixe (1836) is from French, literally "fixed idea." Through Latin the word passed into Dutch, German, Danish as idee, which also is found in English dialects. The philosophical sense has been somewhat further elaborated since 17c. by Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant. Colloquial big idea (as in what's the ...) is from 1908.

ideological(adj.)

1797, from ideology + -ical or from ideologic (from French idéologique) + -al (2). Related: Ideologically.

-logy

word-forming element meaning "a speaking, discourse, treatise, doctrine, theory, science," from Medieval Latin -logia, French -logie, and directly from Greek -logia, from -log-, combining form of legein "to speak, tell;" thus, "the character or deportment of one who speaks or treats of (a certain subject);" from PIE root *leg- (1) "to collect, gather," with derivatives meaning "to speak (to 'pick out words')."

In philology "love of learning; love of words or discourse," apology, doxology, analogy, trilogy, eulogy, etc., Greek logos "word, speech, statement, discourse" is directly concerned.