The ideologue movement and the project of Elements of Ideology by Destutt de Tracy: an introduction
Keywords:
Destutt de Tracy; ideology; republicanism.Abstract
The ideologue movement has been neglected within the history of philosophy. This article aims to fill, even if partially, this gap. To this end, firstly, we offer a contextualization of the ideologue movement and its relationship with encyclopedism and the philosophes. Secondly, we turn to the first generation of ideologues, establishing the background of the discussions of the revolutionary era. Thirdly, we point out some of the central ideas present in Destutt de Tracy's work, Elements of Ideology. We conclude with a reflection on the importance of recovering the principles and method of good thinking present in Tracy's work for today.
Downloads
References
BOYER, Henry. ”L’unilinguisme français contre le changement sociolinguistique, em Travaux neuchâtelois de linguistique, 2001, 34/35, 383-392
CONDILLAC, Etienne Bonnot De. Traité des sensations. Augmenté de l’extrait raisonné du Traité des sensations. In: Œuvres de Condillac, revues et corrigées par l’auteur. Paris: Ch. Houel, 1798.
DESTUTT DE TRACY, Antoine-Louis-Claude. "Mémoire sur la Faculté de penser". In: Mémoires de l’Institut national des sciences et arts, Classe de Sciences morales et politiques, 1 : 324-26. Paris : Baudouin, an VI.
________________. Éléments d’idéologie. Idéologie proprement dite. Paris: Mme V. Courcier, 1817.
GUSDORF, Georges. La conscience révolutionnaire: les idéologues. Paris: Payot, 1978.
JAURÈS, Jean Jaurès. Histoire socialiste. Paris: Rouff, 1901-1902
KENNEDY, Emmett. A Philosophe in the Age of revolution. Destutt de Tracy and the Origins of ‘Ideology’. Philadelphia : The American Philosophical Society, 1978.
MORAVIA, Sergio. Dall’“Homme-machine” all’“Homme sensible”. Meccanismo, animismo e vitalismo nel secolo XVIII. Belfagor 29, n° 6, (1974) : 633-647.
MORAVIA, Sergio. Il pensiero degli Idéologues. Firenze : La nuova Italia, 1974.
PICAVET, Fr. Les Idéologues - Essai sur l’histoire des idées et des théories scientifiques, philosophiques, religieuses, etc en France depuis 1789, 1891.
TIRAN, André. Les idéologues, la Décade philosophique politique et littéraire et Jean Baptiste Say, Journal of Interdisciplinary History of Ideas 9 (2020), 17, p. 4:1–4:58.
WARMAN, Caroline. The Atheist’s Bible: Diderot’s Éléments de physiologie. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2020.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Marta Nunes da Costa
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish in this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain the copyright and grant the journal the right to first publication, with the work simultaneously licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License in the "Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International" (CC BY-NC 4.0) modality that allows sharing of the work with acknowledgment of authorship and initial publication in this magazine.
- Authors are authorized to assume additional contracts separately, for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in this journal (eg, publishing in institutional repository or as a book chapter), with acknowledgment of authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are allowed and encouraged to publish and distribute their work online (eg in institutional repositories or on their personal page) at any point before or during the editorial process, as this can generate productive changes, as well as increase impact and citation of the published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- Any doubts or complaints about copyright must be directed to the Editorial Board or qualify and express themselves in accordance with the guidelines of the Committee on Publications Ethics (COPE).
