Louis Althusser
Schools, churches and media quietly shape us into subjects who accept the social order – ideology works by addressing us before we can choose.
Placement
Structural Marxism: ideological state apparatuses form subjects through “interpellation.”
Key ideas
- Ideological state apparatuses
- Interpellation
- Epistemological break
Teachers: Gaston Bachelard
Students: Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Paulin Hountondji, Souleymane Bachir Diagne
Influence
Influenced by 6
Baruch de Spinoza
influenced by ✓
Althusser drew on Spinoza for his concept of structural causality and said of himself and his circle ‘we were Spinozists’ (Elements of Self-Criticism, 1974). L. Althusser, Lire le Capital (1965); Éléments d’autocritique (1974); SEP “Louis Althusser”
Baruch de Spinoza › 1632–1677
Karl Marx
influenced by ✓
Althusser read Marx against humanist interpretations, claiming an ‘epistemological break’ around 1845 between the young Marx of alienation and the science of Capital (For Marx, 1965). L. Althusser, Pour Marx (1965); Lire le Capital (1965); SEP “Louis Althusser”
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Gaston Bachelard studied with
studied with ✓
Althusser obtained his diplôme d’études supérieures in 1947 for a study of content in Hegel’s thought directed by Bachelard; Bachelard’s idea of a break between ideological and scientific concepts later shaped his ‘epistemological break’ in Marx. SEP “Louis Althusser”; L. Althusser, “Du contenu dans la pensée de G. W. F. Hegel” (1947), in Écrits philosophiques et politiques I (1994)
Evidence: AI draft
Gaston Bachelard › 1884–1962
Antonio Gramsci
influenced by ✓
In ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’ (1970) Althusser credited Gramsci with seeing that the state includes institutions of civil society, though Reading Capital (1965) rejected his historicism. L. Althusser, “Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d’État”, La Pensée (1970); Lire le Capital (1965), “Le marxisme n’est pas un historicisme”
Antonio Gramsci › 1891–1937
Jacques Lacan
influenced by
Althusser took up Lacan’s return to Freud (‘Freud and Lacan’, 1964) and modelled ideology’s imaginary relation of individuals to their conditions on Lacan’s mirror stage (1970). L. Althusser, “Freud et Lacan”, La Nouvelle Critique (1964); “Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d’État” (1970); SEP “Louis Althusser”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Jacques Lacan › 1901–1981
Georges Canguilhem
influenced by ✓
Althusser cited Canguilhem, with Bachelard and Cavaillès, as a model for reading Marx’s science through its concepts and problematics rather than as a continuous progress (Reading Capital, 1965). L. Althusser et al., Lire le Capital (1965); SEP “Louis Althusser”
Georges Canguilhem › 1904–1995
Influenced 7
Michel Foucault taught
taught ✓
Foucault was a student at the École normale supérieure when Althusser became its philosophy tutor (agrégé-répétiteur, ‘caïman’) in 1948 and prepared for the agrégation (1951) under him; under Althusser’s influence he joined the Communist Party in 1950 and left it in 1953. D. Eribon, Michel Foucault (1989); SEP “Louis Althusser”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Michel Foucault › 1926–1984
Jacques Derrida taught
taught ✓
Derrida entered the École normale supérieure in 1952 and prepared the agrégation under Althusser as philosophy tutor (caïman); he passed in 1956 at the second attempt and from 1964 taught at the École alongside Althusser. B. Peeters, Derrida (2010)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Jacques Derrida › 1930–2004
Nicos Poulantzas
influenced ✓
Poulantzas built on Althusser’s structural Marxism, treating the state as a relatively autonomous level of the social formation (Political Power and Social Classes, 1968). N. Poulantzas, Pouvoir politique et classes sociales (1968); L. Althusser, Pour Marx (1965); SEP “Louis Althusser”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Nicos Poulantzas › 1936–1979
Paulin Hountondji taught
taught
When Hountondji entered the École normale supérieure in 1963, Althusser, then philosophy tutor (caïman), set him a 48-hour essay to decide whether he should prepare the agrégation in philosophy; Hountondji later linked his disappointment with Tempels’ Bantu Philosophy partly to Althusser’s warning against ideology. P. J. Hountondji, “My Experience with Paul Ricœur”, Études Ricœuriennes / Ricœur Studies 12:1 (2021), 50–59
Evidence: AI draft
Paulin Hountondji › 1942–2024
Slavoj Žižek
influenced ✓
Žižek took up Althusser’s theory of ideology as interpellation and material ritual, arguing that interpellation never fully succeeds (The Sublime Object of Ideology, 1989). S. Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989); L. Althusser, “Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d’État” (1970)
Slavoj Žižek › b. 1949
Souleymane Bachir Diagne taught
taught ✓
Diagne trained at the École normale supérieure in the late 1970s (agrégation 1978); he recalls Althusser’s lectures there, among them one on the notion of beginning, applied to Marx. S. B. Diagne, interview with C. Fowler, In the Foreground (podcast, Clark Art Institute, 2021)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Souleymane Bachir Diagne › b. 1955
Judith Butler
influenced
Butler took up Althusser’s interpellation and asked why the hailed subject turns round, finding a passionate attachment to subjection (The Psychic Life of Power, 1997). J. Butler, The Psychic Life of Power (1997); L. Althusser, “Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d’État” (1970); SEP “Louis Althusser”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Judith Butler › b. 1956
Criticism
Criticized by 2
Leszek Kołakowski
criticised by
Kołakowski concluded that Althusser’s reading of Marx reduces to commonplaces in new verbal disguise, traditional Marxist tenets repeated without explanation, or wrong historical judgements (‘Althusser’s Marx’, 1971). L. Kołakowski, “Althusser’s Marx”, The Socialist Register 8 (1971), conclusion (quoted in P. Walker’s review, International Socialism 50, 1972); Main Currents of Marxism III (1978)
Evidence: AI draft
Leszek Kołakowski › 1927–2009
Stuart Hall influenced
influenced
Hall took from Althusser the relative autonomy of ideology and overdetermination, and counted structuralism, beside culturalism, as one of the two paradigms of cultural studies (1980). S. Hall, “Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms”, Media, Culture and Society 2 (1980); L. Althusser, Pour Marx (1965); SEP “Louis Althusser”
Evidence: AI draft
criticised by
Hall valued Althusser’s theory of ideology but objected that it explains reproduction too functionally, leaving no room for contradiction and struggle (‘Signification, Representation, Ideology’, 1985). S. Hall, “Signification, Representation, Ideology: Althusser and the Post-Structuralist Debates”, Critical Studies in Mass Communication 2 (1985), 91–114
Evidence: AI draft
Stuart Hall › 1932–2014
Criticizes 1
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
criticised
Althusser denied that Marx merely inverted Hegel’s dialectic, contrasting Hegel’s simple contradiction and expressive totality with an overdetermined, structured whole (‘Contradiction and Overdetermination’, 1962). L. Althusser, “Contradiction et surdétermination” (1962), in Pour Marx (1965); SEP “Louis Althusser”
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
Works
- 1965For Marx
The epistemological break between the young and the mature Marx.
“Hey, you there!” – how ideology interpellates individuals as subjects.
Position
Althusser read Marx against humanist interpretations. He claimed an “epistemological break” separates the young Marx, still speaking of alienation and human essence, from the mature scientific Marx of Capital. History, for him, is a “process without a subject”, structured by interlocking economic, political and ideological levels. His most influential idea concerns ideology: it is not simply false consciousness but material practices in schools, churches, family and media – the ideological state apparatuses. Ideology “interpellates” individuals as subjects, like a policeman calling “Hey, you there!”, and in turning around we become who we are supposed to be. This shaped structuralism, cultural studies and film theory.
Life & context
Born in Algeria, Althusser spent most of the Second World War in a German prisoner-of-war camp. For decades he taught at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where Foucault, Derrida and Balibar were among those around him, and was a member of the French Communist Party. In 1980, in their flat at the École normale supérieure, he strangled his wife, the sociologist and former Resistance member Hélène Rytmann; on grounds of mental illness he was declared unfit to stand trial.
Further main works
- Reading Capital, with Balibar and others (1965)
- The Future Lasts Forever (1992)
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