Social pathologies and ideologies in light of Jürgen Habermas: a new interpretation of the thesis of colonisation

Abstract This paper analyses the role that the critique of ideologies plays within Jürgen Habermas’ Critical Theory. I offer a reinterpretation of the thesis of colonisation of lifeworld in light of a specific reading of the critique of ideologies, trying to show that this thesis can be interpreted as a case of critique of ideologies. To do so, I firstly present a brief general map of the different forms of social critique present today in social philosophy by placing special emphasis on the critique of ideologies. Secondly, I briefly state Habermas’ diagnosis on the colonisation of lifeworld by differentiating the two levels of critique which are, in my view, contained within the theory of communicative action: critique as the discursive redemption of validity claims by participants and critique as an observer’s social diagnosis. Lastly, I confront these two levels of critique with the form of critique of ideologies analysed in the first point and conclude that we can refer to the second level as a case of a critique of ideologies.