Political Practice And Intervention On Mind

In recent years, concerns on Louis Althusser continue to heat up and new theoretical researches are coming up. But through all these works we still can't grasp the spirit of Althusser's theory. In this dissertation, I conducted a new attempt to give a new interpretation of Althusser from the perspective of political practice in order to find the most important point of this great philosopher. I find a special clue of political practice in Althusser's theory. Along this train of thought I submit that whether the theory of "epistemological break" or "symptomatic reading", or "anti-humanism in theory", or "ideological State Apparatus", these are all organized by political practice. I think there are three important practices of theory in Althusser's theory. The first one is to wake up those people who were shaped by the ideological belief systems but were in a mood of unconscious. He tried to make them be conscious of their political situation. The second one is to build up a scientific theory, with which we could take the advantage position in the process of fighting with the ruling ideology. The third one is to make a combination between scientific theory and ideology. Through this we will find another form of shaping and calling, which promote the growth of the revolutionary forces and speed up the end of class rules.I divided the dissertation into four chapters. Chapter One focuses on Althusser's changes in historical view, which play an important role in his whole theory. In my point of view, Althusser analized historical view, historical law and historical subject, and then draw a line with the mainstream ideology theory of history. By this way he released the independence and initiative of the political and ideological factors from a social structure:At the same time he opened a new space for understanding and practice of political activities.Chapter Two focuses on revealing inner mechanism of cognitive process in political practice. I take a discussion about ideological intervention and how a subject of cognition becoming a subject of politics. Althusser's thought that the subject in the political activities is not an inborn subject by nature; instead, it is a subject which was being shaped by ideology. So we should recognize the intervention effect of ideology and be on guard against it, and then try to escape from the fate of the unconscious.In Chapter Three, I take a retrospective approach to the ideological system and attempt to find out the theoretical and philosophical support. Althusser pointed out, in political practice ideologies became a widely accepted "truth" system and occupied the dominant position of theory in need of political. By this way, he revealed the truth and legitimacy which ideology had gain.Chapter Four is to discuss the problem of how to comprehend the intervention which scientific theory carrying out on the political practice. I attempt to resolve some important theoretical issues such as how to competition for leadership in theory, how to threw off the chains of the ruling ideology, how to find the revolution time under the rule of bourgeois. We would find that Althusser endeavour to develop a material force through the philosophy struggle of scientific theory and made it play the part of practice which could change the history.