The central problem of this work is to explore the meaning of Marx's conception of ideology found in The Geman Ideology. I argue that the conception of ideology is as many-faceted and ambiguous as the book. In fact, what one finds are a number of extremely seminal insights regarding the relationship between theories and the socio-economic structure, but no unified, worked-out conception of ideology. Some difficulties in understanding Marx's use of "ideology" can be traced to shifts in his epistemology prior to 1846 and to the motivation for the writing of The German Ideology as a critique of Feuerbach in the context of a general critique of all theorizing (religion, morality, political theory, philosophy) as ideological.;Thus, Marx's conception of ideology is not consistently linked to the more active (Hegelian) conception of consciousness in the Manuscripts and the "Theses," but with Marx's earlier use of the transformative method. The conception of ideology that can be ferreted out from The German Ideology read in this context is that all theories regarding life and society (prior to the communist revolution) are distorted reflections (illusions) of antagonistic social relations. Ideologies are mental products that appear as non-human forces which determine life, but they are reflections in consciousness that compensate for and justify the limited development of productive activity and of social relations. As such, they are the intellectual counterparts of the domination of the ruling class. They are necessary components of production, of history, and of revolutions, but do not have a determining role in the course of that development. Consciousness (theorizing) can only passively reflect social and productive life.;My thesis is that Marx's critique of ideology has its roots in Feuerbach's transformative method of criticizing theology and Hegelian metaphysics to reveal true human essence (species-being) and in a passive, reflective theory of consciousness presupposed by this method. To reveal the links with Feuerbach's epistemology, I trace Marx's relationship to Feuerbach from his Critique of Hegel's "Philosophy of Right" to The German Ideology. A careful, chronological textual analysis of Marx's works (1843-1846) reveals the following: (1) that prior to the "Theses on Feuerbach" Marx identifies his task with Feuerbach's, applying Feuerbach's method to reveal the truth of political and social reform; (2) that actually Marx's use of the transformative method, prior to the "Theses," to reveal the source of human alienation (first in the split between civil society and the State, then in the egoism of civil society, then in the commodity system, then in the oppression of the proletariat, and finally in alienated labor), is inconsistent with the nature of Feuerbach's method and that Marx oscillates regarding the passivity of consciousness or the basis for revolution; (3) that in the "Theses" Marx's criticisms of Feuerbach's materialism are consistent with the rejection of the passivity of consciousness found in the Manuscripts (presupposed by his conception of alienated labor), where Marx actually discovers the secret of Feuerbach's notion of species-being in Hegel's conceptions of labor and the dialectic of history; and (4) that in The German Ideology Marx develops a materialist (passive, reflection) theory of consciousness and a conception of ideology as the inversion of consciousness, both of which represent a re-embracing of the essentials of Feuerbach's epistemology. I argue that this last shift in Marx's epistemology between the "Theses" and The German Ideology is motivated by Marx's need to defend himself against Stirner's criticisms of Feuerbach's idealism and of communism as the imposition of an ideal.
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