Since the term ‘Ideology’ and ‘Ideological’ are used in a variety of ways, I shall start by saying something about how I intend to use these terms in this paper and indicate what I understand to be the nature of my remarks about them.

For the purposes of this paper I shall take Marxism, Conservatism, Liberalism and Nationalism to be examples of political ideologies. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list; I could, for example, have included Fascism or National Socialism. It is merely intended to provide me with enough material to make the main points of this paper without becoming too involved in matters of exegesis. It should also be noted that in calling Marxism, Liberalism and the rest ideologies I am not using the term in a pejorative manner. That is, I wish to distinguish at the outset between my thesis and that of those who would argue that in calling a belief, doctrine or argument ideological, we are also condemning it as unreasonable or irrational. My aim is simply to discuss how we can best characterise ideological arguments, by comparing and contrasting them with other kinds of arguments. That said, it ought to be clear that my remarks will be philosophical rather than historical in nature. Though I shall be referring to disputes between ideologists that took place in the past, my interest in them will not be that of the historian. I shall be concerned with their conceptual structure rather than their chronological development.