Modernioji politinė teorija: tarp mokslo ir ideologijos
Modern Political Theory: Between Science and Ideology

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the article is the analysis of the relationship between modern political theory and ideology. The genesis of modern ideologies is inseparable from the activistic and scientistic stance of modern political philosophy. Attempts to create an explanation of political phenomena that would match the precision of natural sciences and therefore reorganize politics on the basis of such explanations led to the creation of speculative ideological systems. These systems are a paradoxical fusion of philosophical thought and religious relationship with political ideas. The birth of political sciences was inseparable from the belief that scientific study of politics would help to liberate politics from the grip of ideologies that were produced by political philosophers. Today we can see that this belief was unfounded. Contemporary political sciences deny any possibility of finding rational answers to fundamental normative questions in politics. The founding of the modern tradition of political philosophy was inextricable from a very optimistic belief in the omnipotence of reason. Contemporary political theory has reached a very different extremity: political scientists base their research on the assumption that value questions cannot be answered by staying within the realms of science. The paper consists of three parts: in the first part, the main presuppositions of modern political philosophy are analyzed. The affinity between religion and political ideologies is then interpreted in the second part. The last part analyzes the problematic nature of the concept of ideology in contemporary political theory.

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