Abstract

Boudon begins this work by posing the issue of ideology in Weberian terms. "The explanation of any social phenomenon has to start by reducing it to the individual behavior patterns which gave rise to it, and moreover these behavior patterns have to be regarded as rational.... [O]nly if this kind of explanation fails can irrational elements be introduced into the description of the behaviour patterns of social actors." The problem of ideology arises when one realizes that ideological positions seem to be largely irrational. Boudon shows in what ways one can consider an ideology to be rational, that is, subject to the same truth conditions as any scientific statement.