Empiricism that rejects transitive concepts commits itself to false consciousness

Evidence

Moreover, this concept is impeccable in its semantic exactness because it means exactly what it says—namely, that it is really the electorate which imposes its directives on the representatives, and not the representatives who impose their directives on the electorate which then selects and re-elects the representatives. An autonomous electorate, free because it is free from indoctrination and manipulation, would indeed be on a “level of articulate opinion and ideology” which is not likely to be found. Therefore, the concept has to be rejected as “unrealistic”—has to be if one accepts the factually prevailing level of opinion and ideology as prescribing the valid criteria for sociological analysis. And if indoctrination and manipulation have reached the stage where the prevailing level of opinion has become a level of falsehood, where the actual state of affairs is no longer recognized as that which it is, then an analysis which is methodologically committed to reject transitive concepts commits itself to a false consciousness. Its very empiricism is ideological. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 457

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out the full meaning of ‘false consciousness’ in the methodological register — as a commitment of empiricism itself, not just of the populace.
• SEED: Angles toward an essay: ‘The Ideology of Method’ — how the demand for methodological neutrality in social science quietly endorses the status quo it surveys.
• XREF: Connects to critiques of presentism in the reader’s other reading; also parallels how ‘measured attention’ metrics pre-judge what attention is worth. — connects to: Behaviorist accounts of persons fail by omitting their transcendence-transcended principle; Pure empiricism in criticism is a contradiction in terms — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 1451; False consciousness makes people hold beliefs contrary to their own interests (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• False consciousness makes people hold beliefs contrary to their own interests #expands (0.85)
• Positivist philosophy imposes an empirical a priori that cannot be transcended #complicates (0.80) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 671