Rougier treated political ideologies as irrational ‘mystiques’ needing logical critique.

Evidence

As the po liti cal crisis of the early 1930s accelerated, however, Rougier’s attentions began to drift away from neopositivist critiques of theology and toward what he perceived to be contemporary “mystiques,” or doctrines that “one would not know how to demonstrate by reason or to ground in experience, but that one accepts blindly for irrational motives.” He viewed this endeavor as very much connected to his previous philosophical project: an attempt to identify logical fallacies that had permeated the pop u lar imagination, and in doing so to rescue and demarcate the proper spheres of scientifi c inquiry. — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion, 174

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Rougier’s concept of ‘mystiques’ — a term that frames how the MPS milieu understood rival political doctrines as irrational belief systems.