Science and Ideology Revisited: Necessity, Contingency and the Critique of Ideologies in Meillassoux and Malabou

Political thought influenced by post-structuralism rarely invokes ideology critique as a meaningful category of analysis, criticizing the structuralist attribution of contingency and necessity to, respectively, ideology and science. This article will challenge this position utilising recent philosophical considerations of necessity and contingency that rehabilitate ideology critique. Drawing on scientific materials, both Quentin Meillassoux and Catherine Malabou develop a form of necessity inhabited by contingency. It will be argued that this work allows a reconsideration of the usefulness of science for ideology critique in a manner that doesn't rely on an attribution of scientific necessity to the politics of the critic.