The concept of ideology has played a central role in modern social, political, and psychological theory as a means of understanding how social reality is symbolically mediated, misrecognized, and sustained. From its early philosophical preconditions in Kant’s critique of reason, through Hegel’s dialectical account of consciousness, Marx’s materialist theory of ideology, and the critical analyses of the Frankfurt School, ideology has increasingly been understood not merely as false belief but as a complex structure binding subjectivity to social power. Ideology plays a role in the constitution of subjectivity, the reproduction of social norms, and the affective and unconscious dimensions of belief.