Abstract
This study consists of three sections. In the first section, the author posits questions regarding Gauchet's way of interpreting history. Some of these questions particularly deal with the gap between the current experience of contemporaries who have taken part in the events and the logic of the historians reconstruction. The second section puts forward considerations concerning Gauchet's changing use of the ideology concept. In the third section, aspects of Carl Schmitt's understanding of politics are confronted with Gauchet s conception of democracy.