Raymond Aron

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Raymond Aron (1966)

Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (born March 14, 1905 in Paris ; † October 17, 1983 there ) was a French philosopher and sociologist . His main areas of work were the philosophy of history and epistemology , the criticism of totalitarianism , the examination of international relations , especially the dialectic of peace and war , and the analysis of modern industrial societies . Aron is considered one of the most important political thinkers of the 20th century, as a representative of a political liberalism in the tradition of Montesquieu and Alexis de Tocqueville .

During his academic career, he worked primarily at the Collège de France and at the elite university École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris .

biography

Raymond Aron was born on March 14, 1905 in Paris, rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, the third son of a middle-class family of Jewish origin. After attending the Lycée of Versailles and the classes préparatoires at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris , he began studying philosophy at the elite university Ecole normal supérieure (ENS) in Paris, which he graduated with the agrégation de philosophie in 1928 .

After he had done his military service, he spent the years 1930 to 1933 in Germany, first until 1931 as a lecturer for French literature at the University of Cologne , then as a scholarship holder of the French Academic House in Berlin. In 1938 Aron received his thesis at the Sorbonne with the essays Introduction à la philosophie de l'histoire: essai sur les limites de l'objectivité historique and Essai sur la théorie de l'histoire dans l'Allemagne contemporaine: La philosophie critique de l'histoire zum doctor d'État . In 1940 he got a position as maître de conférence at the University of Toulouse , but could no longer take it because of the outbreak of war.

After France surrendered, he decided to continue the fight against Hitler's Germany and crossed over to Great Britain. There he did not join a fighting unit of the France libre led by Charles de Gaulle, as he had actually planned , but took over the editing of the movement's journal of the same name. Immediately after the liberation of Paris, Aron returned to France in the summer of 1944. Since he wanted to contribute to the reconstruction of the country and believed that he could only do so in Paris, he did not return to his post at the University of Toulouse and also turned down a position at the University of Bordeaux.

Instead he worked mainly as a journalist in the following years. After a brief interlude at Combat , which was founded by Albert Camus among others , he became an editor-in-chief of the liberal daily Le Figaro in 1947 , for which he wrote until 1977. He was one of the first French intellectuals to speak out in favor of Franco-German understanding during the Cold War, especially in political commentaries by Le Figaro . From 1977 until his death in 1983 he wrote editorials for the news magazine L'Express . Until the mid-fifties, Aron did not manage to get a professorship in Paris. Nevertheless, he taught at the École nationale d'administration and at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris during this time .

It was not until 1955 that he was elected to a professorship in political sociology at the Sorbonne, a choice almost made by a coalition of communists, who were in the majority in some disciplines, such as geography, and sociologists, who were in the Durkheim tradition would have been prevented. In 1960 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . Since 1966 he was an elected member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1970 he became a corresponding member of the British Academy . Aron taught at the Sorbonne until 1968 and then retired to the École pratique des hautes études and later to the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS). There he set up the Center de sociologie européenne and was supported by Pierre Bourdieu as his assistant. Later, however, there was a break between the liberal Aron and the socialist Bourdieu. In 1970 Aron was also appointed to a chair at the Collège de France . He was retired in 1978.

In 1979 he was awarded the Goethe Prize in Frankfurt am Main . Ralf Dahrendorf gave the laudatory speech .

Position in the history of political thought

Even if Aron is generally seen as a political liberal, there is no complete agreement in Aron research as to which tradition he is most likely to be classified in. On the whole, one can make out two schools of Aron's interpretation: the one that sees him primarily as a Kantian or Neo-Kantian thinker who always adhered to the idea of ​​progress, and the one that Aron was more as one of prudence and moderation committed thinker in the tradition of Aristotle understands. The second interpretation, however, is much more widespread, so that Aron can be called a “conservative liberal” in accordance with the majority opinion in research.

Fonts (selection)

  • La sociologie allemande contemporaine, Paris 1935. (The German sociology of the present. A systematic introduction, Stuttgart 1953).
  • Une révolution antiproletarienne: idéologie et réalité du national-socialisme, Inventaires I, Paris 1936.
  • Introduction à la Philosophie de l'Histoire. Essai sur les limites de l'objectivité historique, Paris 1938.
  • Essai sur une théorie de l'histoire dans l'Allemagne contemporaine; la philosophie critique de l'histoire, Paris 1938.
  • The articles de politique internationale dans Le Figaro de 1947 à 1977 . Éditions de Fallois, Paris 1990/97 (edited by Georges-Henri Soutou)
  1. La Guerre Froide. June 1947 to May 1955 . 1990, ISBN 2-87706-101-9 .
  2. La coexistence. May 1955 to février 1965 . 1994, ISBN 2-87706-173-6 .
  3. Les crises. Février 1956 to avril 1977 . 1997, ISBN 2-87706-313-5 .
  • Leçons sur l'histoire. Éditions de Fallois, Paris 1989 (Établissement du texte, présentations et notes par Sylvie Mesure) ISBN 2-253-05689-8 .
    1. De l'historisme allemand à la philosophie analytique de l'histoire.
    2. L'édification du monde historique.
  • Clausewitz, think about war (“Penser la guerre, Clausewitz”). Propylaea publishing house, Frankfurt / M. 1980, ISBN 3-549-07399-2 .
  • De Giscard à Mitterrand. 1977-1983 . Ed. de Fallois, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-87706-570-7 (éditoriaux parus dans l'Express).
  • Democracy and totalitarianism ("Démocratie et totalitarisme"). Wegner, Hamburg 1970, ISBN 3-8032-0002-4 .
  • Knowledge and responsibility. Life memories ("Mémoires"). Piper, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-492-02899-3 .
  • Endless progress? About the future of industrial society (“Progress and disillusion”). Goldmann, Munich 1973, ISBN 3-442-02999-6 .
  • Peace and war. A theory d. World of states (“Paix et guerre entre les nations”). Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1986, ISBN 3-10-001004-3 .
  • Main currents of classical sociological thought. Montesquieu, Comte, Marx, Tocqueville ("Les étapes de la pensée sociologique"). Reinbek, Rowohlt 1979, ISBN 3-499-55386-4 (Rowohlt's German Encyclopedia; 386)
  • Mainstreams of Modern Sociological Thought. Durkheim, Pareto, Weber ("Les étapes de la pensée sociologique"). Reinbek, Rowohlt 1979, ISBN 3-499-55387-2 (Rowohlt's German Encyclopedia; 387)
  • The industrial society. 18 lectures (“Dix-huit Leçons sur la société industrial”). Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 1964.
  • About the freedoms. Essay. Ullstein book no. 39087. Klett-Cotta in Ullstein Taschenbuch, Frankfurt / Main - Berlin - Vienna, 1984, ISBN 3-548-39087-0 (Orig. French: Essai sur les libertes. Calmann-Levy, 1965 / ext Librairie Generale Francaise, 1976).
  • The last years of the century ("Les dernières années du siècle"). DVA, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-421-06308-7 .
  • Opium for intellectuals or The Search for Weltanschauung ("L'opium des intellectuels"). Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1957. (See also: Riccardo Bavaj: Ideologierausch und Realitätblindheit. Raymond Aron's criticism of the “French type” intellectual , in: Zeithistorische Forschungen / Studies in Contemporary History 5 (2008), pp. 332–338.)
  • About Germany and National Socialism. Early Political Writings 1930–1939 . Leske & Budrich, Opladen 1993, ISBN 3-8100-1084-7 (edited by Joachim Stark).

literature

  • Brian C. Anderson: Raymond Aron. The Recovery of the Political . Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Md. 1998, ISBN 0-8476-8758-9 .
  • Nicolas Baverez: Raymond Aron. Un moraliste au temps des idéologies . Perrin, Paris 1993, ISBN 978-2-262-02551-9 .
  • Robert Colquhoun: Raymond Aron . Sage Publ., London 1986
  1. The Philosopher in History 1905-1955 , ISBN 0-8039-9739-6
  2. The Sociologist in Society 1955-1983 , ISBN 0-8039-9741-8
  • Gaston Fessard: La philosophie historique de Raymond Aron . Julliard, Paris 1980, ISBN 2-260-00223-4
  • Stephen Launay: La pensée politique de Raymond Aron . Presses Univ. de France, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-13-047062-9 .
  • Daniel J. Mahoney: The Liberal Political Science of Raymond Aron. A Critical Introduction . Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Md. 1992, ISBN 0-8476-7715-X .
  • Jean-Louis Missika and Dominique Wolton (Eds.): Raymond Aron. The dedicated observer. Conversations with Jean-Louis Missika and Dominique Wolton . Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1983. ISBN 3-608-93003-5
  • Matthias Oppermann: Raymond Aron and the Suez Crisis . In: Francia. Research on West European History 34, 3 (2007), pp. 63–75.
  • Matthias Oppermann: Raymond Aron and the defense of freedom . In: The Political Opinion. Monthly magazine on questions of time 52, 454 (2007), pp. 63–68.
  • Matthias Oppermann: Raymond Aron and Germany. The defense of freedom and the problem of totalitarianism . Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2008, ISBN 978-3-7995-7294-1 .
  • Matthias Oppermann (Ed.), In the fight against modern tyrannies. A Raymond Aron breviary . Book publisher Neue Zürcher Zeitung , Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-03823-714-3 .
  • Joachim Stark: Raymond Aron (1905–1983) . In: Dirk Kaesler (Ed.): From Talcott Parsons to Anthony Giddens (Classics of Sociology; Vol. 2). 5th, revised and updated edition. Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-42089-4 , pp. 105-129.
  • Joachim Stark: The unfinished adventure. History, society and politics in the work of Raymond Aron . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1986, ISBN 3-88479-279-2 .
  • Mario Vargas Llosa: The Call of the Horde. Suhrkamp Frankfurt a. M. 2019
  • Evelyn Völkel: The totalitarian state - the product of a secular religion ?. The early writings of Frederick A. Voigt, Eric Voegelin and Raymond Aron and the totalitarian reality in the Third Reich (= extremism and democracy . Vol. 18). Nomos, Baden-Baden 2009, ISBN 978-3-8329-3806-2 .

Web links

Commons : Raymond Aron  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
Wikibooks: Raymond Aron  - learning and teaching materials

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See M. Oppermann, Raymond Aron and Germany, Ostfildern 2008, p. 569.
  2. ↑ See Nicolas Baverez, Raymond Aron. Un moraliste au temps des idéologies, Paris 1993, pp. 289f.
  3. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed April 30, 2020 .
  4. ↑ See Philippe Raynaud, Raymond Aron et le jugement politique entre Aristote et Kant, in: Christian Bachelier / Elisabeth Dutartre (ed.), Raymond Aron et la liberté politique, Paris 2002, p. 123.
  5. ↑ See above all Daniel J. Mahoney, Raymond Aron's Model of Democratic Conservatism, in: ders., The Conservative Foundations of the Liberal Order, Wilmington 2010, pp. 161-183.
personal data
SURNAME Aron, Raymond
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aron, Raymond Claude Ferdinand; Avord, René (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French political scientist, sociologist and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH 17th October 1983
Place of death Paris