Het verantwoorde engagement : Filosofie en politiek bij Raymond Aron

Abstract

Raymond Aron - The responsible engagement

Raymond Aron (1905 - 1983) is without any doubt one of the best political observers of the past century. Not only was this French thinker exceedingly acute with regard to his insight into his own age, the choices he made then were, according to current thought, correct. When developing his ideas as a staunch democrat in the nineteen thirties, he refused to stand and watch the decay of the democracies and the menaces threatening these. He studied their vulnerabilities and pondered means to strengthen these regimes.

This study approaches Aron's work by asking the question: 'How is it possible that Aron could have been so right? And in what aspects was he right and on what this is based? The first, obvious reason is that politics and history, which Aron saw as being closely entwined, 'behaved', as it were, just as Aron had outlined. This study, therefore, extensively discusses Aron's vision of history and politics. Aron was an 'animal politique par excellence'. He understood the political game, but did not underestimate the stakes involved. Aron's historical philosophy yielded a methodology by which to study the historical and political reality. He wanted to understand the course of the historical process in which we are all participants and that, at the same time, transcends us all. Aron's philosophy also specifically implies a moral stance, the adoption of values such as truth and freedom prior to the evaluation of political practice. Following the discussion of Aron's historical philosophy, we examine the effects of this on Aron's engagement with his time. The first concerns ideological criticism, which was specifically focussed on Marxism. Marxism was the dominant political philosophy that overshadowed Aron's era. The ideological criticism is the direct consequence of Aron's historical philosophy, which rejects a determinist view of the course of history, as embodied by the Marxist philosophy. By criticizing this philosophy, he laid the foundation which would enable the uniqueness of the course of history in his own age to be better understood. Aron portrayed his own view on contemporary society in his studies on the 'société industrielle', the 'industrial society'. There, he illustrated how the modern societies of his time functioned in economic, social and political respect. Aron assigned a special role to the political aspect. The political aspect is the logical, decisive conclusion of Aron's research into modern industrial societies. The political dimension was given priority in the historical course, as is amply demonstrated by the history of the twentieth century. The political arena offers above all the extra space, the freedom of choice available to us, which Aron sought to utilize. Finally Aron studied international relations. He was the first Frenchman to construct a detailed systematics for these relations. Moreover, he created a doctrine (a praxeology) based on the values and issues so dear to him, according to which these were to be handled. In the last chapter we look back on the significance of Aron's intellectual enterprise, the lessons to be learned from this for politics in general and the significance which his work still holds today.