This article presents an analysis of Raymond Aron's sociological conception of 'industrial society', with an emphasis on the idea of the 'primacy of politics'. The discussion of Aron's conceptual and empirical treatment of 'industrial society' is based on an analysis of a selection of his major works. The author explains in what sense this is a genuinely sociological conception and to what degree it is inspired by classical political philosophy. He identifies where Aron departed from the theory of the convergence of capitalist and communist political systems and shows how Aron's conception of industrial society contradicted the central tenets of both classical and official Soviet Marxism. In the article, Aron's conception of industrial society is examined within the context of various strands of comparative political sociology. The author asks whether different approaches than those so successfully put to use by Aron in his analyses of 20th-century societies are necessary in order to fully understand the new realities that only became visible years after Aron's death.
This article asks why it is so difficult to find a place for Raymond Aron among sociologists, even though he is consensually regarded as one of the most important contributors to the development of political sociology and to the analysis of the democratic political regimes of his day. The author examines the foundations of Aron's 'political sociology' in terms of (a) Aron's intellectual development and (b) the French intellectual scene from the 1940s to the 1980s (including the conflict with Sartre and Merleau-Ponty over Soviet totalitarianism). Also discussed are Aron's intellectual roots in the French philosophical tradition (Montesquieu and Tocqueville), his analysis of German thought in the late 1930s (especially the influence of Max Weber), and the fundamentals of his philosophy of history. In the second part the author looks at Aron's critical analyses of totalitarianism and contrasts the specifics of his approach with some frequent themes in the theories of totalitarianism, namely the so-called uneven distribution of fear and 'hidden' (illegal and illegitimate) exclusion. In conclusion the author interprets Aron's 'pessimist dialectics' (disenchantment with the idea of progress) as a vital stimulus for the study of social and political issues today.
This article analyses the recurring topics in the epistemology of the leading 20th-century French sociologist and political theorist Raymond Aron, drawing on his doctoral dissertation 'Introduction a la philosophie de l'histoire' (1938) and on a range of works he published in his later years. The author first discusses six different reasons for Aron's conspicuous absence from many contemporary handbooks on the social sciences: his deliberate avoidance of developing a system in his work, his disinclination towards abstract theoretising, his lack of interest in empirical research, and his refusal to specialise in one field, and also the changes that occurred in the social scientific context in which his work was received and changes in the surrounding political and social circumstances, most notably the collapse of the communist regimes. The author notes that a major feature in Aron's epistemological thought was his neo-Kantian awareness of the limits of strictly scientific knowledge, which he identified with the domain of causal analysis. The second crucial theme, recurring throughout Aron's work, is the indispensability of philosophy for providing the foundations for social scientific analysis, always in need of being positioned with respect to values. His enduring interest in international relations and contemporary history is taken as an indication of the third basic element of his epistemology: a passion for the analysis of singular events. The author concludes that, given his preoccupation with the singular and the particular, the key, albeit somehow implicit, aspect of his epistemology is the capacity for judgment in the Kantian sense.
The French sociologist Raymond Aron himself felt that his reflections on the conditions of political action, a topic dealt with in his 'Introduction a la philosophie de l'histoire', became the basis for his own political involvement. In the book, the problem of action is closely linked to an analysis of man's relationship to history, an analysis that explores the issue of man's ability to know his past and present. This article looks at Aron's attempt to overcome the scepticism of historical relativism, and to regain objectivity. Before explaining this process the author attempts to place the book in its proper historical and intellectual context, and he then reveals how its theme of human action is linked to Aron's epistemology. According to Aron, choice, action and decision are the three main concepts and requisites positively linked with man's relationship to history. After explaining their relevance, the author shows how Aron uses them to overcome historical relativism and scepticism. This solution is then confronted with the issue of the other, not really elaborated by Aron, and discussed in the light of postmodern thought. The article closes with a look at the question of Aron's existentialism, as his 'Introduction' is often said to resemble Sartre's philosophy.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.