Raymond Aron (1905–1983)

French philosopher, sociologist, political commentator. ENS condisciple of Sartre and MP (1924); agrégé 1928; doctorate 1938 with the Introduction à la philosophie de l'histoire — the work MP critiques continuously from the Brussels 1946 lecture through the 1947–48 PPH course's [Aron] segment. From 1947, Aron breaks with Sartre and Les Temps Modernes (the "national-socialisme stalinien" affair); becomes the principal intellectual interlocutor of the post-war French right (Le Figaro, Le Grand Schisme, L'Opium des intellectuels). His position-taking on the philosophy of history makes him the principal target of MP's 1946–55 political-philosophical work.

Key Points

  • Introduction à la philosophie de l'histoire (Gallimard, 1938) — the doctorate thesis. The chapter "De l'individu à l'histoire" is the chapter MP inverts in his Brussels 14 March 1946 conference "L'individu et l'histoire." Aron argues that there is no "objective sense" of history; the philosophy-of-history is the philosophical articulation of Weltanschauungen in mosaic. MP responds: this is itself a philosophy of history, and a covertly conservative one.
  • Author of Le Grand Schisme (1948) and L'Opium des intellectuels (1955) — anti-Marxist polemic from the Cold War right.
  • 6 February 1947 Collège philosophique conference: "Des actuelles tentatives de synthèses entre existentialisme et marxisme" — argues for the "irreducible opposition" between MP/Sartre's existentialism and the marxist philosophy of history. MP intervenes from the audience; the exchange is reported in Fessard's Études. MP's reply: "Je recherche le moyen de les rendre [les masses prolétaires] à leur tradition première [the original humanism of Marx]."
  • Aron later writes: he had taken on too many MP-articles — at one point asks himself why he had bothered to refute MP at all (cited Dalissier).
  • Hyppolite vs Aron in the 1948 SFP discussion of Hyppolite's Marx-conference: Aron pushes the will-to-power reading; Hyppolite resists.

Role in This Wiki

The 1946 Brussels response

MP's "L'individu et l'histoire" (14 March 1946) is structured around the inversion of Aron's chapter title: not "from individual to history" (which presupposes the individual as origin) but "the individual and history" (which thinks them together). MP's three claims:

  1. There is a pente de l'histoire (slope of history) — neither Aron's mosaic nor Hegel's necessity.
  2. Aron's "no philosophy of history" is itself a philosophy of history — a covertly conservative one.
  3. The proper response is the third position (between subjectivism and objectivism): situation dialectique, reprise du passé et projet de l'avenir.

The PPH [Aron] segment (1947–48)

Part III of PPH was originally conceived to include "Le scepticisme historique et la pluralité des modes d'interprétation" — a sustained engagement with Aron. The surviving notes (PPH pp. 189–192) compress this engagement: Aron's pluralité-des-perspectives is shown to be itself a perspective; MP's response is logique de fait + individu de classe (the structural concept Aron's framework cannot accommodate). The segment ends with the 1949 conjuncture (post-Czech coup) testing the political-philosophical position: "Logique au sens d'élimination de l'impossible. Structures en histoire, non fatum logique."

The 1947 Collège philosophique exchange

Per Fessard's Études report (cited Dalissier editorial introduction pp. 387–388):

"[Aron] devait conclure: tout accord entre des attitudes si radicalement opposées ne pourra jamais être que le fruit d'une illusion."

MP's reply (in Fessard's reconstruction): the actually-existing communism is "infidèle à l'humanisme original de Marx, qui continue d'animer les masses prolétaires"; the goal is to "rendre les masses prolétaires à leur tradition première." Aron's framework cannot accommodate this recovery operation because it presupposes the irreducibility of the opposition.

The 1955 letter to Lévi-Strauss as terminus

MP's 1955 letter to Lévi-Strauss (cited Dalissier editorial introduction pp. 33–34) records what MP took as his "new position in philosophy of history": neither "return to pre-marxism" nor acceptance of "marxisme strict"; "société neuve à construire pour le prolétariat, non par lui." This is the late-MP reading of Aron's challenge: not the synthesis Aron declared impossible, but a third position that neither totalizes (orthodoxy) nor refuses synthesis (Aron).

Connections

  • ENS condisciple of MP and Sartre (1924).
  • intellectually opposed by MP from 1946 onward (Brussels conference inversion of De l'individu à l'histoire).
  • intellectual rival of Hyppolite on the Marx question (1948 SFP debate).
  • part of the Kojève seminar (1933–39) — a fact MP himself does not engage.
  • target of *Adventures of the Dialectic* (1955) — esp. Ch 1 "Mosaic perspectives" and Ch 6 (Sartre and Ultrabolshevism) which both work via Aron's framework to refute it.
  • post-1955 political-intellectual antagonist of MP and the Sartrean left.

Sources

  • merleau-ponty-2022-inedits-ii-1947-1949 — Dalissier's editorial introduction (pp. 33–34, 387–388) reproduces the 1947 Fessard report and the 1955 Lévi-Strauss letter; PPH [Aron] segment (pp. 189–192).
  • merleau-ponty-2022-inedits-i-1946-1947 — Aron is the target of the 1946 Brussels "L'individu et l'histoire" conference; "Cf Aron: passage d'extrême subjectivité à extrême objectivité" (Inédits I marginalia).
  • Introduction à la philosophie de l'histoire (Gallimard, 1938) — the doctorate thesis target.
  • G. Fessard, "Note sur les actuelles tentatives de synthèses entre existentialisme et marxisme", Études (1947) — the report of the Collège philosophique exchange.