Incompleteness of history as a philosophical principle in the early works of Raymond Aron

Abstract

The present article examines Raymond Aron's view of history as laid down in his early philosophical writings. It proceeds from the assumption that Aron's position was not immune to changes, so the position he took during the 60s would differ from the one he held toward the end of the 30s. It is important to note, however, that from the very start his stance was clearly anti-metaphysical and subjected to major influence from German neo-Kantians of the late 19th – early 20th century. From those philosophers Aron inherited the principle of understanding as a means of cognizing the past, but in doing so he rejected the intuitionist approach influenced by Dilthey and gave it an intellectualist interpretation which assumes that the understanding of past events must be based on recreating the historical situations and the respective decisions made by the subjects of history. Moreover, Aron was critical of scientistic tendencies typical of neo-Kantian thinking: he maintained that it proved helpless when faced with major philosophical problems which are unyielding when approached with positivist methods. At the same time, Aron recognized that neo-Kantians paved the way to the new, non-metaphysical philosophy which in his early writings he designates as 'historism' or 'relativism'. In his main philosophical work of the early period, Introduction to the Philosophy of History, Aron concentrates on the activity of an observer of the past, a historian. The latter judges history from the present, according to his personal experience, and gives a rational reconstruction of historical events. The dependence of historian's view on the present and the incompleteness of history make the multiplicity of its interpretations legitimate. The notion of progress turns out to be an extrapolation of a present viewpoint onto the past. Aron's early texts, such as the Critical Philosophy of History and the Introduction to the Philosophy of History, are marked by an anthropological approach to history. During the 50s and 60s his attitude changes as a result of his studies of global industrial society. Aron passes to the macroanalysis of history and gradually develops a strategic approach to it which eventually closes the cycle of historic interpretations which had the theory of understanding at its beginning.