Existentialist manifesto or conservative political science? Problems in interpreting Raymond Aron's Introduction la philosophie de l'histoire

摘要

Raymond Aron's Introduction la philosophie de l'histoire is often held to be a paradigmatic book because of either its rejection of positivism in the social sciences, or its anticipation of existentialism in philosophy. The common denominator in these paradigmatic interpretations of the work is its use of various German philosophical influences that, though relatively obscure in France at the time of its first publication in 1938, became prominent features of the postwar Parisian intellectual landscape. During the Cold War, however, Aron was not only a peripheral figure within the Parisian intelligentsia, but also one of its harshest critics. The apparent mismatch between the paradigmatic status claimed for the Introduction as the first French existentialist book and Aron's subsequent critical position towards the leading figures of existentialism in France forms the starting point for a critical re-examination of the book and its paradigmatic interpretations. After seeking an explanation for these interpretations of the Introduction in deeper trends of generational thought, this article suggests that the history of the idea of intellectual engagement offers a more useful angle from which to approach this challenging book.