Aron Raymond: sociological teaching

A French scientist of Jewish origin, philosopher and sociologist, political scientist, political scientist liberal Aron Raymond is the founder of the epistemological trend in the philosophy of history, whose advocates opposed the idea that history was interpreted in terms of positivism. Raymond himself advocated globalization and de-ideologization of science. He is also an adherent of the theory of industrial society. Aron Raymond contributed to the reception of German sociology, for example, the system of ideas of M. Weber in France. Being a publicist, he wrote more than 30 books. For a while he was a political observer of the newspaper Figaro. Proceeding from his political convictions, he believed that the state should create laws that would guarantee freedom, equality, pluralism, and ensure their implementation.

Aron Raymond: biography

The future scientist was born in 1905 in Lorraine, in the city of Ramberwiller, in the family of Jewish emigrants who were completely assimilated into their environment. His father, Gustave Aron, was a professor of jurisprudence, and his mother - Susan Levi - a secular woman, a native of Alsace. Soon the family moved to Paris.

Education Aron Raymond received in École normale supérieure. Here he met Jean-Paul Sartre. Throughout life they were best friends, but at the same time intellectual adversaries. Raymond shone his knowledge and when passing the exam on philosophy for the degree of agrégé collected the highest number of points and won first place. It was a truly magnificent task! At that time, Sartre failed and failed the exam. At the age of 25, Raymond became a doctor of the history of philosophy.

In Germany

After the end of the Paris school, Aron went to Germany to give lectures at the Cologne and Berlin universities. Here he sees how the Nazis burn smart books. It is after this that he develops an aversion to totalitarianism, and to fascism. When Hitler came to power in Germany, he had to return to France for his own safety.

Teaching Activities

Returning home, he begins to teach social philosophy and sociology at the University of Havre (not to be confused with Harvard). Since 1934, he has been teaching and working for about 5 years as a secretary at the Higher Normal School, which he once graduated from.

Then Aron Raymond moves to Toulouse, where he lectures on social philosophy. Before the Second World War, he took part in the Walter Lippmann Paris Colloquium, named after the famous American journalist. This intellectual meeting was organized by Louis Rougier.

War in the life of Aron Raymond

As already mentioned, before the war he was a teacher of social philosophy at the University of Toulouse. After quitting teaching, he went to the front to serve in the French air force, and after the army was defeated and his native country was under the occupation of the Nazis, he went on the other side of the Channel, to the Foggy Albion.

Here it adjoins the movement "Battle France", which was under the leadership of Charles de Gaulle himself and under which the patriotic magazine "Free France" operated. Aron becomes his editor. Printing abroad, they begin to support the morale of their compatriots.

Raymond Aron: stages of development of sociological thought

After the German invaders leave France, the scientist returns to his homeland and resumes his teaching activity. This time he arranges for the National School of Administration, as well as for the Paris Institute of Political Studies, where he teaches sociology.

Early sociological views of Aron are influenced by neo-Kantianism (the Baden school). In his works he denied the laws of development and society, preaching extreme relativism, which bordered on irrationalism.

Later he departed from the extremes of apriorism and relativism and approached the position of M. Weber in his theory of "ideal types" in the study of history. In his scientific works on the history of sociology Aron sympathized with the conservative tendencies of Durkheim and Tocqueville. He always tried to create an "alternative" version of historical materialism.

The Teachings of Aron

He is one of the authors of the concept of deideologization. He held a negative position regarding the objective historical regularity, the dialectics of the interaction of production relations and productive forces, as well as the notion of an economic and social formation.

Sociology Aron Raymond takes for the object of social research derivative of subjective moments, for example, motivation, value orientations of a particular action of subjects, the point of view of the person who is engaged in research. This approach, according to Aron's views, is a new, "non-ideological" theory of society. It is the only true theory, because it studies "what exists in reality".

As already noted, Aron is also the founder of a theory common to the whole industrial society. He considered himself a follower of Saint-Simon and Long, and often referred to them.

The most famous work of Raymond

As already noted, he is also a publicist, and his pen is owned by more than 30 books, and among them the most famous is the "Opium of Intellectuals." Raymond Aron wrote it in 1955. She made a real sensation. Disputes about this book do not stop even today. It is still relevant.