Culture. A great figure of 20th century French liberalism, this thinker, professor of philosophy and talented tennis player also expressed his rejection of totalitarianism.
Raymond Aron had his first teaching position in Le Havre. (Photo DR)
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Raymond Aron had his first teaching position in Le Havre. (Photo DR)
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This is Raymond Aron (1905-1983). This sociologist was also a philosopher, teacher, journalist, political scientist and economist. He taught philosophy at the Lycée François 1er throughout the 1933-1934 school year. In 1928, Raymond Aron was received first in the agrégation in philosophy at the end of his training at the École Normale Supérieure, where he worked with Jean-Paul Sartre. In 1933 he returned from Germany, where he lived for three years and was appointed professor of philosophy at the Lycée François 1er.
This is his first teaching post. One of his pupils will evoke in 1971, in the bulletin of the former pupils, his memories on the courses of Aron: “I entered in class of philosophy on October 1, 1933. We expected to see Sartre appear. It was Raymond Aron who entered and told us to sit down. Neither had achieved fame, but they already had over us the authority they have since acquired over the French and the intelligentsia beyond our borders. We were dealing with higher intelligences and we knew it. M. Aron has not changed since that time and his portraits today represent him as we saw him, tall, lean, elegant in all his gait, blue green eye, mocking mouth […] He taught his class with great care and a very methodical pedagogy ”.
Critique of Marxism
In his memoirs, Aron evokes this year in Le Havre. “The city’s social hierarchy crept into the high school, into the principal’s office,” he testifies. The former teacher of François 1er also says that he readily interacted with his students and that three of them came to meet him at his home: Jacques-Laurent Bost, Albert Palle and Jean Pouillon. He was also at that time a tennis player classified in the 2nd series and liked to practice his favorite sport in Le Havre. Finally, we note that it was in Le Havre that he wrote “Contemporary German Sociology”, a work published in 1935.
In 1940, Aron will join Free France then, with the Liberation will resume teaching. In addition to his work as a teacher, sociologist or philosopher, he will carry out journalistic activities (especially Le Figaro and L’Express).
This thinker was a great figure in twentieth-century French liberalism. He was convinced that the excesses of the system could be limited by the state. He also expressed his rejection of totalitarianism. Thus, as early as the advent of Nazism, Aaron alerted democracies to the threats that the Third Reich might pose, and he also denounced Stalinism.
He was one of the main critics of Marxism and Sartre. Raymond Aron died in Paris in 1983.
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