Stewart, IG; (2012) Political Committment and Historical Epistemology: Raymond Aron's Transcendental Relativism Reconsidered. In: Paul, J and Briggs, V and Giannakopoulos, G and Jensen, ML and Karstadt, E and Mowl, A and Sabbadini, L, (eds.) Governing Diversities: Democracy, Diversity and Human Nature. (pp. 107-127). Cambridge Scholars Publishing: Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK.

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Abstract

This chapter examines the French philosopher Raymond Aron’s Introduction à la philosophie de l’histoire (1938) to establish how its historical epistemology informed his understanding of political commitment. Reflecting on a disagreement between its commentators as to whether the book’s relativism undermines its moderate political conclusions, it is argued that this controversy reflects a problematic epistemological agnosticism at the heart of Aron’s political thought. This is encapsulated in his description of a ‘transcendental relativism’ in the Introduction, which this chapter links to Aron’s humanist reworking of Martin Heidegger’s theory of historicality. The recognition of this underacknowledged influence on the Introduction leads into a reconsideration of Aron’s more widely recognised, but somewhat misunderstood, intellectual debt to Max Weber.

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