Jia Xiangyun: Raymond Aron’s Reflections on the Marxist Philosophy of History and Their Limitations
During the "May 1968" events in Europe, a popular slogan emerged: "Better to be wrong with Sartre than right with Aron." This was a true reflection of the French intellectual climate of the time. Most French intellectuals of that era faced "either-or" choices: first, whether to support the communist Soviet Union or the capitalist United States; second, whether to sign the petition supporting the independence of the French colony Algeria; and third, whether to commit to social movements or endorse the suppression of revolution. The choices intellectuals made split them into different camps: characters like Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Althusser, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty became the Left, while Raymond Aron became the Right. It can be said that for a long period after World War II, the leftist intellectuals represented by Sartre held a dominant position in the intellectual sphere; it was only in the 1980s that Aron returned to public view. The early Aron called himself a socialist, but not a Marxist. However, his understanding of history was not contradictory to Marx’s; both sought to explore the relationship between man and history between absolute fatalism and historical relativism. Looking at Aron’s academic trajectory, he was deeply influenced by Marx and explicitly stated that all his works "are a reflection on the 20th century inspired by Marxism, an attempt to reveal various aspects of modern society, including the economy, social relations, class relations, political systems, international relations, and ideological disputes." Moving from the Marxist philosophy of history toward a German-style study of critical philosophy of history became the starting point for Aron’s analysis of political phenomena and all social problems.
I. Marxism and Metascience
A question in the philosophy of history that Aron pondered throughout his life was: "How can people simultaneously know the society in which they live and themselves? Or rather, how does the dialectic unfold between the 'society' that makes me 'me,' and the 'me' that wants to define itself relative to that society?" Aron believed that the essence of this question lies in the basic problem regarding historical cognition and historical action within the Marxist philosophy of history—namely, the problem of the dialectical relationship between the historical subject and historical object. Aron’s exploration of this issue began with Kant's questioning and reflection. Kant believed that philosophy must solve three questions: "What can I know? What ought I to do? What may I hope?" His three critiques (Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, and Critique of Judgment) were responses to these three questions. Aron added the qualification "within history" to Kant’s three questions and took the study of and response to these questions as the "start of his intellectual work," i.e., "the starting point for epistemological reflection on nature and historical cognition, or rather, historical-social cognition." Although starting with Kant, Aron believed that "all who analyze society hope to reach Marx's degree of precision," and that "critical analysis is first of all an examination of the different parts of the Marxist interpretation of society." To this end, he turned to Marxist studies, attempting to use the Marxist method of critical analysis to answer the aforementioned questions. He divided his reflections on Marxism into two levels: "one is the transcendental level, accompanied by reflection on what people can know and what they ought to do; the other is the level of discussing the theories or analyses explicitly proposed by Marx himself."
From the perspective of the history of ideas, Aron very early on advocated for the distinction between Marx and Marxism, focusing his study of the Marxist philosophy of history on Marx's own works—that is, "understanding the author as the author understood himself." [1] This reflected Aron’s forward-looking theoretical vision; he attempted to grasp Marx's thought more scientifically. In his view, the reason various types of Marxism exist is due, on one hand, to the fact that Marx's own historical-philosophical thought contains two different tendencies—subjectivization and objectivization—and on the other hand, to the differences in the disciplinary foundations and theoretical interpretative paradigms of Marx’s successors or interpreters.
Starting from the classic texts, Aron elaborated on the dilemmas inherent in the basic propositions of Marxism themselves—namely, the two tendencies of "subjectivization" and "objectivization" he believed existed in Marx’s philosophy of history. Regarding the objectivization tendency, Aron believed Marx’s philosophy of history was "a theory about the evolution of macro-historical development," "an objectification of historical reality," and "a strict determinism." This theory holds that humanity is "driven, directed, and manipulated" by historical laws and is "powerless to change the laws." He analyzed this objectivization tendency using three of Marx's classic texts as examples: first, Marx's classic exposition of historical materialism in the Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, which reveals the evolutionary laws of human social development through the contradictory movement of the productive forces and relations of production, and the economic base and superstructure; second, Marx’s analysis of England as the typical representative of the capitalist mode of production in the Preface to the First Edition of Capital, where he suggested this mode of production applies to all countries; third, Marx’s citation of a Russian reviewer’s interpretation of his theory in the Afterword to the Second Edition of Capital, intended to show that social movement is a "process of natural history governed by certain laws." Regarding the subjectivization tendency in Marx’s philosophy of history, Aron believed that Marx interpreted the evolution of human history from the aspect of the historical subject—that is, from class struggle—as reflected in the opening sentence of the Communist Manifesto: "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." After analyzing these two tendencies, the question Aron raised was: "How can an objectified interpretation using the relations of production and productive forces be reconciled with an interpretation of historical evolution starting from class struggle? What relationship is actually established between an objectified history subject to laws and human consciousness or human will? How can the claim of immutable laws of historical development and the history of class struggle be combined?" In Aron's view, "these two interpretations can certainly be fully reconciled," but "it can only be achieved by starting from a certain kind of metascience."
The so-called "metascience" is "the analytical reflection on science itself," and "the central problem of metascience is to know whether there is a single model of science." When examining Marx and Marxism, Aron discovered that theoretical traditions such as historicism, hermeneutics, phenomenology, and existentialism influenced people's understanding of history and their interpretation of Marxism. Due to "transcendental" or "empirical" factors, Marx’s successors or interpreters, each starting from their own total philosophy, produced different schools of Marxism through different interpretations of the basic propositions of Marxism. First, "existentialist" or "phenomenological" Marxism. The basic characteristic of this interpretation is "placing human action at the center of historical reality" and "presenting historical reality or developing human reality as a reality primarily composed of human actions or intentional acts," thereby examining the dialectical relationship between the individual's situation and their actual experience. Aron believed the dilemma this interpretation faces is: how to "find the total movement from a historical interpretation centered on individual action"? In other words, how to reproduce the totality and necessity of historical development? Second, Althusser's "structuralist Marxism." Unlike phenomenological and existentialist interpretations, in Althusser's interpretation, it is not the acting human who is at the center of historical reality; historical reality is not composed of individual actions, but of objectified social relations external to the individual. Therefore, "the mode of production appears as a whole of objective reality that infinitely reproduces itself." The problem brought by this interpretation is: how to view the "transition from a mode of production that reproduces itself to historical development"? In Aron's view, Althusser’s interpretation can only present Marxism as something "anti-humanist and anti-historicist" with the help of "overdetermination" (surdétermination). Third, classic or orthodox "Marxism-Leninism." This interpretation highlights the aspect of Marx’s thought that affirms the objective laws of human historical development—that is, thinking about the scientific laws of human evolutionary development "in totality and in a total manner." "According to this interpretation, Marxism is merely a theory regarding laws."
In addition to these three interpretations, there are other schools such as Hegelian Marxism, Kantian Marxism, and Analytic Marxism. In short, on the basis of distinguishing Marx from Marxism, Aron analyzed the gains and losses of different interpretations of Marxism, further pointing out: "Marx’s own Marxism... is certainly a combination of these three interpretations." However, his attribution of the emergence of various Marxist schools to the existence of the two tendencies of subjectivization and objectivization in Marx’s thought is clearly a misreading of Marx’s philosophy of history. Marx’s texts constitute a theoretical totality that has continuously developed and perfected alongside historical progression; one cannot sever texts from different periods and examine them in isolation. As Georg Lukács pointed out, Marx’s method and system are "a coherent unity that must be maintained," the core of which is the correct handling of the "dialectical relationship between the subject and the object in the historical process," rather than what Aron called the two tendencies of subjectivization and objectivization.
II. How Philosophy of History
Became a Specific Science
It is generally believed that the publication of the Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico’s New Science in 1725 marked the birth of the philosophy of history as an independent discipline. Some scholars trace the origins of the philosophy of history back to St. Augustine, a representative of medieval "Patristic philosophy," or even parts of the Old Testament. Credit for the philosophy of history's first recognition as a separate discipline belongs to the pioneer of German Romanticism, Johann Herder, and his four-volume masterpiece Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind, the first volume of which was published in 1784. The Philosophy of History, compiled by Hegel’s students and friends from his lecture manuscripts and student notes and published in 1837, is widely regarded as the peak of the development of the philosophy of history. Thinkers of that time were mainly committed to achieving a total understanding of the historical process through metaphysical speculation to reveal the stages of development, the laws of development, and their purpose and meaning. The technological revolution of the mid-18th century impacted traditional, speculative philosophy of history. The German historian Leopold von Ranke proposed writing history objectively and impartially, recording authentic and credible primary sources, thereby initiating a new method of modern historical research. The objectivist historiography he represented profoundly influenced historical research in the second half of the 19th century and throughout the 20th century. However, the fundamental problem facing empirical historiography based on scientific methods is: does a purely objective, unbiased narrative exist?
The era in which Marx lived happened to be in the process of transitioning from abstract narratives based on traditional speculative philosophy to social science research based on scientific methods. Against the background of ideological fragmentation and academic shifting, the historical materialism jointly founded by Marx and Engels made historical science "the only one science." In The German Ideology, they criticized "speculative philosophy of history" and "empirical historiography," pointing out that history is not "an imaginary activity of imaginary subjects," nor "a collection of dead facts," but something we create and narrate while living within it. [2] Therefore, historical research must treat people "both as the authors and the actors of their own historical drama." On the basis of criticizing and transcending the "idealist conception of history" and "all historical conceptions to date," Marx and Engels stood on reality. They determined their theoretical research path according to people's material productive practice and the social material relations of production established on that basis, applying "the generalization of the most general results abstracted from the examination of human historical development" to specific socio-historical research, making the philosophy of history a science. As Engels pointed out: "Since history has also been interpreted materialistically, a new path of development has also been opened here."
However, due to ideological and other reasons, the Marxist historical materialist conception of history has long been subject to challenges from Western scholars, among whom Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper are the most representative. Hayek used economic individualism to refute historical holism, asserting that history is determined entirely by individual intentions; Popper, meanwhile, used logic to interpret history, equating social science with the scientism of the natural sciences. Both common targets of their opposition were deterministic ideas that treat history as an ontology. Aron believed that this historical ontology was essentially the Marxism interpreted by the Second and Third Internationals, rather than the original meaning of Marx's thought. To this end, he rejected the ideas of strict historical necessity and historical determinism, attempting to build a bridge between historical determinism and historical relativism in search of a rational historical objectivity.
In 1938, the successive publication of Aron's doctoral thesis, Introduction to the Philosophy of History, and Maurice Mandelbaum’s The Problem of Historical Knowledge marked the modern turn in the philosophy of history. Facing the cross-examination of his doctoral defense committee—who were followers of the positivist school of historiography led by Auguste Comte and Émile Durkheim—Aron began his defense with a direct offensive: "Why am I a socialist? What does it mean to have a political stance? These are the questions I asked myself when studying Marxism and political economy." It can be said that Marxism laid the methodological foundation for Aron to open up new directions in the study of the philosophy of history, leading him to value the limitations of historical knowledge and emphasize pluralistic historical perspectives. However, compared to the materialist conception of history, which focuses on discussing the macro-methodological principles of historical knowledge, Aron focused on examining the total problem of historical knowledge from a concrete, micro-level perspective.
III. The Total Problem of Historical Knowledge
As Aron said: "Reflecting on one's own current historical consciousness is a way of reflecting on the history we are currently living." Therefore, neither simply reproducing the past nor narrating current facts and attempting to grasp the future can yield complete knowledge or attain absolute certainty. How, then, can historical science possess objectivity? And within what scope is it universally valid? Aron focused on the nature of historical knowledge and historical laws, synthesizing the German tradition of historicism with Anglo-American analytical methods to provide a new direction for opening the doors of historical knowledge.
First, regarding the connections, distinctions, and characteristics of historical science and natural science. Aron pointed out: "In what considerations does historical knowledge, or knowledge of certain human realities, constitute a specific science? Does this science have the same style as knowledge regarding natural realities? This historical knowledge can be defined either by individual concern, by narrative, or by the meaning of known phenomena." Nature is external and objective to humans; it continues to exist objectively even without humans. In contrast, humans live within history; history is both the object of human research and humanity itself. Therefore, in Aron's view, historical science cannot appeal to a series of causal sequences as natural science does to form an absolutely objective theoretical system. Instead, it must rely on explanation and interpretation based on the subject's understanding. This explanation and interpretation can be defined by three conditions: "individual concern," "narrative," and "the meaning of known phenomena." The focus historians place on the individual, and their narrative of past events along a timeline, are the paths through which people acquire historical knowledge. Thus, when historians face cultural or spiritual works (meaningful phenomena) that crystallize human thought, they cannot abstract away the meaning bestowed by the experiencers or creators of those works; it is precisely these meanings that allow people to derive historical knowledge from them. Consequently, historical narrative is the primary characteristic that distinguishes historical science from natural science.
What, then, is a scientific historical narrative? Does an objective historical narrative exist? Aron believed that the fundamental method of historical research is understanding, and establishing historical objectivity is inseparable from the cycle between understanding and explanation. Historical events cannot bypass human action, and historical knowledge aims to concretely understand and explain the purposes, causes, and influences of human actions. Therefore, the primary prerequisite for narratives presenting historical events (such as various historical works) is that—from the minute motives of actors in a historical event to the "objective spirit" of an entire historical era—all are understandable. Historical knowledge is established through explanation; the two stages of understanding and explanation are both indispensable and inseparable. However, for an individual, complete and objective understanding is difficult to fully realize due to the complexity of motives (understanding intentional behavior remains inconclusive because of the plurality of intentions that can be assigned to the same act) and psychological drivers (understanding the psychological or irrational factors, including intuition and emotion, that produce individual behavior). Setting aside the immense difficulties of understanding the actions of others, it is difficult to guarantee that an individual can provide a complete explanation even for the events they have personally experienced. This is the particularity of historical knowledge: we, as the subjects of historical knowledge, are in a constant state of flux. Therefore, Aron believed that the historical conclusions obtained through the interaction of explanation and understanding can only be a historical view of "probabilistic determinism" characterized by uncertainty.
Second, regarding the relationship between the individual and the totality, the micro and the macro, and the part and the whole within the historical process. (1) The relationship between the individual and the totality. Aron used the example of a battle to explore the oscillation—or uncertainty—of historical knowledge between the individual and the totality: "Even if the historian is interested in the individuality of the Battle of Marathon, he cannot understand this battle without using those total concepts—such as the concept of 'battle' in general." The individual and the totality are a set of complementary, opposing, and unified concepts; studying an individual event (a battle) must take the totality as a reference object. One cannot understand the individual apart from the totality, nor can one study only the totality while ignoring the individual. (2) The relationship between the micro and the macro. Taking economics as an example, Aron argued that the distinction in political economy between "microeconomic theory—tracing back to economic agents and establishing market equilibrium starting from individual consumption or individual producers" and "macroeconomic theory—adopting basic concepts and applying them holistically to national production or the conditions for the development of national production" reflects the problem of the relationship between the micro and the macro. Similarly, in the narration of history, we encounter the problem of the relationship between micro-events and macro-events. The two are interconnected, mutually transforming, and mutually influencing; "no narrative exists that does not replace the complex descriptions of the micro-world with some more or less panoramic overview of history." (3) The relationship between the part and the whole. Aron believed that what historians have written has always been the concrete "history of a certain thing"—such as literary history, economic history, or the history of war—but they cannot write a "total history." Even if a "total history" were written, its substance would only represent a partial history relative to the entirety of human history. In addition to these three relationships, Aron believed that importance must be attached to the relationship between events and works, because "the explanation or interpretation of events and the explanation or interpretation of works do not proceed in the same way," and the meaning and significance of historical events change, increase, decrease, or are negated with the passage of time.
Third, regarding the objectivity of historical knowledge. The "objectivity of historical knowledge" that Aron spoke of is not "objectivity" as opposed to subjectivity, but rather refers to "universality." What he wanted to elucidate was: what kind of universal science is historical knowledge? In the final analysis, historical science is a discipline about humanity itself and is inseparable from human consciousness; therefore, it is a science different from natural science. Aron limited the scope of application for historical science and clarified it through three questions: What is the difference between human history and natural history? What is the relationship between what we call historical societies and historical knowledge? What is the essential difference between a "chronicle" of events and historical knowledge? Aron stated that his examination of historical science adopted a descriptive method—namely, the phenomenological method. In his view, the problem of the objectivity of historical knowledge is ultimately manifested as the problem of the scientific nature of historical interpretation. After the war, a debate regarding the nature of historiography broke out in the English-speaking world around this issue, known as the "Hempel–Dray debate." Carl Hempel sought to demonstrate that "historical explanation is a mode of scientific explanation," while William Dray argued that "historical explanation is essentially different from scientific explanation." The Hempel model is a "deductive model," also known as the "covering law model," which posits that a historical explanation is scientific only if "the connection between unique events can be classified under a universal proposition." The Dray model is a rationality model, asserting that "an event is explained and becomes an understandable event when people grasp the goals aimed at by the actor and explain the means adopted by people according to the purposes aimed at." Compared to the Hempel model, Aron identified more with the Dray model, believing that "the Dray model implies the particularity that human history possesses relative to natural history," and that "his reconstruction of explanation through reason is very enlightening." However, Aron simultaneously believed that due to the limitations of human historical knowledge and the diversity of historical experience, there is no universally valid historical knowledge. Therefore, his reflection on historical determinism inevitably fell into historical skepticism.
IV. Conclusion
As a non-Marxist who systematically studied Marx and Marxism for several decades, Aron criticized Marxism vehemently on many occasions. However, this did not prevent his historical view from having many points in common with, or even being identical to, that of Marx. Both believed that history is not a history of pure ideas, nor an analytical history, but a history of action, of reality, of practice, and of humanity. The materialist conception of history elucidated the general laws of human historical development, revealed the dialectics of history, and established a scientific historical view. Some of Aron’s objective and rational interpretations concerning the "total problem of historical knowledge" can be seen as concrete manifestations and an enrichment of the disciplinary nature and methodology of the materialist conception of history.
First, Aron's elucidation of the relationship between historical science and natural science reflects the disciplinary nature of the materialist conception of history. In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx pointed out that "History itself is a real part of natural history," and "History is the true natural history of man." In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels criticized the view that opposes nature to history, arguing that such a view means "the historical nature and the natural history will never exist before men"; however, natural history and human history are "inseparable" and "mutually conditioned." Therefore, historical narratives cannot exclude the relationship between man and nature: "Any historical record should start from these natural foundations and their modification in the course of history through the action of men," achieving the unity of historical nature and natural history. But "since almost the whole of ideology either distorts human history or leaves it out of account altogether," it is necessary to study human history deeply. It is from this dimension that Engels argued that the materialist conception of history is essentially "the science of real men and their historical development." It is "a discovery of revolutionary significance not only for economics but for all historical sciences (all sciences which are not natural sciences are historical sciences)," because it completely negates "all traditional and customary views of all historical things," overturns "the previous ideological historical narratives," establishes "realistic historical narratives," and becomes the guiding science in the field of social history.
Second, Aron’s reflections on the relationships between the individual and the total, the micro and the macro, the part and the whole, and events and works within the historical process represent the totalizing methodology of historical materialism. Although Marx did not focus on the theoretical problem of the "objectivity of historical knowledge" to the same extent as Aron, the general principles and concrete applications of the historical materialist methodology invariably embody these relationships and perspectives. Marx explicitly pointed out that the correct scientific method involves "abstract determinations leading to the reproduction of the concrete by way of thought," for "the concrete is concrete because it is the concentration of many determinations, hence unity of the diverse." As Lukács put it, Marx advocated "understanding society as a totality," believing that "only in this context, which sees the isolated facts of social life as aspects of the historical process and integrates them into a totality, can knowledge of the facts hope to become knowledge of reality." To think of capitalist society as a totality and, on this basis, to find the necessary path for the "liberation of human freedom" was Marx’s consistent theoretical aim. It is in this sense that Aron believed Capital, representing the peak of Marx’s theory, was not only "a great project" but "a project of genius." [10] True Marxists should use the positions, viewpoints, and methods of Capital to analyze the era in which we live and write the Capital of our time. Aron similarly gave high praise to Marx's historical works recording and narrating historical events. For instance, he considered The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte to be not only a great work of history but a classic narrative history where the actors are sometimes individuals and sometimes classes. As a witness to the European revolutions of 1848–1849, Marx's ability to maintain an exceptionally calm and objective understanding and narrative of historical events lay in his adherence to historical materialism. By proceeding from objective reality and following the dialectical unity of fact and value, of law-governed necessity and teleological purpose, he transcended the limitations of his time and achieved a universal understanding of history.
Third, Aron’s analysis of the relationship between historical society and historical knowledge embodies the core idea of historical materialism: the correct handling of the dialectical relationship between subject and object in the historical process. Marx and Engels abstracted objective laws that do not change according to human subjective will (purpose) from the development of human history, calling this historical necessity. However, they did not stop there. This is because the necessity of historical development is endogenous to concrete human practical activities and is manifested through them. "History does nothing, it 'possesses no immense wealth,' it 'wages no battles'! It is man, real, living man who does all that, who possesses and fights; 'history' is not, as it were, a person apart, using man as a means to achieve its own aims; history is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims." Human activity possesses subjective selectivity, yet the direction of human historical development is determined by objective laws. "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please." In exploring the relationship between man and history, Aron also attempted, like Marx, to adhere to the dialectic of history, calling himself a "committed spectator" [11] and advocating the use of theory to guide (intervene in) practice.
While Aron’s reflections on Marxist philosophy of history undoubtedly possess a certain rationality and provide useful references, they inevitably suffer from several limitations.
First, Aron’s choice of the historical subject was filled with skepticism and pessimism, and his historical view of "probabilistic determinism" [12] inevitably falls into historical nihilism. Aron believed that because humans as historical subjects are influenced by subjectivity, certain events cannot be explained by causal relationships; therefore, history possesses uncertainty. As he pointed out: "Men make history, but they do not know the history they are making. They only know history after the fact, and even after the fact, they still have difficulty understanding the history they have made." Based on this understanding, Aron focused more on the influence of specific micro-events on history and failed to grasp the trends of human social development from a total perspective. He denied the subjectivity of history, rendering him unable to speak of its meaning or ultimate value. In contrast, Marx always remained convinced that the proletariat shouldered the great historical mission of liberating all of humanity. Following the objective laws of historical development, this position impelled Marxism to pursue truth and use it to guide social movements that transform reality. A firm proletarian standpoint allows Marxism to fully satisfy the fundamental interests of the masses, thereby stimulating the revolutionary fighting spirit and will of the historical subject, ultimately driving the realization of the goals of socialism and communism.
Second, compared to Marx’s historical materialism, Aron’s historical theory was limited to intellectual enlightenment rather than active action; it was more "spectating" and "analyzing" than substantive "intervention." Conversely, Marx "was at once a prophet, a man of action, and a scholar." On the one hand, Marx’s "prophecies" were based on a scientific analysis of the capitalist mode of production to reveal its developmental trends, rather than providing fixed, ready-made blueprints. As Marx noted: "The advantage of the new trend is precisely that we do not dogmatically anticipate the world, but only find the new world through criticism of the old one." On the other hand, and more importantly, Marx was a revolutionary and an active agent. He combined historical science with social critique and human liberation, dedicating himself to establishing an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. This is both the value position of historical materialism and where the meaning of human history lies.