European Liberty: Four Essays on the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Erasmus Prize Foundation Raymond Aron, Isaiah Berlin, Leszek Kolakowski, Marguerite Yourcenar

144 Pages·1983·6.65 MB·English

by  Pierre Manent

EUROPEAN LIBERTY
EUROPEAN
LIBERTY
FOUR ESSAYS ON THE OCCASION OF THE
25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ERASMUS PRIZE FOUNDATION
RAYMOND ARON, ISAIAH BERLIN,
LESZEK KOLAKOWSKI,
MARGUERITE YOURCENAR
BY PIERRE MANENT, ROGER HAUSHEER,
WOJCIECH KARPINSKI, WALTER KAISER
1983
MARTIN US NIJHOFF PUBLISHERS
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ISBN-13: 978-94-009-6907-0 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-6905-6
DOl: 10.1 007/978-94-009-6905-6
Copyright
© I983 by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague.
Softcover renrint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1983
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Table of contents
Foreword VII
I RAYMOND ARON
by Pierre Manent
T exte Originale 24
II ISAIAH BERLIN AND THE EMERGENCE OF
LIBERAL PLURALISM
by Roger Hausheer 49
III LESZEK KOLAKOWSKI: A PORTRAIT
by Wojciech Karpinski
IV THE ACHIEVEMENT OF
MARGUERITE YOURCENAR
by Walter Kaiser 107
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Photographs
Opposite page I: Raymond Aron. Courtesy of L'Express, Paris.
Page 48: Isaiah Berlin.
Page 82: Leszek Kolakowski. Courtesy of BJ. Harris, Oxford.
Page 106: Marguerite Yourcenar. Courtesy of Jean-Pierre La!font/Sygma.
Foreword
This book has been published to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the
Erasmus Prize and underline the importance of the four laureates who
received the Prize in the jubileum year.
Raymon Aron, Isaiah Berlin, Leszek Kolakowski and Marguerite
Y ourcenarcan be considered four outstanding representatives of the
unique European intellectual tradition that is characterised by its critical
sense and respect for freedom of the individual. It is for this reason that
they have been awarded the Erasmus Prize.
The essays included in this book are devoted to these four personalities,
a Frenchman strongly influenced by the German philosophical tradition,
a Russian who has settled in Oxford, a philosopher banned from his
native Poland, and a Frenchwoman of Belgian origin living in America.
Each has demonstrated in his or her own way that the ideas on and ideals
of European culture and tradition are oflasting value. Each recognizes
that human values can only flourish in a pluralistic society, a society in
which 'Ie juste milieu' must constantly be sought. The temptation to
succumb to monistic, dogmatic and intolerant tendencies that continue
to threaten our civilisation not only from the outside but also from within,
must be continually resisted. The dignity of man reaches full maturity
first and foremost in a society in which man is the moulder and maker of
himself and freedom of the individual stands central.
Through the spiritual and intellectual process that the four laureates
have undergone and their impressive erudition, it is evident that this
spiritual richness which forms such an essential part of the European
tradition, is most meaningful and lasting when not just inherited, but
achieved through hard work, the application of a critical sense and
intellectual integrity.
We are most grateful to the four authors, designated by the laureates
themselves, for having prepared these essays in such a short time and
with so much dedication.
And lastly, one hopes this book will be read not only by intellectuals
and lovers of the 'bonae litterae', but also by the youth of Europe, for it is
they, after all, whose task it will be to guard over, defend and pursue the
message of these four exemplary Europeans.
H.R. Hoetink, director

Raymond Aron
Among the features that might characterize the XXth century - the one
which begins in 1914-at least three are indisputable: in the political field,
wars and revolutions which seem to defy all reason by the discrepancy
between the mediocrity of men and the scope of the events, by the du
ration of their destructive momentum which no longer seems to be con
trolled by any rational intent, sometimes even by the active presence of
some malignant will which becomes an end in and of itself; in the intellec
tual sphere, the separation of intellectual activity into varied disciplines
which no longer have any necessary relation to each other, a specializa
tion built upon the authority of that which we call science, however de
structive of the organizing and integrating capacity of the human spirit;
and finally in the spiritual realm, the swayofa temptation, that of bidding
adieu to reason. Martin Heidegger, the greatest philosopher of the cen
tury, who for some years lent his authority to the national-socialist move
ment and who, disdaining any retractatio, ceaselessly denounced reason as
'the most relentless enemy of thought', bears witness to this temptation
with emblematic clarity. When the last great representative of German
philosophical thought makes an alliance with Acheron, when the com
munist movement in the name of the realization and the consummation of
the Enlightenment restores the witch trials, how can one maintain one's
reason? How can one protect the human city?
It is an instructive paradox that in the upheaval caused by his contact
with a Germany toppling into darkness, a FrenchJew, faithful to the tra
dition of the Enlightenment, found the impetus and resources to confront
the danger. The German experience protected Raymon Aron - although
one had to be permeable to its lesson - from the liberal naivete so wide
spread in France. By revealing the dependence of political events upon
the adventures of the mind, it also saved him from the traditionalist and
empiricist complacency to which an old civic culture such as the Anglo
Saxon tends; in this particular case the German experience revived the
Cartesian elan: the mind is not free as long as it is incapable of unraveling
the long chain of motives that underlie events. With apparent effortless
ness, Raymond Aron has maintained these three loyalties, tempered and
2
enlightened by each other, to the German philosophic ambition, to the
French intransigence and clarity and to the Anglo-Saxon civic spirit: this
marks the breadth of his soul as well as the vivacity of his mind.
Born in 1905 of an assimilatedJe wish family from Lorraine, Raymond
Aron received the education and followed the same academic curriculum
as a number of 'good students' who were to become famous after World
War II: the Ecole Normale Superieure (1924 - 1928), where he would
meet Jean-Paul Sartre and Paul Nizan; his philosophy 'agregation'
(1928); his stay in Germany (Cologne in 1930 - 1931; Berlin from 1931 to
1933). This visit led Aron to break with the dominant ideas of the aca
demic circle of which he was a part in Paris. In this circle the two main
personalities were Leon Brunschvicg and Alain. The former, a dis
tinguished mind, retraced the history of western philosophy and read
therein the growing progress of rationality which he identified with sci
ence. He tended to consider that henceforth the task of philosophy was
but to comment on the results and above all the procedures of science; he
was hardly interested in politics. The second personality, an entrancing
teacher, cruelly marked by his experience in World War I, developed an
ti-authoritarian political considerations, inviting citizens to always be
ware of the powers-that-be, to whom they owed obedience but never re
spect. Brunschvicg's political insensitivity and Alain's summary and
literary politics did not help Aron to understand what was happening
before his eyes on the other side of the Rhine. Other efforts were required
to understand history and politics; other methods, another kind of
knowledge than that with which university philosophers and partisan
essayists contented themselves. To be sure, French sociology - the
disciples of Durkheim - was not lacking in either knowledge or method;
however, it seemed to have nothing to say about the political events which
it disdained, those political events which the Russian Revolution had
glaringly shown determined the fate of men. And now, here was
Raymond Aron in Germany who would read a good number of authors
who, to differing degrees, asked the same questions as the questions
which the French ignored: what does it mean to understand an historic
event? Can the historian achieve objectivity? What method is adapted tot
the understanding of the political and historical universe? What is the
relationship between the actor and the spectator in history? Dilthey and
Weber were the two greatest thinkers to deal with these questions.
Aron was above all fascinated by Max Weber. Above and beyond his
incomparable erudition, his penetrating historical insights, the fecundity
3
of his methodological propositions, the Stimmung of the German sociol
ogist won him over: the existence simultaneously of the most rigorous
scientific ideal and the most acute awareness of the tragic nature of his
tory, tragic because it obliged human liberty to choose between causes
when reason itself could not. Weber's influence on Aron, regularly re
marked upon by commentators and recognized by Aron himself, is all the
more worthy of our consideration precisely since the general tone of the
two works is so different. Weber's vehement and movingly overcharged
writing contrasts with Aron's extreme sobriety of tone. The latter never
adopted in either style or thought the nietzschean mood that was so evi
dent in the work of the German sociologist. IfA ron never systematically
developed his criticism of the weberian philosophy or method, this criti
cism can be found and is none the less clear for its being implicit, in this
stylistic difference: if, in order to remain faithful to the scientific ideal, we
must renounce transcendental religions, then why conserve the pathos
with which for ages the faithful described 'the wretchedness of man with
out God'? If scientific knowledge is today our only recourse, then why
highlight the contradictions oflife and science, dramatization which can
only hinder the salutary influence of this knowledge upon action?
In any case, if this reception, renewal and correction of Max Weber
had decisive consequences on Aron's own itinerary, its consequences on
the destiny of Weber's thought were also not negligible. It was largely due
to Aron that readers were prevented from becoming obsessed by weberi
an nietzscheism and expressionism, and that the knowledgeable and per
ceptive sociologist was not eclipsed by the Machtpolitiker. In some ways, it
is in part thanks to the aronian renewal-Aron's interpretation of Weber
as well as Aron's own personal work - that Max Weber owes his healthi
est posterity in European sociology.
Indelibly marked by his encounter with Max Weber, Raymond Aron,
back in France, wrote his 'these d'Etat', which he defended in 1938 and
a
published the same year under the title Introduction la Philosophie de ['His
toire. The occasion was an intellectual event; the Revue de Metaphysique et de
Morale gave an account of the defence. Henri-Irenee Marrou said later
that Aron's stay in Germany was an important moment for French intel
lectual history because it contributed substantially by the intermediary of
the dissertation, to the weakening of the then dominant historical and
sociological positivism. Besides, the members of the jury - in particular
the philosopher Leon Brunschvicg and the sociologists Celestin BougIe
and Paul Fauconnet - were themselves in one form or another, marked by