Simonetta Freschi

Raymond Aron: Political and Existential Liberalism

In the within of the semantic variety that characterizes the «liberalism», it is important to re-discover the value of the atypical liberalism of a thinker like Raymond Aron who, althought he did not elaborate any specific theory about the limits of the State, has shaped a political conception that notwithstanding this, maintains the force of an authentically liberal attitude, founded on the courageous defense of the political and personal freedom. His belongings to the liberal ealiza are substantially based on four cardinals points: on the philosophical plan, the refutation of determinism and of every historical closed conception; on the methodological plan, the refusal of every universal meaning and the resource to a dialectic vision of reality and history; on the political plan, an active and constant engagement against the totalitarisms, in favour to pluralism and moderation; on the personal plan, at last, the choice of being a free intellectual and not to endure the fascination of the dominant currents of thought. All his efforts have been addressed to the defence of the plurality of opinions, without to yield neither to relativism, neither to pessimism but putting in existence the sense of intellectual and civil responsibility to defend liberal values. His liberalism has been philosophical, realist and existential and his engagement against the ideological messianism has constituted the imperative of his intellectual action: Aron has accepted the risks of freedom and democracy on the base of the «courage raisonné» that imposes to make freedom as «l’âme de notre existence». So I think that the aronian political meditation can still have a weight in the contemporary political debate, since the temporal distance and the absence of an ideological perspective interpretation can concour to find out again its eccletism and «clairvoyance».