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ABSTRACT
Raymond Aron’s books stand out as an example of lucid political judgment in an age of
extremes in which many intellectuals shunned moderation and were attracted to various
forms of political radicalism. This paper discusses one of the faces of moderation—
Aron’s “committed observer”--by commenting on Aron’s views on the role, virtues,
limits, and possibility of moderation in political life. The paper will also address the issue
of political judgment in Aron’s works. Although he brilliantly played the role of the
spectateur engagé, he never gave a clear theoretical statement about the features of the
“committed observer.” Therefore, one has to reconstruct the portrait of the spectateur
engagé piece by piece by using scattered insights from Aron’s own books in which he
described his own political engagement. This is the purpose of this paper which draws on
a representative selection from Aron’s writings covering more than three decades of his
life.
Convention