History·Society·Politics

War study is the central topic of international relations. Among the research,there are three dimensions explored by the scholars to explain the cause of war:human being,state and anarchy. These researches shared three common premises. The first was that they tried to find out the general reason of war, short of concern about the war’s peculiarities; the second premise was the distinction between internal politics and international politics, short of analysis of the link between inner politics and the forms of war; and the third was the distinction between international politics and the social transfiguration. Although the common premises helped to establish the paradigm of International Relations, they have been hindering the evolution of war study. They are challenged by the war in reality after the end of cold war. This dissertation tries to use the approach of intellectual history to research the founding fathers of international relations, Raymond Aron’s study of war in order to find the possibility to break through these blind points of IR.Generally, Aron was considered as the scholar in the school of classic realism, since he supported the point that anarchy would bring war between nations. Yet this dissertation try to update this label by settling Aron in the context of intellectual history and finding out the connections among war,history,society and politics.This dissertation includes five chapters. The first chapter is the introduction which will talk about the problematique, research state and the whole structure of the dissertation.The next three chapters analyze the war study by philosophy of history, sociology and politics. And the last chapter is the conclusion.The second chapter constructs the connection between war study and the philosophy of history.The first section analyzes Aron’s philosophy of history in the genealogy of historical philosophy.His philosophy of history includes metaphysical historical philosophy(historical ontology)and critical historical philosophy (historical epistemology). Aron criticized the historical teleology and fatalism,and defended an open and pluralistic vision of history on the subject of historical ontology.Aron also criticized the positivism and relativism,and stressed the objective understanding and contingent causality. The following two sections analyzed the connection between historical ontology and war,the connection between historical epistemology and war. Historical ontology which was an essential part of ideology in20th century justified the modern war and become the weapon of modern war. His historical epistemology supported war study a new approach that is historical sociology which stresses the contingent causality,related value,ideal type and comparative method.The third chapter discusses Aron’s thought about the relations between war and industrial society. The first section analyzed why sociology ignored war and Aron’s opinion on sociology and war sociology. The following section discussed how Aron dialogue with Comte,Tocqueville and Marx on the connection between war and modern society. The third section analyzed how Aron use the term technical surprise and technical asymmetry to analyze the role of technology in the20th century war.The fourth chapter discusses the connection between war and internal politics. The first section analyzes Aron’s vision of politics which attempt to transcend the ethnical and metaphysical politics and emphasized that politics was an art of achieving compromise from the struggle. The following three sections research concretely the connection between war and politics in three dimensions like regime,the form of state,the end and the means. Without the support of totalitarian regime,The Third Reich wouldn’t provoke the second world war and the opposition between regimes were essential part of cold war. Nation state and empire,they are the central agent of war. In modern society,the dialectics of equality and universalism are the cause of war and influenced the decline of empire and the rise of nation-state.which is the end,war or politics?Aron researched the thought of Clausewitz and regarded it as the proponents of limited war. The relations between war and politics would change due to their changing meaning and there was no definite answer to this question.The last chapter conclude Aron’s war study in term of "three dimensions in integration". History,society and politics composed three dimensions of Aron’s war study, and they are all the reflection and inner base of the war and its study. Aron’s war study can make up the blind points of IR and stir up new problematiques,perspectives and methods.