The death of sociologist Jean Baechler
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Member of the Institut de France, historian who became a sociologist, then a philosopher, resolutely difficult to confine to a single discipline as he envisaged his reflection on human nature without excluding cultural matrices, Jean Baechler died on August 13 at the age of 85.
Born in Thionville (Moselle), on March 28, 1937, Jean Baechler studied at the Lycée Charlemagne of this city before, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in 1954, to integrate the faculty of Strasbourg, then that of Paris. Received the aggregation of history-geography, he taught at the high school of Le Mans (1962-1966) before entering the National Center for Scientific Research – attached (1966), then in charge (1969), finally director of research ( 1977-1988) – the same year he taught sociology at the Sorbonne (1966-1969). Resolutely turned towards this discipline, the historian also gave lectures on sociology, from 1968, at the VIe section of the Practical School for Advanced Studies (EPHE), a section that will become, in 1975, the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS). When he left the CNRS, he found Paris-IV, where he taught historical sociology until the time of emeritus (2006).
Cease all forms of teaching, he then devoted himself to the publication of his work, largely resulting from the seminars he led throughout his career, as a teacher as well as an academician. At the same time, he offers works intended for the general public, clear syntheses of his thought (What is the human?Hermann, 2014), or highlights of burning contemporary issues (Models of humanity. Humanism and globalizationHermann, 2019; From art to culture, Hermann, 2019; Ecology or ecology? Reason and relevance of environmental policiesHermann, 2020).
Aron rather than Foucault
Because nothing is classic in Jean Baechler’s career. Since he was 14, one concern has haunted him: understanding the human kingdom. And, soon, the relationship between the human and the absolute. No wonder that, opting for history, he dissociated himself from the epistemological issues of the moment to turn to the thought of Raymond Aron (1905-1983), who had founded, within the EPHE, thanks to a grant from the Ford Foundation, a Center for European Sociology, of which Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) was, for a time, the secretary general.
Henceforth, Jean Baechler committed himself resolutely to the still shifting terrain of historical sociology – as soon as Bourdieu broke with Aron, the latter founded the European Center for Historical Sociology, while the former, emancipated, proposed a Center for the Sociology of Education and culture (CSEC, 1968). Baechler follows Aron and chooses him to supervise his thesis, which he defends in 1975. In the meantime, the young essayist breaks spears against the values in vogue. And if it is in university that he offers the collection of texts Trotsky’s policy (Armand Colin, 1968), which avoids, by its sober rigor, the double pitfall of hagiography and denigration, or Revolutionary Phenomena (PUF, 1970), he engages more frontally, questioning The Origins of Capitalism before wondering What is ideology? (Gallimard, 1971 and 1976).
At the risk of moving away irrevocably from historical discipline. Aron rather than Foucault. From his thesis, published upon his defense (SuicidesCalmann-Lévy, 1975), the historian Jean-Claude Schmitt, in the report of the Annals, salutes the alert style and the thought of a rare clarity, like his project of “provide food for thought on all of the human sciences”but he pinpoints a vivacity that too easily frees itself from the rigor of comparatism, as advocated by the nascent historical anthropology.
This unconventional path does not rule him out of honors. Without him obtaining them, in accordance with the customs. Quite a rare fact, Jean Baechler became a member of the Institute – he joined the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, moral and sociology section, on December 6, 1999 – not following the death of a holder, but after a transfer: Alain Besançon, elected in December 1996 to the chair of Chief Rabbi Jacob Kaplan (1895-1994), was, by decision of the Academy, called upon to fill the philosophy section in the chair left vacant by the death of Jean Guitton (1901- 1999), just three weeks after his disappearance.
Amazing benevolence
Nourished by a confusing erudition, the work of Jean Baechler observes the mutations of human societies without neglecting their invariants; she thus plays with multiple traditions, with crossed views, entrance on the classics (Weber, Durkheim, Aristotle on the political field), which he refutes or nuances as needed to better grasp the fundamental mechanisms of changes in the contemporary world. As with Aron, Clausewitz is never forgotten, since the sociologist-philosopher sees the public field in a perpetual state of virtual war according to political upheavals.
The companionship with the publisher and philosopher Arthur Cohen, which began shortly before he became the CEO of Éditions Hermann, where he was already editorial director, made it possible to accumulate the pieces of his work, which were scattered in journals or collectives, as in the proceedings of conferences often unedited until then, or even notes from seminars. This applies as much to the time when Baechler was teaching as to his work animated with dynamism and relevance within the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, where he had conceived an encyclopedic project around man and war (17 volumes planned) .
Inaugurated by The Last Ends (2006), the first title in the “Societies and thoughts” collection, founded and directed by Gérald Bronner, this collaboration is not over. Whereas The Intimatewhich questions the vanished distinction between public and private, has just been published, Hermann announces, in addition to the reissue of Democracies (Calmann-Lévy, 1985), the publication, in 2023, of The Invention of the Absolutefirst volume of a “Historical Sociology of the Absolute”, thought in three movements.
An affable man, surprisingly benevolent, reserving his intransigence for his own production, Jean Baechler was only afraid of running out of time. Because this “academic monk”which Gérald Bronner remembers, nostalgic, that he seemed to him to be the survivor of a “bygone era”, was obsessed with the notion of completeness. In this, the two sociologists, who co-directed a symposium on The Irrational today (Hermann, 2021), shared the requirement not to neglect anything on the part of the invariants of the human species. A unique way to think historical anthropology, in short.
Jean Baechler in a few dates
March 28, 1937 Born in Thionville (Moselle)
1966 Joined the CNRS and lectured in sociology at the Sorbonne
1975 Suicides (Calmann-Levy)
1988-2006 Professor at Paris IV-Sorbonne
1999 Elected to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences
August 13, 2022 Dead
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