Alain et l’Europe de l’Homme

Alain and the Europe of Man

Abstract

Alain’s Europe was not the Europe of nations but the Europe of the men who lived in those nations. Brought up in the school of Jules Lagneau, since adolescence he began to appreciate the value of the human person and the importance of his judgment (jugement) as the ability to think freely, only by following the guidance of his reason. In this way – for Alain –, passions, namely the sole and unique impediments to the realization of a life as serene as possible, were destroyed. A pacifist and democratic, Alain participated in the First World War for duty to the country, but deeply convinced of the futility of war and, from that experience, it was reinforced in him the belief that peace could be achieved only by the will of man. Therefore, economy, law, politics, communitarian institutions were meaningful only if produced by a free judgment of man, by his desire to create a brotherhood capable of overcoming the narrow confines of a nation and able to expand throughout Europe and beyond.