Sir Isaiah Berlin was a philosopher and historian of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the twentieth century. He excelled as an essayist, lecturer, and conversationalist. His writings frequently explored the dichotomy of liberty, distinguishing between negative liberty—defined as the absence of external constraints—and positive liberty, which pertains to self-mastery and self-determination. Berlin was deeply concerned that the concept of positive liberty had historically been susceptible to political abuse, often leading to justifications for coercion and totalitarianism, a trajectory he contrasted with the safer ideal of negative liberty. His advocacy for negative liberty, his vehement opposition to totalitarianism, and his experiences made him a significant intellectual voice against communism during the Cold War.
"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made".--Immanuel Kant. Philosopher Isaiah Berlin explores the complex, radical changes that have swept Western society as he proves to be "an activist of the intellect". "A beautifully patterned tapestry of philosophical thought. . . . A history of ideas that possesses all the drama of a novel, all the immediacy of headline news".--"The New York Times".
In the period covered here (1960-75) Isaiah Berlin creates Wolfson College, Oxford;At the same time Berlin publishes some of his most important work, including Four Essays on Liberty - the key texts of his liberal pluralism - and the essays later included in Vico and Herder.
Surveys the many attempts to define romanticism, distills its essence, traces its developments from its first stirrings to its apotheosis, and shows how it still permeates our outlook.
The main theme of this collection of essays is the importance in the history of thought of dissenters whose ideas still challenge conventional wisdom. The book offers a powerful defence of variety in our visions of life, and it also contains an updated bibliography of Berlin's publications.
Isaiah Berlin was one of the leading thinkers of the century, and one of the finest writers. This title selects some of the best of his essays. It encapsulates the principal movements that characterise the modern age: romanticism, historicism, Fascism, relativism, irrationalism and nationalism.
The theme that links these essays--written over thirty years--is the phenomenon of the Russian intelligentsia, which Isaiah Berlin describes as 'the largest single Russian contribution to social change in the world'.
Eight of the nine pieces in The Sense of Reality are published here for the first time. The range is characteristically wide: realism in history; the history of socialism; the radical cultural revolution instigated by romanticism; The title essay, starting from the impossibility of recreating a bygone epoch, provides a superb centrepiece.
Isaiah Berlin's response to the Soviet Union was central to his identity, both personally and intellectually. Born a Russian subject in Riga in 1909, he spoke Russian as a child and witnessed both revolutions in St.
This book brings together three major studies from Isaiah Berlin's central intellectual project - to explain the opposition to the excessively scientistic French Enlightenment by getting under the skin of its critics and giving a sympathetic account of their views.
Isaiah Berlin studies the philosophical ideas of Giovanni Battisti Vico (1668-1744), a thinker who, after being overshadowed by Montesquieu, has been rediscovered and Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) who originated three perhaps equally influential currents of thought.