Sir Isaiah Berlin, London, 1990 ©Steve Pyke
People
|
Sir Isaiah Berlin, London, 1990 ©Steve Pyke |
"Two other delusions, he [Berlin] believed bedevil humankind - the delusions of relativism, that all values are more or less equally valid; and the delusion of determinism, that the individual makes no difference to the course of history. His superb essays on Churchill and Roosevelt make the point. You must stand unflinchingly as they did, Berlin said, for what you believe... He was a beacon of wisdom and humanity in what he called "the most terrible century in western history." Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
Encyclopedia Entries
Sir Isaiah Berlin Encyclopedia Britannica
Berlin, Isaiah Wikipedia Berlin, Isaiah Columbia Encyclopedia Berlin, Isaiah Free Online Dictionary of Philosophy
Plural values. Plural ways of knowing.
ReadingThe Pursuit of the Ideal
Kant as an unfamiliar source of nationalism
"On Equality" from Concepts and Categories
The Apotheosis of the Romantic Will
Concepts and Categories Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library
Big Ideas Hardy
Whats the Big Idea Kukathas
Berlin's Obituary from the "New York Times" November 10, 1997
The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History (1953) London, Phoenix.
Four Essays on Liberty (1969) Oxford, Oxford.
Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays (1978) London, Pimlico.
Against the Current (1979) London, Pimlico.
The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas (1990) Princeton, Princeton University Press.
The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and their History (1996) London, Pimlico.
The Roots of Romanticism (1999) London, Chatto & Windus.
The Power of Ideas, (2000) London, Pimlico.
Three Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder (2000) London, Pimlico.
Freedom and its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty (2002) London, Chatto & Windus.
"Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance - these may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live by positive goals, individual and collective, a vast variety of them, seldom predictable, at times incompatible." Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century (1950), L 93 [FEL 40]
"There exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision...and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory...The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes." ‘The Hedgehog and the Fox’ (1953), PSM 436–7
"Unless there is some point at which you are prepared to fight against whatever odds, and whatever the threat may be, not merely to yourself but to anybody, all principles become flexible, all codes melt, and all ends-in-themselves for which we live disappear" to Philip Toynbee, 24 January 1958
"The simple point which I am concerned to make is that where ultimate values are irreconcilable, clear-cut solutions cannot, in principle, be found. To decide rationally in such situations is to decide in the light of general ideals, the overall pattern of life pursued by a man or a group or a society." Introduction to ‘Five Essays on Liberty’ (1969) , L 22–3
"The notion that there must exist final objective answers to normative questions, truths that can be demonstrated or directly intuited, that it is in principle possible to discover a harmonious pattern in which all values are reconciled, and that it is towards this unique goal that we must make; that we can uncover some single central principle that shapes this vision, a principle which, once found, will govern our lives – this ancient and almost universal belief, on which so much traditional thought and action and philosophical doctrine rests, seems to me invalid, and at times to have led (and still to lead) to absurdities in theory and barbarous consequences in practice. Introduction to ‘Five Essays on Liberty’ (1969), 47–8 [lv–lvi]
"It may be that the ideal of freedom to choose ends without claiming eternal validity for them, and the pluralism of values connected with this, is only the late fruit of our declining capitalist civilisation: an ideal which remote ages and primitive societies have not recognised, and one which posterity will regard with curiosity, even sympathy, but little comprehension. This may be so; but no sceptical conclusions seem to me to follow. Principles are not less sacred because their duration cannot be guaranteed. Indeed, the very desire for guarantees that our values are eternal and secure in some objective heaven is perhaps only a craving for the certainties of childhood or the absolute values of our primitive past. ‘To realise the relative validity of one’s convictions’, said an admirable writer of our time, ‘and yet stand for them unflinchingly is what distinguishes a civilised man from a barbarian.’ To demand more than this is perhaps a deep and incurable metaphysical need; but to allow such a need to determine one’s practice is a symptom of an equally deep, and more dangerous, moral and political immaturity." ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ (1958), L 172 [FEL 125]
Isaiah Berlin: A Personal ImpressionHenry Hardy
Isaiah Berlin was one of the most remarkable men of his time, and one of the leading liberal thinkers of the century. Philosopher, political theorist, historian of ideas; Russian, Englishman, Jew; essayist, critic, teacher; he was a man of formidable intellectual power with a rare gift for understanding a wide range of human motives, hopes and fears, and a prodigiously energetic capacity for enjoyment of life, of people in all their variety, of their ideas and idiosyncrasies, of literature, of music, of art. |
| His defence and refinement of what he saw as the most essential conception of freedom achieved classic status, and the presence and character of this conception in the modern mind is due in no small measure to him. He also identified and developed, with considerable originality, a pluralist view of ultimate human ideals that supports his liberal stance, and deserves to become just as deeply embedded in our outlook. In contrast to the great majority of ideologies and creeds that humanity has created, he argued that not all values can be jointly realised in one life, or in a single society or period of history, and that many ideals cannot even be compared on a common scale; so that there can be no single objective ranking of ends, no uniquely right set of principles by which to live. |
| © Copyright Henry Hardy 1997 | N E X T > > |
in chronological order of publication
Ryan, Alan (ed.), The Idea of Freedom: Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin (Oxford, 1979: Oxford University Press)
Kocis, Robert, A Critical Appraisal of Sir Isaiah Berlin’s Political Philosophy (Lewiston, NY, etc., 1989: Edwin Mellen Press)
Margalit, Avishai, and others, On the Thought of Isaiah Berlin: Papers Presented in Honour of Professor Sir Isaiah Berlin on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday (Jerusalem, 1990: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities); also published in Hebrew (the translation from which into English, where relevant, is by Gabriel Piterberg)
Margalit, Edna and Avishai (eds), Isaiah Berlin: A Celebration (London, 1991: Hogarth Press; Chicago, 1991 [paperback 2001]: University of Chicago Press)
Galipeau, Claude J., Isaiah Berlin’s Liberalism (Oxford, 1994: Clarendon Press)
Díaz-Urmeneta Muñoz, Juan Bosco, Individuo y racionalidad moderna: una lectura de Isaiah Berlin (Seville, 1994: University of Seville)
Gray, John, Isaiah Berlin (London, 1995: HarperCollins; Princeton, 1996: Princeton University Press); retitled Berlin for the paperback editon, published in the Modern Masters series (London, 1995: Fontana)
This is a slightly altered version of an obituary published in
the Independent newspaper on 7 November 1997. The copyright is owned by its author.