Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin was a prominent political philosopher known for his work on liberalism, pluralism, and the concept of negative freedom. He emphasized the importance of recognizing and respecting the diversity of human values and beliefs, and his ideas have had a significant impact on political thought and international relations theory. Berlin's writings continue to be influential in discussions about individual liberty and the nature of political power.
8 Key excerpts on "Isaiah Berlin"
eBook - ePub- Gregory Claeys(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- CQ Press(Publisher)
...For example, John Gray in his Isaiah Berlin (1995) has argued that value-pluralism undermines efforts to imbue the ideals of liberalism with any universal applicability, and therefore, it can only be viewed as one form of political life alongside many others that may well reject its guiding ideals. It is this idea of value plurality and its consequences for political theory that has constituted the main theme of Berlin’s intellectual legacy. Jamie Reed See also Liberalism ; Liberty, Theories of ; Political Philosophy and Political Thought ; State, Theories of the ; Totalitarianism ; Twentieth-Century Political Thought Further Readings Crowder, George. 2004. Isaiah Berlin: Liberty and Pluralism. Cambridge, UK : Polity. Galipeau, Claude J. 1994. Isaiah Berlin’s Liberalism. Oxford, UK : Clarendon Press. Gray, John. 1995. Isaiah Berlin. London : HarperCollins. Kocis, Robert. 1989. A Critical Appraisal of Sir Isaiah Berlin’s Political Philosophy. Lewiston, NY : Edwin Mellen. Press....
eBook - ePub- Johnny Lyons(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
...PART FIVE Authenticity 19 Framing the debate A customary feature of commentaries on Isaiah Berlin is a consideration of his famous distinction between two concepts of political liberty. Typically, scholars discuss and evaluate this aspect of his thought in one of three ways. Admirers of Berlin’s liberalism defend his account of negative liberty, a concept which, as we saw in Chapter 1, stands for freedom from political or state interference. They also tend to applaud Berlin’s insistence on prioritizing a minimum degree of negative liberty as the right response to a morally diverse world, in which everyone should enjoy the right to pursue their own chosen way of life. Opponents of Berlin’s liberalism, on the other hand, characteristically criticize his elevation of negative liberty over positive liberty – the latter of which stands for the freedom to be someone or do something in the political sphere – either because it sells positive notions of liberty short or because the privileging of negative liberty is based on nothing more than a theoretically confused, morally bereft and politically naive assessment of our social reality. And, finally, those unwilling to take either of the above sides are likely to have mixed views about the matter. Typically, they are impressed with the historical range of Berlin’s analysis of liberty but are also likely to be puzzled by how his theory of value pluralism coheres with his defence of a tolerant society. What follows does not take this well-trodden path. The world hardly needs another analysis of Berlin’s two concepts of liberty. It has already been done many times and, in some cases, extremely well. 1 Moreover, few are better at critiquing Berlin on liberty than Berlin himself. Rather I shall be concerned with another aspect of Berlin’s liberalism that rarely gets much mention. The feature of his thought I am referring to is romanticism...
eBook - ePubValue, Conflict, and Order
Berlin, Hampshire, Williams, and the Realist Revival in Political Theory
- Edward Hall(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- University of Chicago Press(Publisher)
...Berlin’s work vividly suggests that some moralist ways of thinking about politics must be relinquished and also implies that questions of legitimacy and authority must be considered central in political theory. Even though Berlin did not directly address these latter issues himself in any real depth, as I illustrate in the remainder of this book, his account of value pluralism is a vital influence on later thinkers like Hampshire and Williams, who do think in appropriately “political” terms about these issues. Before I turn to Hampshire and Williams, though, I conclude this chapter by examining how thinking about politics in the terms I outlined in this section can illuminate how a value pluralist might commit to a substantive political position, like liberalism. My argument is consistent with some of the notoriously contradictory things that Berlin said regarding the relationship between pluralism and liberalism. However, I make no bones about whether I articulate the definitive interpretation of Berlin’s considered opinion on this question. (In fact, I am doubtful that any such interpretation is possible.) Instead, it should be seen as a preliminary discussion, to be developed later in the book, about how the endorsement of a substantive set of political convictions is possible while affirming the central tenets of the views of moral philosophy’s limits with which I am concerned. Pluralism and Liberalism As noted earlier, at certain points, most notably the final section of “Two Concepts,” Berlin intimates that there is a necessary connection between value pluralism and negative freedom, famously asserting that pluralism entails a measure of negative liberty...
eBook - ePub- Gene Callahan, Kenneth B. McIntyre, Gene Callahan, Kenneth B. McIntyre(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
...Henry Hardy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 25. 21 Isaiah Berlin, “Logical Translation,” in Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays, ed. Henry Hardy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 77–79. Compare: Berlin, “My Intellectual Path,” 2–4. 22 For more on Berlin’s lack of discussion about the mechanisms of governance, see: Jeremy Waldron, “Isaiah Berlin’s Neglect of Enlightenment Constitutionalism,” in Political Political Theory: Essays on Institutions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), as well as George Crowder, “Value Pluralism, Constitutionalism, and Democracy: Waldron and Berlin in Debate,” The Review of Politics 81, no. 1 (2019): 101–127. 23 Berlin, “The Decline of Utopian Ideas in the West,” 24–25, 27. 24 Berlin, “The Decline of Utopian Ideas in the West,” 27. 25 Berlin, “The Decline of Utopian Ideas in the West,” 28. 26 Berlin, “The Decline of Utopian Ideas in the West,” 28–29. 27 Isaiah Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” in Liberty, ed. Henry Hardy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 169–181. 28 Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” 191. 29 Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” 214. 30 Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” 192–198. Compare: Berlin, “My Intellectual Path,” 16–18. 31 Berlin, “European Unity and its Vicissitudes,” 181–182. 32 Berlin, “Two Concepts of Liberty,” 198. 33 Ronald Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011)....
eBook - ePubCultural Diversity, Liberal Pluralism and Schools
Isaiah Berlin and Education
- Neil Burtonwood(Author)
- 2006(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...One is represented by an Enlightenment tradition that privileges reason and values personal autonomy in the form of individual choice-making above all else. Berlin is perhaps best known for his espousal of this kind of liberalism as ‘negative freedom’ or freedom from external constraint; in fact, Berlin’s essays on liberty are regarded by supporters and critics alike as a definitive statement of this kind of liberalism (see especially Berlin, 2002a). 1 Gray, however, identifies another face of liberalism, one that is more concerned with social and cultural diversity. Here the key value is not individual autonomy but tolerance, a tolerance that needs to be extended to those communities where members choose not to live their lives with individual autonomy as a central value. In the light of his commitment to cultural groups and the sense of belonging that membership of Isaiah Berlin and liberalism 3 such groups engenders Berlin has been championed as a major contributor to this second version of liberalism (Tamir, 1998). Jacob Levy (2000) starts from a rather different theme in Berlin’s writing and, as a result, he offers a quite different interpretation. It is because of the fact of diversity that Levy chooses to emphasize Berlin’s concerns about the violence, cruelty and terror that can occur when individuals commit totally to the identities of nation or cultural group. Chapter 1 will conclude by placing these fears within the context of Berlin’s early life in what he often described as a terrifying century. Berlin’s sometimes autobiographical writing will provide a context for examining what Levy, following Judith Shklar, calls a ‘multiculturalism of fear’. This version of what Shklar (1998) referred to as the ‘liberalism of fear’ encourages recognition of the importance that individuals give to their group affiliations but without losing sight of the dangers that these particular identities can represent...
eBook - ePub- Maria Dimova-Cookson(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...4 Isaiah Berlin, positive freedom and the impact of moral authorities on human agency Introduction Berlin’s essay ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ (hereafter TCL) is a masterpiece in moral and political philosophy. 1 Readers find in it different inspirational themes, 2 and they do not necessarily agree with the specific conclusions of the essay. I believe that the essay should be celebrated for its contribution not just to the analysis but also to the conceptualisation of liberty, even if this conceptualisation can be revised and improved. Berlin has demonstrated, better than any other scholar, the need for two concepts of liberty. He has suggested how the internal freedom boundary – the boundary between the two real meanings of freedom 3 – should be drawn, and he has alluded to the flexibility of this boundary. Because of the scale of his philosophical aspiration, some critics have categorised his intellectual conduct as ‘ahistoric’ (Collini, 1999: 203). His ambition was to capture in clear theoretical terms the history of liberty in ‘the Western tradition in ethics and politics’ of the past ‘two millennia’ (TCL : 200). Berlin, however, is explicit about both his universalistic analytical intention and his more narrowly historical positioning on the anti-communist side of the Cold War. TCL moves in and out of its specific historical and ideological context, and this is one of the things that makes it so unique: its elaborate theoretical design is frail and, if anything, easy to challenge, but it continues to inspire philosophical fascination: ‘generations of students have cut their teeth in analytical political theory on the distinction between positive and negative liberty’ (Coole, 2013: 199)...
eBook - ePub- John Horton, Glen Newey(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Gray and the Politics of Pluralism GEORGE CROWDER School of Political and International Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia On the subject of value pluralism and its political implications, the influence of John Gray is second only to that of Isaiah Berlin. It was Berlin, in his famous ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ (1958) and other writings, who first brought the idea of plural and incommensurable values to the attention of a wide audience, and who first made that idea the centre of a sustained political theory. For Berlin, the salient ethical message of pluralism was that human beings are inevitably faced with hard choices when fundamental goods come into conflict, and that in many such cases no single response will be uniquely correct or superior to others. The political message was that individuals should be free, within limits, to make such choices for themselves, rather than having solutions imposed on them. On Berlin’s account, pluralism points towards a liberal politics in which individual liberty, although not invariably overriding, has a special place. Gray issues a dramatic challenge to Berlin’s reading of the politics of pluralism. Pluralism, Gray argues, far from supporting liberal universalism, actually undermines it. If pluralism means that fundamental human values can reasonably be ranked in many different ways, then the ranking characteristic of the liberal outlook will be only one such ranking among others, with no valid claim to superiority. From a pluralist point of view, liberalism can at best be seen as ‘agonistic’, competing with alternative political forms on an equal moral footing. In some situations non-liberal solutions will make more sense than liberal ones. I shall argue that Gray’s anti-liberal reading of pluralism is mistaken. 1 The essay is divided into three main sections. First, I review the basic terms of Berlinian pluralism as the background to Gray’s own position...
eBook - ePubThe Problem of Value Pluralism
Isaiah Berlin and Beyond
- George Crowder(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Second, the concerns of value pluralists are more central to contemporary political theory than is commonly realized. Notes 1 My main concern is with the political implications of value pluralism, but I sometimes discuss pluralism in a personal setting too: see, especially, Chapters 3 and 5. 2 ‘Value pluralism’ sometimes appears in the literature as ‘moral pluralism’. I use either ‘value pluralism’ or simply ‘pluralism’ interchangeably. 3 For a brief outline of the post-Berlinian literature, see Crowder 2016. References In-text abbreviations are noted in brackets. Bellamy, Richard (1999), Liberalism and Pluralism: Towards a Politics of Compromise (London: Routledge). [ LAP ] Berlin, Isaiah (1975), ‘The End of the Ideal of a Perfect Society’, transcribed in Henry Hardy, ed., The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library, http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk Berlin, Isaiah (2002), Liberty, ed. Henry Hardy (Oxford: Oxford University Press). [ L ] Berlin, Isaiah (2013), The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas, ed. Henry Hardy, 2nd edn (Princeton: Princeton University Press). [ CTH ] Berlin, Isaiah (2015), Affirming: Letters 1975–1997, ed. Henry Hardy and Mark Pottle (London: Chatto & Windus). Berlin, Isaiah and Beata Polanowska-Sygulska (2006), Unfinished Dialogue (Amherst, NY : Prometheus Press). [ UD ] Crowder, George (2016), ‘After Berlin: The Literature Since 2002’, in Henry Hardy, ed., The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library, http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/onib/after-berlin.pdf accessed 10 July 2019. Galston, William (2002), Liberal Pluralism: The Implications of Value Pluralism for Political Theory and Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). [ LP ] Galston, William (2005), The Practice of Liberal Pluralism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). [ PLP ] Gray, John (2000), Two Faces of Liberalism (Cambridge: Polity). Hampshire, Stuart (2000), Justice Is Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press)...
