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Freedom and Its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty - Updated Edition
These celebrated lectures constitute one of Isaiah Berlin’s most concise, accessible, and convincing presentations of his views on human freedom—views that later found expression in such famous works as “Two Concepts of Liberty” and were at the heart of his lifelong work on the Enlightenment and its critics. When they were broadcast on BBC radio in 1952, the lectures created a sensation and confirmed Berlin’s reputation as an intellectual who could speak to the public in an appealing and compelling way. A recording of only one of the lectures has survived, but Henry Hardy has recreated them all here from BBC transcripts and Berlin’s annotated drafts. Hardy has also added, as an appendix to this new edition, a revealing text of “Two Concepts” based on Berlin’s earliest surviving drafts, which throws light on some of the issues raised by the essay. And, in a new foreword, historian Enrique Krauze traces the origin of Berlin’s idea of negative freedom to his rejection of the notion that the creation of the State of Israel left Jews with only two choices: to emigrate to Israel or to renounce Jewish identity.
332 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1969
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About the author
Isaiah Berlin
196 books777 followersSir 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; and as a brilliant speaker who delivered, rapidly and spontaneously, richly allusive and coherently structured material, whether for a lecture series at Oxford University or as a broadcaster on the BBC Third Programme, usually without a script. Many of his essays and lectures were later collected in book form.
Born in Riga, now capital of Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire, he was the first person of Jewish descent to be elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. From 1957 to 1967, he was Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1963 to 1964. In 1966, he helped to found Wolfson College, Oxford, and became its first President. He was knighted in 1957, and was awarded the Order of Merit in 1971. He was President of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978. He also received the 1979 Jerusalem Prize for his writings on individual freedom. Berlin's work on liberal theory has had a lasting influence.
Berlin is best known for his essay Two Concepts of Liberty, delivered in 1958 as his inaugural lecture as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford. He defined negative liberty as the absence of constraints on, or interference with, agents' possible action. Greater "negative freedom" meant fewer restrictions on possible action. Berlin associated positive liberty with the idea of self-mastery, or the capacity to determine oneself, to be in control of one's destiny. While Berlin granted that both concepts of liberty represent valid human ideals, as a matter of history the positive concept of liberty has proven particularly susceptible to political abuse.
Berlin contended that under the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel (all committed to the positive concept of liberty), European political thinkers often equated liberty with forms of political discipline or constraint. This became politically dangerous when notions of positive liberty were, in the nineteenth century, used to defend nationalism, self-determination and the Communist idea of collective rational control over human destiny. Berlin argued that, following this line of thought, demands for freedom paradoxically become demands for forms of collective control and discipline – those deemed necessary for the "self-mastery" or self-determination of nations, classes, democratic communities, and even humanity as a whole. There is thus an elective affinity, for Berlin, between positive liberty and political totalitarianism.
Conversely, negative liberty represents a different, perhaps safer, understanding of the concept of liberty. Its proponents (such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill) insisted that constraint and discipline were the antithesis of liberty and so were (and are) less prone to confusing liberty and constraint in the manner of the philosophical harbingers of modern totalitarianism. It is this concept of Negative Liberty that Isaiah Berlin supported. It dominated heavily his early chapters in his third lecture.
This negative liberty is central to the claim for toleration due to incommensurability. This concept is mirrored in the work of Joseph Raz.
Berlin's espousal of negative liberty, his hatred of totalitarianism and his experience of Russia in the revolution and through his contact with the poet Anna Akhmatova made him an enemy of the Soviet Union and he was one of the leading public intellectuals in the ideological battle against Communism during the Cold War.
Born in Riga, now capital of Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire, he was the first person of Jewish descent to be elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. From 1957 to 1967, he was Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1963 to 1964. In 1966, he helped to found Wolfson College, Oxford, and became its first President. He was knighted in 1957, and was awarded the Order of Merit in 1971. He was President of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978. He also received the 1979 Jerusalem Prize for his writings on individual freedom. Berlin's work on liberal theory has had a lasting influence.
Berlin is best known for his essay Two Concepts of Liberty, delivered in 1958 as his inaugural lecture as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford. He defined negative liberty as the absence of constraints on, or interference with, agents' possible action. Greater "negative freedom" meant fewer restrictions on possible action. Berlin associated positive liberty with the idea of self-mastery, or the capacity to determine oneself, to be in control of one's destiny. While Berlin granted that both concepts of liberty represent valid human ideals, as a matter of history the positive concept of liberty has proven particularly susceptible to political abuse.
Berlin contended that under the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel (all committed to the positive concept of liberty), European political thinkers often equated liberty with forms of political discipline or constraint. This became politically dangerous when notions of positive liberty were, in the nineteenth century, used to defend nationalism, self-determination and the Communist idea of collective rational control over human destiny. Berlin argued that, following this line of thought, demands for freedom paradoxically become demands for forms of collective control and discipline – those deemed necessary for the "self-mastery" or self-determination of nations, classes, democratic communities, and even humanity as a whole. There is thus an elective affinity, for Berlin, between positive liberty and political totalitarianism.
Conversely, negative liberty represents a different, perhaps safer, understanding of the concept of liberty. Its proponents (such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill) insisted that constraint and discipline were the antithesis of liberty and so were (and are) less prone to confusing liberty and constraint in the manner of the philosophical harbingers of modern totalitarianism. It is this concept of Negative Liberty that Isaiah Berlin supported. It dominated heavily his early chapters in his third lecture.
This negative liberty is central to the claim for toleration due to incommensurability. This concept is mirrored in the work of Joseph Raz.
Berlin's espousal of negative liberty, his hatred of totalitarianism and his experience of Russia in the revolution and through his contact with the poet Anna Akhmatova made him an enemy of the Soviet Union and he was one of the leading public intellectuals in the ideological battle against Communism during the Cold War.
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January 11, 2022
Trump’s Religion
Trumpism is a powerful popular movement. For many, including me, it is a mysterious thing. What holds together an alliance of evangelical Christians, farmers, resentful bourgeoisie, racist nationalists, anti-Intellectuals, and radical nihilists? Surely without a common political philosophy such an electorate must fragment as soon as real policies are formulated. And yet, if anything, Trump’s followers seem more aligned than they did three years ago. What is the real core of conviction that holds these people together?
Isaiah Berlin’s analysis of the historical intellectual roots of modern political society provides some enlightening suggestions. His study of the early 19th century philosopher and man of affairs, Joseph de Maistre, is particularly revealing of the current situation in the United States. Berlin’s acute insights, although written and recorded almost 70 years ago, provide for me a compelling rationale for Trumpism and its international variants.
Maistre was an arch-reactionary. He, even more so than his rough contemporary Edmund Burke, was horrified by what he perceived as the liberal idea of personal freedom underlying the French Revolution and its murderous consequences. Most of his recorded thought involves constructing a rationale for the destruction of all rationality, particularly that of the French philosophes whose Reason had led to the destruction of reasonable society.
For Berlin, Maistre’s philosophy has, just as that of the liberal philosophes, a mystical core: “This is a central doctrine in Maistre: that rationalist notions do not work. If you really want to know why people behave as they do, you must seek the answer in the realm of the irrational.” Immediately, it is clear from this observation why current-day Trumpists suspect not just science and its conclusions about things like climate change, but all experts from economists to political analysts. This attitude is not a consequence of ignorance which might be corrected by education; it is the conclusion of a rather sophisticated logical argument in the same vein as that of Maistre.
This conclusion also conforms with the traditional religious mood in America, which is one of gnostic Calvinism. According to St. Augustine, the mind is an unreliable and fundamentally corrupt organ of all human beings. The mind is driven by desires which cloud its judgments and lead to self-destructive behaviour. It, therefore, must be thwarted as a matter of Christian principle: “Clarity, intelligibility must be put out of court, must be stopped, because it is they which create unrest, criticism, questioning.” Trump, of course, demonstrates this principle every time he opens his mouth. And it is perceived as such by his supporters.
What counts, what holds society together, is one’s culture - those institutional norms and rules of behaviour which have been tried and tested. It is not simply that these are familiar and consequently more comfortable. They have been pragmatically proven to work by their persistence. Political conservatism therefore has a great affinity with religion as an institution that recognizes the value of ritual and liturgy, and the permanence of social institutions themselves. Antiquity is good simply because it is old. “The enemy, as we have seen, is ‘la secte’, the disturbers, the subverters, the secular reformers, the intellectuals, the idealists, the lawyers, the perfectibilians, the people who believe in conscience, or equality, or the rational organisation of society, the liberators, the revolutionaries – these are the people who must be rooted out.”
This social conservatism is accompanied by justified suspicion of those who may not be part of ‘us’ because of race or national background. “Prejudice is simply the skin which humanity has acquired in the course of centuries.” Prejudice, therefore, is not some arbitrary judgment; it too is a pragmatic historical principle which can be abandoned only with extreme social peril. Prejudice, and Maistre refers particularly to immigrants, is not a personal defect but a responsibility for all citizens. It is the first line of defense for civilization. “Maistre’s belief [is] that government is impossible without repression of the weak majority by a minority of dedicated rulers, hardened against all temptation to indulge in any kind of humanitarianism.”
Repression of the weak, both domestically and internationally, demands power, and power of a particular sort: “all greatness, all power, all social order depends upon the executioner; he is the terror of human society and the tie that holds it together.” For Maistre, “Power is divine. It is the source of all life, of all action.” And whoever holds power - whether the upstart Napoleon Bonaparte or the mendacious Donald Trump - has been manifestly designated by God to impose appropriate order on society. Ultimately this is the power to kill, either one’s own or others as necessary. Hence the religious justification for increased defense and police budgets and for seemingly reckless international confrontation.
“Let us look at what is going on round us, Maistre says, let us not look at books, let us look at nature, at ourselves.” Theory, strategy, even language, is inherently bad. With some dumbing down of the vocabulary, Berlin’s summary of Maistre’s national self-reflection captures a coherent political philosophy and could easily form the centerpiece for a Trump rally:
Postscript: For more on Maistre’s influence on political philosophy and law, see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Trumpism is a powerful popular movement. For many, including me, it is a mysterious thing. What holds together an alliance of evangelical Christians, farmers, resentful bourgeoisie, racist nationalists, anti-Intellectuals, and radical nihilists? Surely without a common political philosophy such an electorate must fragment as soon as real policies are formulated. And yet, if anything, Trump’s followers seem more aligned than they did three years ago. What is the real core of conviction that holds these people together?
Isaiah Berlin’s analysis of the historical intellectual roots of modern political society provides some enlightening suggestions. His study of the early 19th century philosopher and man of affairs, Joseph de Maistre, is particularly revealing of the current situation in the United States. Berlin’s acute insights, although written and recorded almost 70 years ago, provide for me a compelling rationale for Trumpism and its international variants.
Maistre was an arch-reactionary. He, even more so than his rough contemporary Edmund Burke, was horrified by what he perceived as the liberal idea of personal freedom underlying the French Revolution and its murderous consequences. Most of his recorded thought involves constructing a rationale for the destruction of all rationality, particularly that of the French philosophes whose Reason had led to the destruction of reasonable society.
For Berlin, Maistre’s philosophy has, just as that of the liberal philosophes, a mystical core: “This is a central doctrine in Maistre: that rationalist notions do not work. If you really want to know why people behave as they do, you must seek the answer in the realm of the irrational.” Immediately, it is clear from this observation why current-day Trumpists suspect not just science and its conclusions about things like climate change, but all experts from economists to political analysts. This attitude is not a consequence of ignorance which might be corrected by education; it is the conclusion of a rather sophisticated logical argument in the same vein as that of Maistre.
This conclusion also conforms with the traditional religious mood in America, which is one of gnostic Calvinism. According to St. Augustine, the mind is an unreliable and fundamentally corrupt organ of all human beings. The mind is driven by desires which cloud its judgments and lead to self-destructive behaviour. It, therefore, must be thwarted as a matter of Christian principle: “Clarity, intelligibility must be put out of court, must be stopped, because it is they which create unrest, criticism, questioning.” Trump, of course, demonstrates this principle every time he opens his mouth. And it is perceived as such by his supporters.
What counts, what holds society together, is one’s culture - those institutional norms and rules of behaviour which have been tried and tested. It is not simply that these are familiar and consequently more comfortable. They have been pragmatically proven to work by their persistence. Political conservatism therefore has a great affinity with religion as an institution that recognizes the value of ritual and liturgy, and the permanence of social institutions themselves. Antiquity is good simply because it is old. “The enemy, as we have seen, is ‘la secte’, the disturbers, the subverters, the secular reformers, the intellectuals, the idealists, the lawyers, the perfectibilians, the people who believe in conscience, or equality, or the rational organisation of society, the liberators, the revolutionaries – these are the people who must be rooted out.”
This social conservatism is accompanied by justified suspicion of those who may not be part of ‘us’ because of race or national background. “Prejudice is simply the skin which humanity has acquired in the course of centuries.” Prejudice, therefore, is not some arbitrary judgment; it too is a pragmatic historical principle which can be abandoned only with extreme social peril. Prejudice, and Maistre refers particularly to immigrants, is not a personal defect but a responsibility for all citizens. It is the first line of defense for civilization. “Maistre’s belief [is] that government is impossible without repression of the weak majority by a minority of dedicated rulers, hardened against all temptation to indulge in any kind of humanitarianism.”
Repression of the weak, both domestically and internationally, demands power, and power of a particular sort: “all greatness, all power, all social order depends upon the executioner; he is the terror of human society and the tie that holds it together.” For Maistre, “Power is divine. It is the source of all life, of all action.” And whoever holds power - whether the upstart Napoleon Bonaparte or the mendacious Donald Trump - has been manifestly designated by God to impose appropriate order on society. Ultimately this is the power to kill, either one’s own or others as necessary. Hence the religious justification for increased defense and police budgets and for seemingly reckless international confrontation.
“Let us look at what is going on round us, Maistre says, let us not look at books, let us look at nature, at ourselves.” Theory, strategy, even language, is inherently bad. With some dumbing down of the vocabulary, Berlin’s summary of Maistre’s national self-reflection captures a coherent political philosophy and could easily form the centerpiece for a Trump rally:
“At the end of positivist, optimistic periods of human construction, in which men rise up and say they are about to cure all the world’s ills by some economic or social solution, which then does not work, there is always a penchant for reaction on the part of ordinary people, satiated by so much false optimism, so much pragmatism, so much positive idealism, which become discredited by the sheer pricking of the bubble, by the fact that all the slogans turn out to be meaningless and weak when the wolf really comes to the door. Always, after this, people want to look at the seamy side of things, and in our day the more terrifying sides of psychoanalysis, the more brutal and violent aspects of Marxism, are due to this human craving for the seamy side – something more astringent, more real, more genuine, meeting people’s needs in some more effective fashion than the rosy, over-mechanical, over-schematised faiths of the past.”
Postscript: For more on Maistre’s influence on political philosophy and law, see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... and https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
November 27, 2018
با خواندن هر نوشتهای از آیزایا برلین کلاه از سر بر میدارم و خودم را در حال تحسین این حد از دانش، روشنبینی و تسلط بر تاریخ اندیشهها مییابم
برلین به تحلیل آرای شش متفکر میپردازد که جز یکی –ژوزف دومستر که اساسا با عقل و آزادی انسان در ستیز است– همگی به نام آزادی، ولی نهایتا و عملا علیه آن اندیشیدهاند. این پنج متفکر باقیمانده عبارتاند از: هلوتیوس، روسو، فیشته، هگل و سنسیمون
برلین طرفدار قرائت لیبرالی از آزادی است: نبود مانعی بر سر تحقق هرآنچه میخواهم بدان معتقد باشم و هرآنچه میخوام انجام دهم. نقد برلین به یکایک شش اندیشمند مورد بحثش این است که آنها اگر چه اغلب از تجلیل آزادی انسان آغاز کردهاند، اما آن را در نهایت قربانی لذت و فایده (هلوتیوس)، یا تبعیت از نوعی ارادهی کلی و قاعدهی اخلاقی عمومی (روسو)، یا نوعی به ظهور رساندن و تحمیل خود بر طبیعت (فیشته) یا تبعیت از روحی فراگیر و منطق عقلی کلی و خللناپذیر (هگل) و یا فنسالاری و اعتقاد به سروری دانشمندان و مدیران صنعتی و بانکداران (سنسیمون) کردهاند
برلین به تحلیل آرای شش متفکر میپردازد که جز یکی –ژوزف دومستر که اساسا با عقل و آزادی انسان در ستیز است– همگی به نام آزادی، ولی نهایتا و عملا علیه آن اندیشیدهاند. این پنج متفکر باقیمانده عبارتاند از: هلوتیوس، روسو، فیشته، هگل و سنسیمون
برلین طرفدار قرائت لیبرالی از آزادی است: نبود مانعی بر سر تحقق هرآنچه میخواهم بدان معتقد باشم و هرآنچه میخوام انجام دهم. نقد برلین به یکایک شش اندیشمند مورد بحثش این است که آنها اگر چه اغلب از تجلیل آزادی انسان آغاز کردهاند، اما آن را در نهایت قربانی لذت و فایده (هلوتیوس)، یا تبعیت از نوعی ارادهی کلی و قاعدهی اخلاقی عمومی (روسو)، یا نوعی به ظهور رساندن و تحمیل خود بر طبیعت (فیشته) یا تبعیت از روحی فراگیر و منطق عقلی کلی و خللناپذیر (هگل) و یا فنسالاری و اعتقاد به سروری دانشمندان و مدیران صنعتی و بانکداران (سنسیمون) کردهاند
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August 3, 2018از متن کتاب:
انسان می کشد تا بخورد، میکشد تا بپوشد، می کشد تا خود را بیاراید، می کشد تا بتازد، می کشد تا از خود دفاع کند، می کشد تا بیاموزد، می کشد تا تفریح کند، می کشد تا بکشد: او شاهی است مغرور و سهمگین که به همه چیز نیاز دارد و هیچ چیز را یارای ایستادگی در برابر او نیست... از بره روده هایش را می خواهد تا نوای چنگ خود را طنین افکن سازد... از گرگ کشنده ترین دندانش را تا کارهای هنری ناچیز خویش را صیقل دهد، از فیل عاجش را تا برای کودکش بازیچه بسازد. سفره اش پوشیده از اجساد است... اما کدام موجود در این کشت و کشتارآن را که همه را نابود می کند نابود خواهد کرد؟خود او. وظیفه سلاخی آدمیان بر عهده خود آدمی است... قانون بزرگ نابودی وحشیانه موجودات زنده بدین سان به انجام می رسد. سراسر زمین پیوسته غرق در خون است و چیزی به جز قربانگاهی پهناور نیست که هر ذی حیاتی باید بی آنکه نهایت و حد و وقفه ای در کار باشد تا انجام امور، تا برافتادن شر و بدی، تا مرگ مرگ، در آن قربانی شود.
انسان می کشد تا بخورد، میکشد تا بپوشد، می کشد تا خود را بیاراید، می کشد تا بتازد، می کشد تا از خود دفاع کند، می کشد تا بیاموزد، می کشد تا تفریح کند، می کشد تا بکشد: او شاهی است مغرور و سهمگین که به همه چیز نیاز دارد و هیچ چیز را یارای ایستادگی در برابر او نیست... از بره روده هایش را می خواهد تا نوای چنگ خود را طنین افکن سازد... از گرگ کشنده ترین دندانش را تا کارهای هنری ناچیز خویش را صیقل دهد، از فیل عاجش را تا برای کودکش بازیچه بسازد. سفره اش پوشیده از اجساد است... اما کدام موجود در این کشت و کشتارآن را که همه را نابود می کند نابود خواهد کرد؟خود او. وظیفه سلاخی آدمیان بر عهده خود آدمی است... قانون بزرگ نابودی وحشیانه موجودات زنده بدین سان به انجام می رسد. سراسر زمین پیوسته غرق در خون است و چیزی به جز قربانگاهی پهناور نیست که هر ذی حیاتی باید بی آنکه نهایت و حد و وقفه ای در کار باشد تا انجام امور، تا برافتادن شر و بدی، تا مرگ مرگ، در آن قربانی شود.
December 27, 2022
The idea that hundreds of thousands would tune in to listen Isaiah Berlin on BBC radio in the early 1950s to discuss six political thinkers’ ideas about freedom seems unfathomable today. Henry Hardy reconstructed the lectures into these succinct essays that are largely devoid of Berlin’s majestic, cartographic sentences to create what is arguably the most accessible of the collections available. As he makes clear in each essay, their ideas of freedom actually buttressed the principles of authoritarian, totalitarian systems. Given the tenor of our times and my occasional reading list to help me better understand the large portion of U.S. that craves simplistic right-wing leadership, I’ll focus on the last subject, Joseph de Maistre.
Maistre was the intellectual father of modern fascism. I doubt that 20th and 21st century fascist leaders and politicians—even the current American incarnations—ever heard of him, but his ideas form the core of modern day reactionary political systems. Born in the Savoy kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in 1753, his views were strongly influenced by the experiences of the French Revolution. He served the king of Sardinia, first gaining prominence as a pamphleteer and later as envoy to Russia—the king wanted both to control and keep him as far away as possible—where he lived from 1803 to 1817 before being summoned home until his death in 1821.
Maistre strongly opposed the liberal thinkers of the 18th century with a counter-intuitive empiricism. “In place of the ideals of progress, liberty, perfectibility he preached the sacredness of the past, the virtue, and the necessity, indeed, of complete subjection, because of the incurably bad and corrupt nature of man. In place of science, he preached the primacy of instinct, superstition, prejudice. In place of optimism, pessimism. In place of eternal harmony and eternal peace, the necessity—for him the divine necessity—of conflict, of suffering, of bloodshed, of war.” He saw killing as a virtue, extrapolating the killing of animals for man’s benefits (from food to clothing to luxury) to the primal need for society to live in fear of the “hangman,” which, intellectually, is not far removed from contemporary rhetoric about “law and order.” Moreover, war is a good for society because it acts as an organizing force. The Church, Catholic in his case, does the same. Since, as Berlin articulates Maistre, “Man is by nature vicious, wicked, cowardly and bad…unless clamped with iron rings and held down by means of the most rigid discipline” he “need[s] to be curbed and controlled.”
Moreover, Maistre believed that irrationality—“the only things which last”—not rationality, explained how society behaved. “For example, he says, take the institution of hereditary monarchy: What could be more irrational?...Here is an institution of patently idiotic nature, for which no good reason can be given, yet it lasts…But far more rational, far more logical and reasonable, would be to abolish such a monarchy and see what happens.” Maistre felt the same about marriage, reasoning the irrationality of a couple falling in love and then staying together because of historical tradition. “So he goes on, from institution to institution, paradoxically asserting that whatever is irrational lasts, and that whatever is rational collapses; it collapses because anything which is constructed by reason can be pulverised by reason…The only thing which can ever dominate man is impenetrable mystery.”
Prejudice is, according Maistre, a virtue because it is “merely the beliefs of the centuries, tested by experience." Scientists “are the people who have the least capacity for understanding life, and for government…[because] science [has a] dry, abstract, unconcrete nature, something about the fact that it is divorced from the crooked, chaotic, the irrational texture of life with all its darkness, which makes scientists incapable of adapting themselves to actual facts, and anyone listening to them is automatically doomed.” He advised the Russian czar to ban German Lutherans from entering his country because “Good men—family men, men who have traditions, faith, religion, respectable morals—do not leave their countries. Only the feckless and the restless and the critical do so. This is,” as Berlin makes clear, “the first real sermon against refugees, against freedom of spirit, against the circulation of humanity…”
Maistre was, unsurprisingly, a great admirer of Napoleon. The King of Sardinia explicitly prohibited Maistre from meeting with Napoleon because he feared the consequences of what might come out of such an encounter. And although Maistre’s views were largely confined to elites and he was much forgotten after his death, his ideas predicted the worst of the 20th century and still informs how we should view demagogues and their followers today. According to Berlin, “Maistre earns our gratitude as a prophet of the most violent, the most destructive forces which have threatened and still threaten the liberty and ideals of normal human beings.”
For those who question how Putinism, Trumpism, fundamentalist religion, and extreme terrorism can flourish today, it might be worth learning more about Maistre. They probably won’t like what they see and read, but they’ll be better able to understand why these movements exist and why the defenders of liberal democracy (writ small) must never become complacent.
Maistre was the intellectual father of modern fascism. I doubt that 20th and 21st century fascist leaders and politicians—even the current American incarnations—ever heard of him, but his ideas form the core of modern day reactionary political systems. Born in the Savoy kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in 1753, his views were strongly influenced by the experiences of the French Revolution. He served the king of Sardinia, first gaining prominence as a pamphleteer and later as envoy to Russia—the king wanted both to control and keep him as far away as possible—where he lived from 1803 to 1817 before being summoned home until his death in 1821.
Maistre strongly opposed the liberal thinkers of the 18th century with a counter-intuitive empiricism. “In place of the ideals of progress, liberty, perfectibility he preached the sacredness of the past, the virtue, and the necessity, indeed, of complete subjection, because of the incurably bad and corrupt nature of man. In place of science, he preached the primacy of instinct, superstition, prejudice. In place of optimism, pessimism. In place of eternal harmony and eternal peace, the necessity—for him the divine necessity—of conflict, of suffering, of bloodshed, of war.” He saw killing as a virtue, extrapolating the killing of animals for man’s benefits (from food to clothing to luxury) to the primal need for society to live in fear of the “hangman,” which, intellectually, is not far removed from contemporary rhetoric about “law and order.” Moreover, war is a good for society because it acts as an organizing force. The Church, Catholic in his case, does the same. Since, as Berlin articulates Maistre, “Man is by nature vicious, wicked, cowardly and bad…unless clamped with iron rings and held down by means of the most rigid discipline” he “need[s] to be curbed and controlled.”
Moreover, Maistre believed that irrationality—“the only things which last”—not rationality, explained how society behaved. “For example, he says, take the institution of hereditary monarchy: What could be more irrational?...Here is an institution of patently idiotic nature, for which no good reason can be given, yet it lasts…But far more rational, far more logical and reasonable, would be to abolish such a monarchy and see what happens.” Maistre felt the same about marriage, reasoning the irrationality of a couple falling in love and then staying together because of historical tradition. “So he goes on, from institution to institution, paradoxically asserting that whatever is irrational lasts, and that whatever is rational collapses; it collapses because anything which is constructed by reason can be pulverised by reason…The only thing which can ever dominate man is impenetrable mystery.”
Prejudice is, according Maistre, a virtue because it is “merely the beliefs of the centuries, tested by experience." Scientists “are the people who have the least capacity for understanding life, and for government…[because] science [has a] dry, abstract, unconcrete nature, something about the fact that it is divorced from the crooked, chaotic, the irrational texture of life with all its darkness, which makes scientists incapable of adapting themselves to actual facts, and anyone listening to them is automatically doomed.” He advised the Russian czar to ban German Lutherans from entering his country because “Good men—family men, men who have traditions, faith, religion, respectable morals—do not leave their countries. Only the feckless and the restless and the critical do so. This is,” as Berlin makes clear, “the first real sermon against refugees, against freedom of spirit, against the circulation of humanity…”
Maistre was, unsurprisingly, a great admirer of Napoleon. The King of Sardinia explicitly prohibited Maistre from meeting with Napoleon because he feared the consequences of what might come out of such an encounter. And although Maistre’s views were largely confined to elites and he was much forgotten after his death, his ideas predicted the worst of the 20th century and still informs how we should view demagogues and their followers today. According to Berlin, “Maistre earns our gratitude as a prophet of the most violent, the most destructive forces which have threatened and still threaten the liberty and ideals of normal human beings.”
For those who question how Putinism, Trumpism, fundamentalist religion, and extreme terrorism can flourish today, it might be worth learning more about Maistre. They probably won’t like what they see and read, but they’ll be better able to understand why these movements exist and why the defenders of liberal democracy (writ small) must never become complacent.
September 3, 2019
Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) pensatore, storico delle idee russo, ebreo, vissuto prevalentemente in Inghilterra, era una specie di Montaigne approdato all'Università di Oxford. Leggete, se vi va, tutto di lui, da "Il riccio e la volpe", a "Il legno storto dell'umanità", "Controcorrente", "Le radici del romanticismo". Aveva la capacità di dire le cose con l'indole di chi sembra sapere tutto con naturalezza, senza sforzo. Quando morì, in Inghilterra scrissero che era morto l'uomo più intelligente del mondo, e per quello che vale il mio parere, sono d'accordo. Intelligenza nel senso di capacità di stabilire nessi, relazioni, mettersi nei panni di, immaginare, ragionare, cercare un possibile ordine stando sempre all'erta, senza portare le idee al punto in cui si trasformano in pericolose teologie personali. Nel 1952 alla BBC Berlin parlò di sei filosofi che hanno condotto il loro pensiero in ambiti tali da suscitare in chi venne dopo di loro una sorta di attrazione fatale. Questo volume prezioso, edito postumo nel 2002, raccoglie sei conferenze radiofoniche su Helvètius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel, Saint-Simon, De Maistre. Leggere Berlin è la cosa più vicina a ciò che si intende per cultura, parlando di filosofia parla di vita, di musica, di letteratura, di come muoversi tra le idee e i sentimenti. Nel capitolo dedicato a Fichte, in poche pagine centrali si intuisce la nascita del nazionalismo moderno. Fichte era un continuatore di Kant, un filosofo lucido, per il quale la libertà più pura era quella interiore, in cui l'io era simile a ciò che accomuna le espressioni artistiche, un io che vivifica l'individuo, e in alcune circostanze lo protegge in una sorta di quietismo di derivazione kantiana. Da questo assunto innocente Fichte spinge il suo ragionamento fino a identificare l'io con un io comune, un io mistico che affratella gli individui, un io natura, un io Dio, un io nazione. Il filosofo che aveva predicato il massimo della introspezione si convince che questa introspezione portata al sublime deve coincidere con lo spirito del nazione, con il cammino morale della storia. Berlin scrive: "Si tratta di una dottrina teologica, ed è chiaro che per quest'aspetto Fichte era un teologo, e tale era anche Hegel; e supporre che siano pensatori secolari non può portare a nulla di buono."
Il capitolo dedicato a Rousseau è particolarmente significativo, quantomai oggigiorno...
Per dire: se una piattaforma si chiama Rousseau e non Montaigne e i suoi adepti talvolta sembrano invasati nell'atto libidinoso di chi ha appena abolito la povertà, quantomeno bisogna vigilare, vigilarli, vigilararsi.
Il capitolo dedicato a Rousseau è particolarmente significativo, quantomai oggigiorno...
Per dire: se una piattaforma si chiama Rousseau e non Montaigne e i suoi adepti talvolta sembrano invasati nell'atto libidinoso di chi ha appena abolito la povertà, quantomeno bisogna vigilare, vigilarli, vigilararsi.
July 23, 2016
A book with a title that may conjures up the image of these philosophers as completely wrong, but in fact these six enemies, whose ideas have been clearly explained, without that sophistry particular to philosophical books, are as much as fair in many things that they are dogmatic and unfair to the notion of liberty.
It seems that the idea common to them all is the notion of progress, and by progress they mean the maximum of happiness for the greatest number of peoples. Compared to other five philosophers, including Helvetius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel and Maistre, Saint-Simon has addressed it more clearly and more directly. Although their philosophical ideas sometimes are so different of each other that in some cases they could be imagined in a debate battlefield, but speaking of history, right, government, and God, they all unanimously sacrifice the individual liberty to the maximum union and harmony of the greatest number of peoples that in the most cases ends in nationalism, and this is the very point that obsessed me with this bitter truth that the mankind always is limit in choosing between alternatives and in most times the condition obliges him/her to lose something in order to get something else, so if we consider the context in which these philosophers have breathed in its air, they all have attempted on building a philosophical system that they assumed it is the most correspondent of systems to their society needs, for example to the need of national union at the time of other foreign countries invasion. So when they speak of the value of things, their special yardstick for evaluating them is the UTILITY of these things and the extent to which these things can be useful for attaining their goals. A liberal person surely can’t stand this viewpoint but it is more logical this person do honor the liberty which he/she believes in and ask this question that what kind of system could present us with a utopia in which individual liberty and the greatest number of peoples with maximum happiness live side by side? This is the same question that every philosopher’s mind has been obsessed with ever since.
The main goal of these thinkers is progress and for reaching to that, they are not so optimist on the ordinary peoples’ side. They put the authority of determination the most suitable goals on the hands of elites like scientists, thinkers, writers, painters and anyone who can create a new useful thing to attain this goal, so such works that lack a useful idea, let’s say the works which belong to the Art for Art’s Sake Movement, worth nothing for these philosophers. I disagree with them firstly not because they demand a useful thing, say, a particular new thing from works of literature, but because they just accept those things which politically are useful for the state, and even other useful things (apart from other truthful ideas which can stimulate public opinions) without political purposes tuned with theirs are condemned to censorship. Secondly, I think behind everything there is a purpose that if it is not useful in itself, it at least could drive other works whose ideas can be the preliminary steps for forming other fruitful discourses.
I think the most tragic error of these thinkers is that for them political and practical utility were synonym with rationality and truth.
It seems that the idea common to them all is the notion of progress, and by progress they mean the maximum of happiness for the greatest number of peoples. Compared to other five philosophers, including Helvetius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel and Maistre, Saint-Simon has addressed it more clearly and more directly. Although their philosophical ideas sometimes are so different of each other that in some cases they could be imagined in a debate battlefield, but speaking of history, right, government, and God, they all unanimously sacrifice the individual liberty to the maximum union and harmony of the greatest number of peoples that in the most cases ends in nationalism, and this is the very point that obsessed me with this bitter truth that the mankind always is limit in choosing between alternatives and in most times the condition obliges him/her to lose something in order to get something else, so if we consider the context in which these philosophers have breathed in its air, they all have attempted on building a philosophical system that they assumed it is the most correspondent of systems to their society needs, for example to the need of national union at the time of other foreign countries invasion. So when they speak of the value of things, their special yardstick for evaluating them is the UTILITY of these things and the extent to which these things can be useful for attaining their goals. A liberal person surely can’t stand this viewpoint but it is more logical this person do honor the liberty which he/she believes in and ask this question that what kind of system could present us with a utopia in which individual liberty and the greatest number of peoples with maximum happiness live side by side? This is the same question that every philosopher’s mind has been obsessed with ever since.
The main goal of these thinkers is progress and for reaching to that, they are not so optimist on the ordinary peoples’ side. They put the authority of determination the most suitable goals on the hands of elites like scientists, thinkers, writers, painters and anyone who can create a new useful thing to attain this goal, so such works that lack a useful idea, let’s say the works which belong to the Art for Art’s Sake Movement, worth nothing for these philosophers. I disagree with them firstly not because they demand a useful thing, say, a particular new thing from works of literature, but because they just accept those things which politically are useful for the state, and even other useful things (apart from other truthful ideas which can stimulate public opinions) without political purposes tuned with theirs are condemned to censorship. Secondly, I think behind everything there is a purpose that if it is not useful in itself, it at least could drive other works whose ideas can be the preliminary steps for forming other fruitful discourses.
I think the most tragic error of these thinkers is that for them political and practical utility were synonym with rationality and truth.
October 28, 2012
Berlin is one of my favorite writers and his defense of rights-based liberalism is one of my favorite themes. These essays were originally radio talks he gave in the 50s and even though that means the writing isn't as dense as in his academic works, I can hardly imagine essays in political philosophy this complex finding air time today.
Taken together, these essays provide a comprehensive pathology of the different ways that rightist and leftist political ideas and agendas can end up hampering the bottom-line liberal maxim: that there ought to be a sphere of personal liberty (choice) that is off-limits to social coercion, irrespective of any kind of personal or collective good or evil that may result from it.
Taken together, these essays provide a comprehensive pathology of the different ways that rightist and leftist political ideas and agendas can end up hampering the bottom-line liberal maxim: that there ought to be a sphere of personal liberty (choice) that is off-limits to social coercion, irrespective of any kind of personal or collective good or evil that may result from it.
Read
November 6, 2022وسواس فکریام نمیذاره کتابی که این روزها نمیخونمش و براش وقت نمیذارم روی میزم باشه و بشه آینه دق که این همه کتاب در حال خوندن داری درسا و حالا چی میشه و این حرفا
پس فعلا مرتب و منظم میذارمشون توی کتابخونه تا دوباره فرصتی بشه و منسجم از ابتدا بخونمش
پس فعلا مرتب و منظم میذارمشون توی کتابخونه تا دوباره فرصتی بشه و منسجم از ابتدا بخونمش
October 29, 2012
نام کتاب یادآور جامعه باز و دشمنان آن است اما سطح کتاب اصلا قابل مقایسه با آن اثر عظیم نیست. تنها بخشی که در ذهن من مانده و هنوز هم مرا متحیر میکند مباحث مربوط به روسو است. به دلیل وجود همان فصل هم به کتاب نمره ۳ میدهم. کتاب را به زودی دوباره خواهم خواهند.
December 9, 2015
Guess what? Hegel, Fichte, and Rosseau are three thinkers that Berlin condemns as enemies of freedom. His argument is very convincing. There will be serious consequences when we celebrate positive freedom above everything else.
January 17, 2021
"Tú puedes creer que eres libre, tú puedes creer que eres feliz, tú puedes creer que deseas esto o aquello, pero yo se mejor lo que eres, lo que deseas, lo que te libera".
El autor toma 6 filósofos: Helvétius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel, Saint-Simón y Maistre para dar todo un viaje sobre el estado, la sociedad, el individuo y la legislación. Todo ello con el fin de responder una pregunta que es la columna vertebral de las 6 disertaciones: ¿Por qué debe alguien obedecer a alguien más?
Pero los pensadores que toma Berlín no son autores cualesquiera. Estos 6 hombres son grandes, en materia de la libertad humana por alterar la naturaleza de la pregunta ortodoxa sobre la libertad. Ellos transformaron el ángulo de la libertad en sus obras, alteraron las categorías y el mismo Berlín los deja entrever como seres peligrosos y que pueden arrojar sobra sobre la humanidad.
Sin lugar a duda, Berlín analiza estos 6 personajes con el fin de arrojar sobre ellos la duda e instigar una estigmatización sobre su pensamiento. En varios casos el autor asume una postura de admiración, pero casi siempre se muestra como un adalid de nuestra tradicional imagen de la libertad y sobre ella deja descender la sentencia de que los 6 son enemigos de la libertad humana.
Es una buena obra para entender algunos puntos de vista de los filósofos en mención, para leer las ideas de un gran filósofo político como Berlín y personalmente, para reflexionar sobre la libertad. No cabe duda de que estamos en momentos de cambio, y tal vez la ortodoxia no es la respuesta a estos tiempos aciagos. Nos vendieron una libertad falsa, la libertad de poder hacer mucho dentro de un margen demasiado pequeño. Tal vez sea el instante de profundizar más sobre la libertad, y de recurrir a nuevos pensamientos sobre este bien que el liberalismo nos ha querido vender como el principal activo de su doctrina política.
El autor toma 6 filósofos: Helvétius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel, Saint-Simón y Maistre para dar todo un viaje sobre el estado, la sociedad, el individuo y la legislación. Todo ello con el fin de responder una pregunta que es la columna vertebral de las 6 disertaciones: ¿Por qué debe alguien obedecer a alguien más?
Pero los pensadores que toma Berlín no son autores cualesquiera. Estos 6 hombres son grandes, en materia de la libertad humana por alterar la naturaleza de la pregunta ortodoxa sobre la libertad. Ellos transformaron el ángulo de la libertad en sus obras, alteraron las categorías y el mismo Berlín los deja entrever como seres peligrosos y que pueden arrojar sobra sobre la humanidad.
Sin lugar a duda, Berlín analiza estos 6 personajes con el fin de arrojar sobre ellos la duda e instigar una estigmatización sobre su pensamiento. En varios casos el autor asume una postura de admiración, pero casi siempre se muestra como un adalid de nuestra tradicional imagen de la libertad y sobre ella deja descender la sentencia de que los 6 son enemigos de la libertad humana.
Es una buena obra para entender algunos puntos de vista de los filósofos en mención, para leer las ideas de un gran filósofo político como Berlín y personalmente, para reflexionar sobre la libertad. No cabe duda de que estamos en momentos de cambio, y tal vez la ortodoxia no es la respuesta a estos tiempos aciagos. Nos vendieron una libertad falsa, la libertad de poder hacer mucho dentro de un margen demasiado pequeño. Tal vez sea el instante de profundizar más sobre la libertad, y de recurrir a nuevos pensamientos sobre este bien que el liberalismo nos ha querido vender como el principal activo de su doctrina política.
March 14, 2022
It's my opinion that nowadays we do need to reflect about the concept of freedom before we believe it as a non refutable value, by the otherwise we could easily condemn ourself with unfreedom through such believing.
October 11, 2019
Berlin starts with the fundamental question of political philosophy “why should one person obey other people at the cost to their own independence?”, and studies the answers of six post-enlightenment philosophers: Helvétius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel, Saint-Simon, and Maistre. All of these men disagreed fundamentally with the liberalism of, say, John Stuart Mill, and Berlin himself, which is why Berlin subtitled this book as the “six enemies of human liberty”.
My priors entering into this book ere: Unlike his intellectual biography of Karl Marx (which I found after that much preferred), the thinkers in this work don’t appear to have the same influence today, which leads me to wonder why the BBC commissioned him to write the on-radio speeches that became this book.
What Berlin quickly communicates is that many of the sentiments we hold today were reflected in the ideas of these thinkers, even if we don’t realize it.
Here are my rough summaries:
Helvétius: Don’t worry about individual liberty. Enlightened rulers should just focus on maximizing utility because their subjects are dumb and prejudiced.
Rousseau: Individual freedom and good rules actually are in agreement when people love the rules. Therefore, we should all just sign a social contract to give ourselves to the group, and learn to be happy with this decision
Kant (who was actually buried in the Fichte chapter): Individual happiness is a bad goal, because it’s too contingent on circumstances. Instead, we should focus on attaining moral goals. This exercise to control one’s desires is the ultimate freedom
Fichte: the individual self doesn’t really exist or matter, so their personal freedom doesn’t either. All that matters is the group
Hegel: We’re all subject to a “world spirit”, which is the only truly free and important thing in existence. The clash of thesis and antithesis (e.g. political ideas) drive the world spirit forward, and whatever is the prevailing thesis at the time is the “correct” moral one. People who aren’t smart or fortunate enough to exploit the circumstances of the current prevailing thesis don’t deserve any sympathy.
Saint-Simeon: History has been bad to people as technological advance has created segregation from consolidating wealth and power. However, we are progressing toward utopia through industrialization, and everyone should row together to get there. Individual liberty - framed as “rights” - is a zero-sum squabble and diversion from what people should instead focus on, which is the kind of economic growth that improves measurable standards of living. (This chapter was a welcome expansion to the Saint-S. <> Marx connections that I read about in Berlins other book).
Maistre: Governance by reason is ineffective, in part because our nature is self-annihilating. There are no universal ideals - our cultures dominate and we’re best left segregated into cohesive groups that all agree anyway, because that is most stable. Irrational ideas like the Christian Church are helpful here because they anchor that stability and appeal to our baser instincts. Also useful is the terror of authority.
My priors entering into this book ere: Unlike his intellectual biography of Karl Marx (which I found after that much preferred), the thinkers in this work don’t appear to have the same influence today, which leads me to wonder why the BBC commissioned him to write the on-radio speeches that became this book.
What Berlin quickly communicates is that many of the sentiments we hold today were reflected in the ideas of these thinkers, even if we don’t realize it.
Here are my rough summaries:
Helvétius: Don’t worry about individual liberty. Enlightened rulers should just focus on maximizing utility because their subjects are dumb and prejudiced.
Rousseau: Individual freedom and good rules actually are in agreement when people love the rules. Therefore, we should all just sign a social contract to give ourselves to the group, and learn to be happy with this decision
Kant (who was actually buried in the Fichte chapter): Individual happiness is a bad goal, because it’s too contingent on circumstances. Instead, we should focus on attaining moral goals. This exercise to control one’s desires is the ultimate freedom
Fichte: the individual self doesn’t really exist or matter, so their personal freedom doesn’t either. All that matters is the group
Hegel: We’re all subject to a “world spirit”, which is the only truly free and important thing in existence. The clash of thesis and antithesis (e.g. political ideas) drive the world spirit forward, and whatever is the prevailing thesis at the time is the “correct” moral one. People who aren’t smart or fortunate enough to exploit the circumstances of the current prevailing thesis don’t deserve any sympathy.
Saint-Simeon: History has been bad to people as technological advance has created segregation from consolidating wealth and power. However, we are progressing toward utopia through industrialization, and everyone should row together to get there. Individual liberty - framed as “rights” - is a zero-sum squabble and diversion from what people should instead focus on, which is the kind of economic growth that improves measurable standards of living. (This chapter was a welcome expansion to the Saint-S. <> Marx connections that I read about in Berlins other book).
Maistre: Governance by reason is ineffective, in part because our nature is self-annihilating. There are no universal ideals - our cultures dominate and we’re best left segregated into cohesive groups that all agree anyway, because that is most stable. Irrational ideas like the Christian Church are helpful here because they anchor that stability and appeal to our baser instincts. Also useful is the terror of authority.
March 20, 2025
This book is a collection of lectures delivered by Isaiah Berlin about six prominent philosophers who, each for different reasons, contributed to the development of authoritarian political tendencies. The philosophers in question are Hélvetius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel, Saint-Simon, and de Maistre. They all wrote between the second half of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, and each is criticized for different reasons.
Hélvetius was criticized mostly for his faith in reason and social engineering. He believed that a small cadre of enlightened philosophers had the duty to educate mankind in order to pursue pleasure and avoid pain — in other words, to follow utilitarian principles. Since everyone would be conditioned to perform only good deeds, individual liberty would inevitably fade away.
Rousseau made liberty and authority coincide and believed that what is good for a rational man must be good for every other rational human being. According to Berlin, this meant that "To force a man to be free is to force him to behave in a rational manner. A man is free who gets what he wants; what he truly wants is a rational end. If he does not want a rational end, he does not truly want; if he does not want a rational end, what he wants is not true freedom but false freedom."
Fichte, starting from a radicalized form of individualism derived from Kant's thought, ended up in a form of collectivism, where "the self" becomes a "superself" encompassing the whole nation, while the individual alone does not exist. "Freedom" is not an innate characteristic of the human being, but a metaphysical entity which chooses the individual.
Hegel is criticized mainly for his philosophy of history, which can be summed up in the sentence: "The real is the rational and the rational is the real." History is seen as a superior force using great men (like Caesar, Alexander, and Napoleon) to achieve its goals; it is futile to oppose it and to decry the atrocities committed.
De Maistre defended irrationalism, violence, and fanaticism in place of tolerance and rationalism, and attacked both Rousseau and Voltaire at great length. He pointed to the constant killings committed by humans and animals alike in order to survive, and to the enduring survival of "irrational" institutions (like monogamous marriage and monarchy) in contrast with "rational" ones (like the elective monarchy in Poland-Lithuania).
Saint-Simon, despite being counted by Marx among the "utopian socialists," actually believed in a strictly hierarchical society (which Berlin classified as "neo-feudal"), where scientists, mathematicians, and industrialists would rule over the masses. Quoting from the book: "By the end he has a parliament consisting of three parts. First of all there is the Chamber of Invention, which is populated by engineers and artists [...] men [...] who, whether in the arts or the sciences, are the first to have flashes of genius. The second chamber sifts and checks: it consists of mathematicians, physicists, physiologists and the like. The final chamber consists of executives — industrialists, bankers, people who really know how to get things done because they understand the nature of the time in which they live [...]." Furthermore, Saint-Simon thought that elites should practice two moralities: one for themselves, and another to be sold to the rest of the population. He also believed that democracy and liberty were harmful and should be suppressed.
I found these essays to be very interesting and well written. They clarified certain aspects for me — for example, the transition from Fichte's thinking to Hegel's — and introduced me to philosophers I was not previously familiar with, such as Hélvetius. They also helped me contextualize some elements of these philosophers' ideas in light of future historical developments.
There are excellent observations in the commentary below regarding the influence of de Maistre on both fascism and Trumpism, but I personally found Saint-Simon the most fascinating of all, as he single-handedly provided a blueprint for both Soviet-style collectivism and fascist corporatism.
In Soviet-style central planning, a cadre of technocrats (though not exactly small) in the form of Gosplan managed economic affairs in great detail, with the formal elimination of political conflict. The fascist corporative state — though never fully realized, due to resistance from bourgeois and land-owning interests in fascist countries such as Italy and Portugal — was designed to suppress class conflict through state-mediated bodies representing different social classes, which strongly echo the three chambers of Saint-Simon’s proposed parliament.
Another interesting point made by Saint-Simon is that, quoting Berlin, according to him "what we need is simply a State which has become a kind of industrial enterprise of which we are all members, a kind of enormous limited liability company — or unlimited liability, perhaps, precisely as envisaged by Burke, who was also historically minded." This idea of the State as a corporate enterprise resonates with certain strands of neo-reactionary thought, which — despite being explicitly anti-socialist — also advocates for a society ruled by a small, competent elite, akin to CEOs, without the complications of political debate.
To conclude, I recommend this book to anyone interested in political philosophy and the history of ideas.
Hélvetius was criticized mostly for his faith in reason and social engineering. He believed that a small cadre of enlightened philosophers had the duty to educate mankind in order to pursue pleasure and avoid pain — in other words, to follow utilitarian principles. Since everyone would be conditioned to perform only good deeds, individual liberty would inevitably fade away.
Rousseau made liberty and authority coincide and believed that what is good for a rational man must be good for every other rational human being. According to Berlin, this meant that "To force a man to be free is to force him to behave in a rational manner. A man is free who gets what he wants; what he truly wants is a rational end. If he does not want a rational end, he does not truly want; if he does not want a rational end, what he wants is not true freedom but false freedom."
Fichte, starting from a radicalized form of individualism derived from Kant's thought, ended up in a form of collectivism, where "the self" becomes a "superself" encompassing the whole nation, while the individual alone does not exist. "Freedom" is not an innate characteristic of the human being, but a metaphysical entity which chooses the individual.
Hegel is criticized mainly for his philosophy of history, which can be summed up in the sentence: "The real is the rational and the rational is the real." History is seen as a superior force using great men (like Caesar, Alexander, and Napoleon) to achieve its goals; it is futile to oppose it and to decry the atrocities committed.
De Maistre defended irrationalism, violence, and fanaticism in place of tolerance and rationalism, and attacked both Rousseau and Voltaire at great length. He pointed to the constant killings committed by humans and animals alike in order to survive, and to the enduring survival of "irrational" institutions (like monogamous marriage and monarchy) in contrast with "rational" ones (like the elective monarchy in Poland-Lithuania).
Saint-Simon, despite being counted by Marx among the "utopian socialists," actually believed in a strictly hierarchical society (which Berlin classified as "neo-feudal"), where scientists, mathematicians, and industrialists would rule over the masses. Quoting from the book: "By the end he has a parliament consisting of three parts. First of all there is the Chamber of Invention, which is populated by engineers and artists [...] men [...] who, whether in the arts or the sciences, are the first to have flashes of genius. The second chamber sifts and checks: it consists of mathematicians, physicists, physiologists and the like. The final chamber consists of executives — industrialists, bankers, people who really know how to get things done because they understand the nature of the time in which they live [...]." Furthermore, Saint-Simon thought that elites should practice two moralities: one for themselves, and another to be sold to the rest of the population. He also believed that democracy and liberty were harmful and should be suppressed.
I found these essays to be very interesting and well written. They clarified certain aspects for me — for example, the transition from Fichte's thinking to Hegel's — and introduced me to philosophers I was not previously familiar with, such as Hélvetius. They also helped me contextualize some elements of these philosophers' ideas in light of future historical developments.
There are excellent observations in the commentary below regarding the influence of de Maistre on both fascism and Trumpism, but I personally found Saint-Simon the most fascinating of all, as he single-handedly provided a blueprint for both Soviet-style collectivism and fascist corporatism.
In Soviet-style central planning, a cadre of technocrats (though not exactly small) in the form of Gosplan managed economic affairs in great detail, with the formal elimination of political conflict. The fascist corporative state — though never fully realized, due to resistance from bourgeois and land-owning interests in fascist countries such as Italy and Portugal — was designed to suppress class conflict through state-mediated bodies representing different social classes, which strongly echo the three chambers of Saint-Simon’s proposed parliament.
Another interesting point made by Saint-Simon is that, quoting Berlin, according to him "what we need is simply a State which has become a kind of industrial enterprise of which we are all members, a kind of enormous limited liability company — or unlimited liability, perhaps, precisely as envisaged by Burke, who was also historically minded." This idea of the State as a corporate enterprise resonates with certain strands of neo-reactionary thought, which — despite being explicitly anti-socialist — also advocates for a society ruled by a small, competent elite, akin to CEOs, without the complications of political debate.
To conclude, I recommend this book to anyone interested in political philosophy and the history of ideas.
June 5, 2016
برگشتم دیدم زمانی که خوندم بهش چهار ستاره دادم. امروز دو ستاره بیشتر نمیدم. فصلهای کانت و هگلش خیلی بدن. کلاً هرچی میگذره اعتبار این دست گفتارهای برلین برام کمتر میشه.
July 7, 2015
obzvláště kapitoly a Rousseauovi a Maistrem jsou pozoruhodné
June 22, 2017
Interesting and valuable - can be read in parallel with other works of the same author.
The hedgehog knows one big thing, but Isaiah Berlin knows many things.
The hedgehog knows one big thing, but Isaiah Berlin knows many things.
August 4, 2025
Una serie di letture di Isaiah Berlin, che negli anni ‘60 vengono trasmesse dalla BBC al “grande pubblico”. I ritratti di alcuni dei principali filosofi dell’illuminismo (da Rousseau a Hegel), delineano la loro visione del governo della società e del ruolo dell’uomo a riguardo, con la libertà che, per ognuno di loro, fa da significato a un qualcosa di diverso.
October 21, 2022
This was, in some ways, a very easy read, which is part of the problem.
On the one hand Berlin manages to reduce down difficult themes and their relevance to history in a style that is clear, utterly admirable and almost joyous to read.
However, as the title of the book suggests, you are not going to be getting a neutral account here. And that's also part of the problem because for much of the book Berlin is, again, admirably even-handed and fair.
I call these 'problems' because they are likely to lead a less scrupulous reader to missing some of the substantial issues with the work. In a sense, the book is much like a Trojan Horse insofar that it's likely quite the gift for those who are of a similar mind to Berlin. However, it is a sense dangerous precisely because it's tempting to become an echo-chamber for extreme 'libertarian' views.
On the one hand Berlin takes us through themes with a reasonable and accessible level of detail and then tries to tie these into historical movements. His basic pattern is that the six eponymous authors all espoused a view of freedom but typically ended up either with paradoxical positions (ones where ordinary freedoms are actually curtailed) or that their ideas opened up the doors for the great ideologies of systematic oppression and hate (think Nazism, Marxist Communism- his examples).
So what does it matter given his analysis seems to be a reasonable one? It matters because he's arguing that the philosophical position being misused is implicit evidence that that position was corrupt to begin with. But that's a bit like stating that mathematics is bad because it's used to design, manufacture and use weapons of war. Now not all of the thinkers he covers can be defended this way but more than half can.
Secondly, as mentioned we're not getting an unbiased book/speech here. Implicit (and explicit at a few points) is the idea that only the so-called libertarian definition of 'freedom' is worthy of the name: namely, the right to do whatever you want so long as it does not interfere with the right of another to do the same. And ultimately, despite much talk he doesn't really have any reason to prefer that definition in the context of each thinker's work. But those thinker's were, if you read Berlin's accounts, precisely opposed to that sort of definition- not because they were against freedom but because they disagreed about in what it consists.
For something in the neighbourhood of this, see the chapter on Fichte (pp. 53) where he says that 'Slavery means being a slave to a person, not to the nature of things. Of course, we also use the word 'freedom' in various metaphorical senses also'. For him these are conveniently labelled as 'metaphorical senses' because being a slave to one's own passions, nature or social conditions is exactly what he wishes to deny as being important to freedom. The very point of a number of these authors is that simply being able to do what you want really doesn't get you what you want, and sometimes gets you a lot less.
Thirdly, there are number of cases where Berlin seems to ignore or be unaware of pretty much the majority of then history of Philosophy. It is like his knowledge consists of anything from the 18th century onwards with the obligatory Plato, Aquinas, Augustine. For example, when he first touches on Stoicism it comes across as painfully shallow (I say that as not a particular fan one way or the other). For example, on page 55 where he described Stoicism as a retreat into the self- a retraction against tyranny and disappointment which he describes as 'a very sublime, very grand form of the doctrine of sour grapes. I say that if I cannot have these things, then I do not want them'.
And yet this seems to conflate Stoicism with something like a fatalistic Quietism. For the core of Stoicism is not surrender but wisdom to recognise what is genuinely not in your power to control and to recognise the reality of things which might otherwise lead you to poor judgement because of their appearances. Neither of those is a retraction and his conception of stoicism is hard to reconcile with the most famous practitioner of Stoicism, Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome (hardly a passive man).
Other tid-bits:
When having brought up the Kantian idea that you cannot derive an ought from an is (i.e. a duty from brute fact of how things are) he then moves to the claim that ''[...] if you cannot do something then you cannot be told that you ought to do it'. Aside from the fact that this is philosophically very weak because it does not stipulate whether I know that it is possible or not; after all, one can easily envision situations where a person might have a duty to do something that they might not believe they can do, even though then can in fact do it.
But the real issue with this sort of analysis is that it talks about duties as if they were exclusively means to ends; it is the idea that what makes something a genuine duty or not is whether, having done my best to achieve the goal of that duty, I can or cannot achieve it. But this seems wrong or at least not obviously right. This is for two reasons:
In the first place, a case could be made for having unachievable duties. Examples might be in war where soldiers may have a duty to defend their position despite knowing that they had no hope of succeeding. Speaking out against bullying or racism despite knowing it wouldn't make any difference.
In the second place, I may be unable to achieve the ends of a duty but the attempt itself makes it possible for me to progress either in some other way or in such a way that the duty becomes finally achievable. Otherwise, Berlin's position becomes much like: I cannot run a marathon and so I shouldn't run a 5k and so on. Duties just like virtues and vices are not simply discrete or binary in the way that Berlin portrays, they are in some sense continuums and, more than that, progress along that continuum requires more than simply considering whether the end goal is achievable but also to consider the overall impact and thus value of each step along the way.
Sometimes striving for an unattainable goal is the paradigm of virtue because of the value of the process itself, not the end goal. And it's a very small jump from this to the idea that some people in some circumstances might consider that to therefore be a duty.
On the one hand Berlin manages to reduce down difficult themes and their relevance to history in a style that is clear, utterly admirable and almost joyous to read.
However, as the title of the book suggests, you are not going to be getting a neutral account here. And that's also part of the problem because for much of the book Berlin is, again, admirably even-handed and fair.
I call these 'problems' because they are likely to lead a less scrupulous reader to missing some of the substantial issues with the work. In a sense, the book is much like a Trojan Horse insofar that it's likely quite the gift for those who are of a similar mind to Berlin. However, it is a sense dangerous precisely because it's tempting to become an echo-chamber for extreme 'libertarian' views.
On the one hand Berlin takes us through themes with a reasonable and accessible level of detail and then tries to tie these into historical movements. His basic pattern is that the six eponymous authors all espoused a view of freedom but typically ended up either with paradoxical positions (ones where ordinary freedoms are actually curtailed) or that their ideas opened up the doors for the great ideologies of systematic oppression and hate (think Nazism, Marxist Communism- his examples).
So what does it matter given his analysis seems to be a reasonable one? It matters because he's arguing that the philosophical position being misused is implicit evidence that that position was corrupt to begin with. But that's a bit like stating that mathematics is bad because it's used to design, manufacture and use weapons of war. Now not all of the thinkers he covers can be defended this way but more than half can.
Secondly, as mentioned we're not getting an unbiased book/speech here. Implicit (and explicit at a few points) is the idea that only the so-called libertarian definition of 'freedom' is worthy of the name: namely, the right to do whatever you want so long as it does not interfere with the right of another to do the same. And ultimately, despite much talk he doesn't really have any reason to prefer that definition in the context of each thinker's work. But those thinker's were, if you read Berlin's accounts, precisely opposed to that sort of definition- not because they were against freedom but because they disagreed about in what it consists.
For something in the neighbourhood of this, see the chapter on Fichte (pp. 53) where he says that 'Slavery means being a slave to a person, not to the nature of things. Of course, we also use the word 'freedom' in various metaphorical senses also'. For him these are conveniently labelled as 'metaphorical senses' because being a slave to one's own passions, nature or social conditions is exactly what he wishes to deny as being important to freedom. The very point of a number of these authors is that simply being able to do what you want really doesn't get you what you want, and sometimes gets you a lot less.
Thirdly, there are number of cases where Berlin seems to ignore or be unaware of pretty much the majority of then history of Philosophy. It is like his knowledge consists of anything from the 18th century onwards with the obligatory Plato, Aquinas, Augustine. For example, when he first touches on Stoicism it comes across as painfully shallow (I say that as not a particular fan one way or the other). For example, on page 55 where he described Stoicism as a retreat into the self- a retraction against tyranny and disappointment which he describes as 'a very sublime, very grand form of the doctrine of sour grapes. I say that if I cannot have these things, then I do not want them'.
And yet this seems to conflate Stoicism with something like a fatalistic Quietism. For the core of Stoicism is not surrender but wisdom to recognise what is genuinely not in your power to control and to recognise the reality of things which might otherwise lead you to poor judgement because of their appearances. Neither of those is a retraction and his conception of stoicism is hard to reconcile with the most famous practitioner of Stoicism, Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome (hardly a passive man).
Other tid-bits:
When having brought up the Kantian idea that you cannot derive an ought from an is (i.e. a duty from brute fact of how things are) he then moves to the claim that ''[...] if you cannot do something then you cannot be told that you ought to do it'. Aside from the fact that this is philosophically very weak because it does not stipulate whether I know that it is possible or not; after all, one can easily envision situations where a person might have a duty to do something that they might not believe they can do, even though then can in fact do it.
But the real issue with this sort of analysis is that it talks about duties as if they were exclusively means to ends; it is the idea that what makes something a genuine duty or not is whether, having done my best to achieve the goal of that duty, I can or cannot achieve it. But this seems wrong or at least not obviously right. This is for two reasons:
In the first place, a case could be made for having unachievable duties. Examples might be in war where soldiers may have a duty to defend their position despite knowing that they had no hope of succeeding. Speaking out against bullying or racism despite knowing it wouldn't make any difference.
In the second place, I may be unable to achieve the ends of a duty but the attempt itself makes it possible for me to progress either in some other way or in such a way that the duty becomes finally achievable. Otherwise, Berlin's position becomes much like: I cannot run a marathon and so I shouldn't run a 5k and so on. Duties just like virtues and vices are not simply discrete or binary in the way that Berlin portrays, they are in some sense continuums and, more than that, progress along that continuum requires more than simply considering whether the end goal is achievable but also to consider the overall impact and thus value of each step along the way.
Sometimes striving for an unattainable goal is the paradigm of virtue because of the value of the process itself, not the end goal. And it's a very small jump from this to the idea that some people in some circumstances might consider that to therefore be a duty.
March 23, 2012
This book is a compilation of the transcripts of a series of six lectures given by the late history of ideas maven, Isaiah Berlin, and nicely edited by Henry Hardy. Berlin looks at six different thinkers/philosophers -- Helvetius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel, Saint-Simon and Maistre -- and shows where even if they professed to want human liberty, their ideas ultimately mitigated against it. Some of these did not value liberty at all. These six were prominent just before and after the French Revolution.
Berlin looks at each one, and shows how certain of their writings or beliefs were either antithetical to what they said they wanted -- liberty, or were in consonance with what they wanted -- no liberty at all. Not only that, but Berlin shows how various of these thinkers influenced other thinkers, or how later thinkers had similar ideas -- all eventually leading to the advocacy or reality of lack of liberty, even totalitarianism.
Berlin's analyses and explanations are clear, and insightful.
Berlin looks at each one, and shows how certain of their writings or beliefs were either antithetical to what they said they wanted -- liberty, or were in consonance with what they wanted -- no liberty at all. Not only that, but Berlin shows how various of these thinkers influenced other thinkers, or how later thinkers had similar ideas -- all eventually leading to the advocacy or reality of lack of liberty, even totalitarianism.
Berlin's analyses and explanations are clear, and insightful.
April 6, 2018
A wonderful review in lecture form of six thinkers of the Romantic era, all of whom conceived of liberty in, erm, heterodox terms, and all of whom have influenced our society in many ways, mostly (but not all!) detrimental. Berlin talks about Helvetius and his utilitarian tyranny of happiness; Rousseau, who managed to derive an equivalence between absolute liberty and absolute despotism; Fichte and the conversion of individual liberty into acts of national will; Hegel and his abandonment of freedom for tyranny of necessity; Saint-Simon and historicism; and finally, Maistre and his complete rejection of all enlightenment values. Several of these thinkers were logical precursors to fascism; several, to Stalinism and Maoism; all were responsible for legitimizing authoritarian tendencies. Berlin clearly describes the major tenets of their thought, the logical errors that they committed, and whatever use we may still derive from their efforts.
August 1, 2011
Dans ce long entretien à la radio, retranscrit sur papier, Isaiah Berlin analyse la pensée de six grands philosophes, à l'époque du "contrat social" et de la révolution française. Il passe en revue la conception de la liberté d'Helvétius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel, Saint-Simon et Maistre. Il montre, dans un langage clair et facilement abordable, ce que chacun de ces penseurs a de condamnable. Il veut mettre en avant la difficulté de leur pensée, qui ne peut mener qu'à un état totalitaire.
Enfin, s'il critique l'usage qui est fait de la liberté par ces penseurs, il ne l'abandonne pas pour autant. Au contraire, il défend sa propre conception, pour contrer le totalitarisme et permettre un vrai libéralisme.
Enfin, s'il critique l'usage qui est fait de la liberté par ces penseurs, il ne l'abandonne pas pour autant. Au contraire, il défend sa propre conception, pour contrer le totalitarisme et permettre un vrai libéralisme.
July 15, 2016
A brilliant and insightful overview of the thinkers covered; at once revealing the ideological commitments of its author while at the same time retaining an air of fairness. What is so compelling about this book is how it manages to trace, and give vivid depictions of, the world-view of the authors it covers, rather than just outlining a few of their arguments. Berlin's masterful grasp of both the philosophy and the relevant historical and biographical details makes this possible.
September 13, 2016
My favourite book from Berlin and a great introduction for anyone. Rather than following the labyrinthine pathways of human though, Berlin focuses on a single topic, that of Liberty as seen from the "counter-enlightenment", a term he coined to describe large parts of the Romantic movement in Germany as well as French Enlightenment thinkers like t Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
December 22, 2017
In the tradition of his other writings, these six essays, which started as BBC radio talks, give a well balanced, but forensic assessment of six more (Rousseau or Hegel) or lesser known (Helvetius or Fichte) thinkers who have had a disproportionate (generally negative!) effect on our history. Berlin never disappoints!
May 3, 2011
Not all 18th Century thinkers were happy with the rise of science and challenge to traditional authority. Berlin profiles six men whose ideas, while not prevailing in their own century, he believes led to the totalitarian governments of the 20th.
February 11, 2012
Interesting to see what people were listening to on BBC radio in 1951. Now way it would sell today. Way too serious.
September 27, 2012
' a block universe ' is mention on pg. 80 in the Hegel chapter. ( Interesting ) Berlin on Liberty pg. 103 is amazing
May 6, 2013
Classic Berlin. It's the same lecture on six different thinkers. But it's a great lecture.
December 25, 2014
I think the most important opponent of liberty was Maistre.his opinions on human and nature was intersting.And remembered me, lars von trier's movies!!!
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