Berlin

by John Gray

Page edges tanned. Shipped from the U.K. All orders received before 3pm sent that weekday.

Genres: Philosophy, Biography, Politics, Nonfiction

189 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

John Nicholas Gray is a English political philosopher with interests in analytic philosophy and the history of ideas. He retired in 2008 as School Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Gray contributes regularly to The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement and the New Statesman, where he is the lead book reviewer.

Reviews

[Hamed Mahdavi · Rating 4 out of 5]

نیمه‌ی اول کتاب بسیار عالی بود. در نیمه‌ی دوم به نظر میومد که گاهی اوقات نویسنده تعدادی از گزاره‌ها و کلمات رو بارها و بارها تکرار می‌کنه. این قضیه بیش از این که فرم مرور داشته باشه، متن رو تا حدی خسته‌کننده می‌کرد، تا حدی که فهمیدن متن این کتاب که شرحی بر آیزایا برلینه از خود نوشته‌های آیزایا برلین سخت‌تر بود. در کل به نظر حجم این قسمت می‌تونست کمتر باشه.

[T Wilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a lot of words in this book. For some reason I noticed that. Somehow it seemed much more than necessary.

There are also profound ideas in this book too, ideas which have changed my perspective on things.

As a contemporary British philosopher John Gray writes his interpretation of the contribution of mid-20th Century British philosopher, Isaiah Berlin. Berlin is noted for his analysis on the concept of liberty (or freedom). That analysis has to do with values, the pluralistic nature of them. Berlin identifies that the good that comes from one value cannot be measured against the good from a different value. There is no rational, common scale to do that measurement. Likewise we cannot sum the total amount of good from one set of values to compare to the total of another set of values … again, there’s just no scale to do so. Unfortunately, while good can come from exercising a particular value some harm can ensue from that act as well. Different values an individual holds can also come in conflict with each other. When they do there’s no rational way to make the decision which to act on. But we have to act. That act comes from our own will; such is the foundation of personal freedom as our actions cannot be rationally determined but is made as a personal choice. Furthermore, our sense of self (who we are as a person) is created out of those choices.

Did you get through that? (It was only 200 words).

What would ever motivate me to read a 200 page book expounding on that core idea?

So, here goes. John Gray was a professor of philosophy at Oxford University at the same time that our Prime Minister, Mark Carney, got his Master of Philosophy degree there. Isaiah Berlin was a prominently influential academic at Oxford a generation before. Carney is shepherding Canada in a vastly different approach to our place in the world. While pragmatic, it is also based on values. This approach must have come from a particular philosophical position, one he would have been immersed in at Oxford when he took that Master’s degree.

Gray writes in the style of academic rigour, situating Berlin in the context of the history of ideas within the philosophical literature. Much of the book is about the nuances and differences in Berlin’s approach with other philosophers. There is value in that, unfortunately just one that conflicts with ease of reading for those not privy to that very particular intellectual world. Gray does include many lengthy quotes from Berlin’s essays. Berlin’s writing style is more direct making his ideas more accessible than are Gray’s interpretation of them.

In other words. This book is a rather tough slog.

[Daniel B-G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Isaiah Berlin and John Gray are up there at the top of my list of favourite non fiction writers, so latter writing about the former should be amazing? Sadly not. At their best, the two of them have a flair for the particular, the concrete, the real, that makes their prose fly, gives it life in a way that most philosophy totally fails. Sadly, some times they also write for other philosophers, and when writing for that audience, they cannot help but fall back on academese and write turgid tedious prose filled with overly specific jargon that is repeated endlessly. This isn't to say I got nothing from this book, far from it. It has helped to clarify a few areas of Berlin's thoughts, but I can't say I enjoyed the experience. It felt far too much like work, and when reading both Berlin and Gray at their best it only ever feels like pleasure.

[Cyril Hédoin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting and provocative, even if contentious, interpretation of Isaiah Berlin's philosophical and political views. Gray's main claim is that the validity of Berlin's thesis about value pluralism does not entail, contrary to what Berlin tended to argue, any priority for (negative) liberty over other values, nor any commitment toward liberal forms of life. The privileged normative status of liberty can only be ascertained within liberal forms of life, and the latter cannot be demonstrated as being superiors to an infinite range of nonliberal forms of life. Gray goes across Berlin's numerous writings, and extract from them a complex portrait of a thought aiming at an articulation between the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the historicism of romantist thinkers.

[Mark Singer · Rating 3 out of 5]

What did Isaiah Berlin believe? Gray tries too hard to explain, and in so doing, confuses the forest for the trees. As of February 24, 2022, I have only read two collections of Berlins' works: Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas; and The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas; but do want to read more.

[Delaney Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Appreciated discussions of his value pluralism the most but felt like the ultimate conclusion of agonistic liberalism as a special case of agonistic pluralism could have been worked out a bit more and perhaps with less assumptions that felt not entirely true to Berlin himself??

[Alish · Rating 2 out of 5]

کاملا جدی از یه جایی به بعد دیگه برلین رو ول کرد و به نظرات دیگران میپرداخت فقط یه حاشیه هم از برلین بهش میزد

[Bobby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Isaiah Berlin is one of my favorite thinkers and I think this book does a very good job of explaining value-pluralism. I also have a fondness for Gray, but he does the usual Gray thing of being brilliant, and then taking it just a wee bit too far and overselling certain aspects (I get that value-pluralism is Berlin's most well-known idea, but, dude, it does not define everything he did/said).

Anyway, I think this an interesting, if somewhat revisionist, look at Gray's thought and it forced me to pick up some of Berlin's work again to see if I agree with Gray. The jury is still out on that one.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Isaiah Berlin's philosophy has intigued me for along time. His "self-creation through choice-making" reminds me of the transcendentalists, especially Margaret Fuller. This competent book discusses his concept of value pluralism, including "rivalrous and incommensurable" values (p. 177). Berlin says decent society must "maintain a precarious equilibrium that will prevent the occurance of desperate situations, of intolerable choices" among values. (p.201) We need to understand this, don't we? We must learn that our world is not a place of uniformity in our thinking or in our values and beliefs.

[Hugh Stewart]

One hero writing about another

[Marco den Ouden · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent overview of Berlin's thought, including detailed discussion of determinism, value-pluralism, romanticism, and agonistic liberalism. Larger review to follow on my blog.