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The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and Their History
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year
Isaiah Berlin's The Sense of Reality contains an important body of previously unknown work by one of our century's leading historians of ideas, and one of the finest essayists writing in English. Eight of the nine pieces included here are published for the first time, and their range is characteristically the subjects explored include realism in history; judgement in politics; the history of socialism; the nature and impact of Marxism; the radical cultural revolution instigated by the Romantics; Russian notions of artistic commitment; and the origins and practice of nationalism. The title essay, starting from the impossibility of historians being able to recreate a bygone epoch, is a superb centerpiece.
Isaiah Berlin's The Sense of Reality contains an important body of previously unknown work by one of our century's leading historians of ideas, and one of the finest essayists writing in English. Eight of the nine pieces included here are published for the first time, and their range is characteristically the subjects explored include realism in history; judgement in politics; the history of socialism; the nature and impact of Marxism; the radical cultural revolution instigated by the Romantics; Russian notions of artistic commitment; and the origins and practice of nationalism. The title essay, starting from the impossibility of historians being able to recreate a bygone epoch, is a superb centerpiece.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
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About the author
Isaiah Berlin
200 books780 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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December 5, 2017
Se dei fantomatici ladri oscurantisti svuotassero le nostre librerie mi augurerei che ci lasciassero almeno Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997).
È stato un grande storico delle idee, sebbene come definizione non renda l'idea. L'unico modo per capire l'importanza di Berlin è leggerlo. Procede con mobilissima, affascinante divagazione erudita che non tralascia niente, nessun aspetto del pensiero e dell'immaginazione, che si tratti di Machiavelli o di Vico, di Herzen o di Kant, di Tolstoj o di Hamann, dell'impegno dell'artista nella Russia dell'Ottocentoo o della genesi del Nazionalismo, di Giuseppe Verdi o del dilemma liberale in Turgenev, Isaiah Berlin si oppone alla sragione e allo stesso tempo mostra le cose come sono con tutte le loro implicazioni.
Suggerisco i volumi, "Il riccio e la volpe" in cui è contenuto lo straordinario saggio su Tolstoj e le sue ansie tragiche, "Controcorrente" in cui sono contenuti i saggi su Machiavelli, Vico, Montesquieu, Hume, Herzen (il pensatore più affine a Berlin), "Il legno storto dell'umanità", "Il senso della realtà". Tutti pubblicati da Adelphi, compresi i saggi più brevi come "Il mago del nord", una monografia su J.G. Hamann.
Quando Berlin morì, nel 1997, in Inghilterra, sua patria adottiva, scrissero che era morto l'uomo più intelligente del mondo.
La capacità di Berlin è quella di mostrare dove arriva la ragione e dove comincia la sragione e che se tutto è ed appare indistricabile dobbiamo saper comunque tenerci saldi, per fare ciò bisogna conoscere le proprie razionalità ed irrazionalità, con tale presupposto scrive di filosofi 'irrazionali' e 'razionali', da Hamann a Kant.
Esempio. Un saggio su Kant contenuto in questo volume. A Berlin interessa mostrare come il massimo filosofo del razionalismo occidentale avesse una speciale interiorità, quella pietista, che lo portava ad affermare che anche trovandosi in prigione un uomo è pur sempre libero con la sua immaginazione e la sua autonomia di pensiero; questo pensiero condivisibile, di fiera umana indipendenza, venne frainteso ed esasperato da Fichte, che estese l'autonomia di pensiero identificandola con una patologica ed eccitata idea di nazione individuo, mescolando le sue astruserie con l'esaltazione della tradizione e della lingua mutuate da Herder. Il passo verso il nazionalismo è quiandi breve. Insomma cosa vuole dirci Berlin, che le idee non sono di sinistra, di centro, di destra, giuste, sbagliate, le idee sono nel mondo e il mondo siamo noi che presidiamo noi stessi e aggiustiamo costantemente le nostre idee, al meglio come faceva Berlin, alla meno peggio come facciamo noi.
È stato un grande storico delle idee, sebbene come definizione non renda l'idea. L'unico modo per capire l'importanza di Berlin è leggerlo. Procede con mobilissima, affascinante divagazione erudita che non tralascia niente, nessun aspetto del pensiero e dell'immaginazione, che si tratti di Machiavelli o di Vico, di Herzen o di Kant, di Tolstoj o di Hamann, dell'impegno dell'artista nella Russia dell'Ottocentoo o della genesi del Nazionalismo, di Giuseppe Verdi o del dilemma liberale in Turgenev, Isaiah Berlin si oppone alla sragione e allo stesso tempo mostra le cose come sono con tutte le loro implicazioni.
Suggerisco i volumi, "Il riccio e la volpe" in cui è contenuto lo straordinario saggio su Tolstoj e le sue ansie tragiche, "Controcorrente" in cui sono contenuti i saggi su Machiavelli, Vico, Montesquieu, Hume, Herzen (il pensatore più affine a Berlin), "Il legno storto dell'umanità", "Il senso della realtà". Tutti pubblicati da Adelphi, compresi i saggi più brevi come "Il mago del nord", una monografia su J.G. Hamann.
Quando Berlin morì, nel 1997, in Inghilterra, sua patria adottiva, scrissero che era morto l'uomo più intelligente del mondo.
La capacità di Berlin è quella di mostrare dove arriva la ragione e dove comincia la sragione e che se tutto è ed appare indistricabile dobbiamo saper comunque tenerci saldi, per fare ciò bisogna conoscere le proprie razionalità ed irrazionalità, con tale presupposto scrive di filosofi 'irrazionali' e 'razionali', da Hamann a Kant.
Esempio. Un saggio su Kant contenuto in questo volume. A Berlin interessa mostrare come il massimo filosofo del razionalismo occidentale avesse una speciale interiorità, quella pietista, che lo portava ad affermare che anche trovandosi in prigione un uomo è pur sempre libero con la sua immaginazione e la sua autonomia di pensiero; questo pensiero condivisibile, di fiera umana indipendenza, venne frainteso ed esasperato da Fichte, che estese l'autonomia di pensiero identificandola con una patologica ed eccitata idea di nazione individuo, mescolando le sue astruserie con l'esaltazione della tradizione e della lingua mutuate da Herder. Il passo verso il nazionalismo è quiandi breve. Insomma cosa vuole dirci Berlin, che le idee non sono di sinistra, di centro, di destra, giuste, sbagliate, le idee sono nel mondo e il mondo siamo noi che presidiamo noi stessi e aggiustiamo costantemente le nostre idee, al meglio come faceva Berlin, alla meno peggio come facciamo noi.
June 24, 2021
Although it has been, for me, a slow read I really enjoyed this book - both for the arguments made and the writing style. At times it feels a little dated, but only because of the style of the writing which is highly accessible. The philosophy is relatively light, but it is more as a history of ideas that this book stands out. Not all pieces are equally good and some seem more direct history (e.g. Marxism and the International in the Nineteenth Century), but it is a historian of ideas where Berlin excels creating paths between ideas, especially unexpected paths that the originator of the idea would not have expected and may not have wanted (e.g. Kant as an Unfamiliar Source of Nationalism). Underlying all the pieces are themes that Berlin often returned to: pluralism and nationalism. A worthy read.
November 23, 2013
I loved this book. When I read Berlin, I think. To give you an idea of my thoughts, let me post some notes I made about the last portion of the title essay, "The Sense of Reality" :
Here, Berlin summarizes the European revolutionaries’ profound failure: (p. 29) “Something had been miscalculated, something had proved recalcitrant to the social arithmetic employed. The makers of the revolution found themselves, in each case, swept on by the forces which they had released in a direction which they had scarcely anticipated. Some were destroyed by these forces, some attempted to control them but were plainly controlled by them, for all their efforts to dominate the elements.”
How could such good intentions go so badly? Unintended consequences with a vengeance. Plans for any improvement, no matter how small, depend on understanding existing reality and the precise way the proposed change will affect that reality. We look back at those naïve revolutionaries and wince when we realize how little they really knew about the human material they were trying to mold to specification.
Since there is manifestly too much information about any given society for any individual or small group to be able to master and direct effectively, we can reasonably assume that these revolutionaries erred by attempting to direct their efforts guided by only the most obvious facts about the people they were trying to lead. By ignoring the existence of the vast oceans of facts (as described above by Berlin) about social life that they had little or no access to, they guaranteed their own failure.
They stir up the obvious parts of society, their targets for overthrow. In the meantime, the far more numerous and very potent not-so-obvious parts of society are also bestirred, unaccountably, unpredicted, unplanned, unguided. The revolution at this point goes off the rails, into new territory unmapped. The revolutionaries might not notice at first, but it’s only a matter of time before these unmapped regions forcibly impact those obvious ones, and events take an entirely new, and generally very violent turn.
That’s when the revolutionaries start turning the screws, attempting to force the people into the revolutionary mold. And that’s when they start resisting even more. We can see this occur every time the revolutionaries decry “the forces of reaction” that are “sabotaging the revolution.” The revolution has dead-ended into social realities unexamined and unplanned for. At this point, the revolution, in the sense of becoming something genuinely new and improved, creating a social space where people can live more freely, it instead ceases and simply becomes a coup d’etat, a power struggle. The victors get the spoils. The losers die. (See notes on Hannah Arendt’s “On Revolution.”)
He asks why conservatives generally hate revolution. Are they simply hidebound reactionaries, or do they know something important about the complexity of human relationships? We can see from the above his answer to that question.
There is a sense that what politicians do, what they must do, is inherently different than what scientists and technologists do. A wise politician is called a statesman. He is the one who wields not only technical knowledge but human understanding as he seeks a good answer to current political problems.
Conservatives have the sense of politics as the art of the genuinely possible, not the crafting of utopia. The statesman knows what can be done and what simply cannot. He can’t always fit this kind of knowledge into words. It’s more of a sense, a sense of people as individuals and how they operate in groups. The best of the statesmen’s work survives (at least in memory) even unto this day: Washington, Lincoln, Bismarck, Julius Caesar, Richelieu are compared to Hitler and Stalin very favorably (of course). But what did the former do that the latter couldn’t do or even conceive of?
There is no one thing. There is no “secret” as it were. The best thing we can say is that the former knew their societies well and the latter didn’t.
Berlin references Tolstoy’s epilogue to “War and Peace.” “…of the unaccountable infinitesimals of which individual and social life is composed…”
A statesman has a strong sense of these in the form of unspoken tacit knowledge and understanding. Derived from close observation and long experience. This is why the best politicians simply cannot do their best work while young. They need years of experience under their belts before they can really understand what it is they do.
They are able to “play it by ear,” to do something now and to just stand there later—or vice versa. There are few guidelines and no laws to follow while engaging in political improvisation. You must know your people and know what you want for them and know what can be done and what cannot. You must be eminently practical and have very little theory, at least not enough to mislead you.
Traditionalist conservatives (surprisingly) make similar errors to those made by revolutionaries on the left. They assume that simplifying explanations of complex human realities exist. Things like tradition or religious faith or some form of organicism are assumed to tie people together alone. Berlin insists that human reality is far more complex than that which both revolutionaries and traditionalists take it to be.
“There is no substitute for a sense of reality.” (p. 35)
And, that sense of reality is utterly dependent upon our respect for the utterly inexhaustibly numerous particulars of human life.
The problems with positivism in this regard—Hegel had it out with them in his time. Unfortunately, his argument wound up arguing against the scientific method for the natural sciences and for some mystical process by which a metaphysician could argue from the general to the particular and somehow wind up understanding any particular situation in all its particular richness. For example, the World Spirit. Hegel wound up with the worst of both worlds—no genuine science and no genuine philosophy.
Positivists believed that all knowledge can be gained through the methods used in the natural sciences. Hayek made the same argument against the 19th century positivists in his “The Counter-Revolution of Science.” Check out on p. 195 how Hayek deals soundly with Comte and Hegel.]
Both Hayek and Berlin argue that the utopianisms of the 19th and 20th centuries flowed directly from the early 19th century positivists.
When we are being realistic, we dismiss such utopian dreams (described earlier in the essay) as by definition unrealizable. Berlin asks an important question here: What are we doing when we so dismiss such schemes? We are assuming certain “forces” will be too strong for the would-be revolutionaries, that they will be stopped, that they cannot succeed against them. What are these forces? Certainly they are not laws, as in the laws of physics.
Here is Berlin’s answer (p. 37): “When we speak of some process as inevitable, when we warn people not to pit their wills against the greater power of the historical situation, which they cannot alter, or cannot alter in the manner they desire, what we mean is not that we know facts and laws which we obey, but that we do not; that we are aware, beyond the facts to which the potential reformers point, of a dark mass of factors whose general drift we perceive but whose precise interrelations we cannot formulate, and that any attempt to behave as if only the clear ‘top level’ factors were significant or crucial, ignoring the hinterland, will lead to frustration of the intended reforms, perhaps to unexpected disaster.”
There is a simple way of putting this: One man cannot know what a million men know. TMI (too much information) is very, very real. Recognizing TMI and its impact on human life is exactly the same thing as having a good strong sense of reality in Berlin’s sense of the phrase.
(p. 37) “…they take their knowledge of a small portion of the scene to cover the entire scene…” They sample from classes and groups they assume contain identical members. Or they construct computer models. Or they write treatises and manifestos. Or they call their dreams inevitable. They take the (very limited) array of facts they have mastered and simplify them further. They announce proudly that they are on ‘the right side of history.’ They name what they assume the forces of history are and assume they can control what they name.
Berlin points out that historical ‘forces too great to be resisted’ simply means that almost all the things that millions of people say and do and know are in fact unknown to us and unknowable by us, and can’t be accounted for in any model of human society we may have occasion to construct. This ‘not knowing’ is the insurmountable obstacle to the utopian desire for smoothly incorporated revolutionary change. The fact of profound ignorance can’t be tamed, lectured to, weedled or pleaded out of, or commanded in any way.
When we resist the blandishments of the Utopians, we resist their wholly unwarranted simplifications of reality. We resist what Berlin condemned as (p. 39) “…fanciful, pseudo-scientific histories and theories of human behavior, abstract and formal at the expense of the facts, and to revolutions and wars and ideological campaigns conducted on the basis of dogmatic certainty about their outcome--vast misconceptions which have cost the lives, liberty and happiness of a great many innocent human beings.”
Here, Berlin summarizes the European revolutionaries’ profound failure: (p. 29) “Something had been miscalculated, something had proved recalcitrant to the social arithmetic employed. The makers of the revolution found themselves, in each case, swept on by the forces which they had released in a direction which they had scarcely anticipated. Some were destroyed by these forces, some attempted to control them but were plainly controlled by them, for all their efforts to dominate the elements.”
How could such good intentions go so badly? Unintended consequences with a vengeance. Plans for any improvement, no matter how small, depend on understanding existing reality and the precise way the proposed change will affect that reality. We look back at those naïve revolutionaries and wince when we realize how little they really knew about the human material they were trying to mold to specification.
Since there is manifestly too much information about any given society for any individual or small group to be able to master and direct effectively, we can reasonably assume that these revolutionaries erred by attempting to direct their efforts guided by only the most obvious facts about the people they were trying to lead. By ignoring the existence of the vast oceans of facts (as described above by Berlin) about social life that they had little or no access to, they guaranteed their own failure.
They stir up the obvious parts of society, their targets for overthrow. In the meantime, the far more numerous and very potent not-so-obvious parts of society are also bestirred, unaccountably, unpredicted, unplanned, unguided. The revolution at this point goes off the rails, into new territory unmapped. The revolutionaries might not notice at first, but it’s only a matter of time before these unmapped regions forcibly impact those obvious ones, and events take an entirely new, and generally very violent turn.
That’s when the revolutionaries start turning the screws, attempting to force the people into the revolutionary mold. And that’s when they start resisting even more. We can see this occur every time the revolutionaries decry “the forces of reaction” that are “sabotaging the revolution.” The revolution has dead-ended into social realities unexamined and unplanned for. At this point, the revolution, in the sense of becoming something genuinely new and improved, creating a social space where people can live more freely, it instead ceases and simply becomes a coup d’etat, a power struggle. The victors get the spoils. The losers die. (See notes on Hannah Arendt’s “On Revolution.”)
He asks why conservatives generally hate revolution. Are they simply hidebound reactionaries, or do they know something important about the complexity of human relationships? We can see from the above his answer to that question.
There is a sense that what politicians do, what they must do, is inherently different than what scientists and technologists do. A wise politician is called a statesman. He is the one who wields not only technical knowledge but human understanding as he seeks a good answer to current political problems.
Conservatives have the sense of politics as the art of the genuinely possible, not the crafting of utopia. The statesman knows what can be done and what simply cannot. He can’t always fit this kind of knowledge into words. It’s more of a sense, a sense of people as individuals and how they operate in groups. The best of the statesmen’s work survives (at least in memory) even unto this day: Washington, Lincoln, Bismarck, Julius Caesar, Richelieu are compared to Hitler and Stalin very favorably (of course). But what did the former do that the latter couldn’t do or even conceive of?
There is no one thing. There is no “secret” as it were. The best thing we can say is that the former knew their societies well and the latter didn’t.
Berlin references Tolstoy’s epilogue to “War and Peace.” “…of the unaccountable infinitesimals of which individual and social life is composed…”
A statesman has a strong sense of these in the form of unspoken tacit knowledge and understanding. Derived from close observation and long experience. This is why the best politicians simply cannot do their best work while young. They need years of experience under their belts before they can really understand what it is they do.
They are able to “play it by ear,” to do something now and to just stand there later—or vice versa. There are few guidelines and no laws to follow while engaging in political improvisation. You must know your people and know what you want for them and know what can be done and what cannot. You must be eminently practical and have very little theory, at least not enough to mislead you.
Traditionalist conservatives (surprisingly) make similar errors to those made by revolutionaries on the left. They assume that simplifying explanations of complex human realities exist. Things like tradition or religious faith or some form of organicism are assumed to tie people together alone. Berlin insists that human reality is far more complex than that which both revolutionaries and traditionalists take it to be.
“There is no substitute for a sense of reality.” (p. 35)
And, that sense of reality is utterly dependent upon our respect for the utterly inexhaustibly numerous particulars of human life.
The problems with positivism in this regard—Hegel had it out with them in his time. Unfortunately, his argument wound up arguing against the scientific method for the natural sciences and for some mystical process by which a metaphysician could argue from the general to the particular and somehow wind up understanding any particular situation in all its particular richness. For example, the World Spirit. Hegel wound up with the worst of both worlds—no genuine science and no genuine philosophy.
Positivists believed that all knowledge can be gained through the methods used in the natural sciences. Hayek made the same argument against the 19th century positivists in his “The Counter-Revolution of Science.” Check out on p. 195 how Hayek deals soundly with Comte and Hegel.]
Both Hayek and Berlin argue that the utopianisms of the 19th and 20th centuries flowed directly from the early 19th century positivists.
When we are being realistic, we dismiss such utopian dreams (described earlier in the essay) as by definition unrealizable. Berlin asks an important question here: What are we doing when we so dismiss such schemes? We are assuming certain “forces” will be too strong for the would-be revolutionaries, that they will be stopped, that they cannot succeed against them. What are these forces? Certainly they are not laws, as in the laws of physics.
Here is Berlin’s answer (p. 37): “When we speak of some process as inevitable, when we warn people not to pit their wills against the greater power of the historical situation, which they cannot alter, or cannot alter in the manner they desire, what we mean is not that we know facts and laws which we obey, but that we do not; that we are aware, beyond the facts to which the potential reformers point, of a dark mass of factors whose general drift we perceive but whose precise interrelations we cannot formulate, and that any attempt to behave as if only the clear ‘top level’ factors were significant or crucial, ignoring the hinterland, will lead to frustration of the intended reforms, perhaps to unexpected disaster.”
There is a simple way of putting this: One man cannot know what a million men know. TMI (too much information) is very, very real. Recognizing TMI and its impact on human life is exactly the same thing as having a good strong sense of reality in Berlin’s sense of the phrase.
(p. 37) “…they take their knowledge of a small portion of the scene to cover the entire scene…” They sample from classes and groups they assume contain identical members. Or they construct computer models. Or they write treatises and manifestos. Or they call their dreams inevitable. They take the (very limited) array of facts they have mastered and simplify them further. They announce proudly that they are on ‘the right side of history.’ They name what they assume the forces of history are and assume they can control what they name.
Berlin points out that historical ‘forces too great to be resisted’ simply means that almost all the things that millions of people say and do and know are in fact unknown to us and unknowable by us, and can’t be accounted for in any model of human society we may have occasion to construct. This ‘not knowing’ is the insurmountable obstacle to the utopian desire for smoothly incorporated revolutionary change. The fact of profound ignorance can’t be tamed, lectured to, weedled or pleaded out of, or commanded in any way.
When we resist the blandishments of the Utopians, we resist their wholly unwarranted simplifications of reality. We resist what Berlin condemned as (p. 39) “…fanciful, pseudo-scientific histories and theories of human behavior, abstract and formal at the expense of the facts, and to revolutions and wars and ideological campaigns conducted on the basis of dogmatic certainty about their outcome--vast misconceptions which have cost the lives, liberty and happiness of a great many innocent human beings.”
February 1, 2018
Fantástico. Se trata de un libro que consta de varios ensayos sobre la historia y la historia de la historia. Me ha dado nuevas perspectivas
April 2, 2020
Un excelente libro para los interesados en la historia de las principales ideas filosóficas y cómo han impactado en la política y cultura principalmente de Europa.
El Sentido de la Realidad es una colección de ensayos que atraviesa temáticas como la filosofía contrapuesta a la política, historia y desarrollo del socialismo, inicios y desarrollos del marxismo, el romanticismo, nacionalismo y liberalismo. Todos son minuciosos y en extremo informativos, y te permite conocer los principales autores y postulados de cada corriente, así como el efecto en sus contextos particulares.
Todos estos ensayos cobran mayor relevancia en el contexto mundial actual, en el que el nacionalismo y la democracia se enfrentan, en la existencia de un fuerte deseo de reconocimiento por parte de las minorías o "el pueblo" frente a los ilustrados o a los "poderosos". También contribuye mucho a entender la naturaleza de movimientos como el liberalismo o el comunismo, y cómo se han ido desvirtuando las más de las veces.
Berlin despliega su amplio conocimiento de autores y es muy preciso. Tiene gran capacidad de síntesis, lo que facilita mucho comprender el punto. Sin embargo, creo que no es un autor que se lea con facilidad. Une mucho contenido en un párrafo y tiende a extenderse con muchos ejemplos, lo que da como resultado párrafos eternos a veces de páginas enteras. Creo que este detallito hizo que se me dificultara terminarlo.
El Sentido de la Realidad es una colección de ensayos que atraviesa temáticas como la filosofía contrapuesta a la política, historia y desarrollo del socialismo, inicios y desarrollos del marxismo, el romanticismo, nacionalismo y liberalismo. Todos son minuciosos y en extremo informativos, y te permite conocer los principales autores y postulados de cada corriente, así como el efecto en sus contextos particulares.
Todos estos ensayos cobran mayor relevancia en el contexto mundial actual, en el que el nacionalismo y la democracia se enfrentan, en la existencia de un fuerte deseo de reconocimiento por parte de las minorías o "el pueblo" frente a los ilustrados o a los "poderosos". También contribuye mucho a entender la naturaleza de movimientos como el liberalismo o el comunismo, y cómo se han ido desvirtuando las más de las veces.
Berlin despliega su amplio conocimiento de autores y es muy preciso. Tiene gran capacidad de síntesis, lo que facilita mucho comprender el punto. Sin embargo, creo que no es un autor que se lea con facilidad. Une mucho contenido en un párrafo y tiende a extenderse con muchos ejemplos, lo que da como resultado párrafos eternos a veces de páginas enteras. Creo que este detallito hizo que se me dificultara terminarlo.
May 31, 2025
A challenging read, even by Berlin's standards, but rewarding and surprising in several ways! I went into it blind, and certainly was not expecting a chapter on correcting misinterpretations of interpretations the Russian liberal intelligentsia held. (I know that's a mouthful of a sentence. I honestly tried to make it more succinct, but I failed.)
[ARTISTIC COMMITTMENT - A RUSSIAN LEGACY]
Berlin argues explores the paradoxical legacy of the Russian liberal intelligentsia, who despite advocating freedom and intellectual openness, inadvertently set the stage for the cultural repression of Soviet-era artists and writers. The chapter sets out to explore these paradoxical dynamics, which is the clash between ideals and unintended consequences.
He argues that the original liberal intelligentsia’s earnest belief in rational progress, moral clarity, and social improvement - principles seemingly beyond reproach - nonetheless contained hidden dangers. In their zeal for social betterment, these intellectuals unintentionally helped craft the ideological “chains” later exploited by the Soviet regime to bind and censor artists. As Berlin poignantly frames it, these thinkers, “however unwittingly,” laid foundations that made Soviet oppression culturally plausible, a historical irony tragic precisely because it emerged from genuinely noble intentions. It is not too different from the arguments he makes in his books on the enlightenment and romanticism - that this laid fertile soil for how Marxism was eventually received in Russia (as the "scientific", sociological equivalent of Darwinism). To disagree with it therefore was not a moral stance, it was just objectively wrong - as if one were to rebel against the rules of physics.
Berlin isn't a twat, and he is not unfair: he goes out his way to show these intellectuals were not complicit through direct intent, but tragically, their commitments to progress and rational social order made possible the stifling of artistic freedom that marred the Soviet century.
This is is the sad, reoccurring echo of Russian history - of people who correctly identify injustices, but their actions in attempting to remedy those injustices lead to untold horror. It's a story I was practically weaned on, and it teaches one some modesty when it comes to professing ideas. (In my case, at times, it has hindered me too much from implementing solutions). Even noble ideals, when unchecked, can be weaponized against the very values they sought to defend.
It's a terrible truth - one that can paralyze you into inaction. But it is a truth that cannot be ignored.
Anyway, brilliant chapter, must read. Didn't really fit the rest of the book but a pleasant surprise.
[RABINDRANATH TAGORE AND THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF NATIONALITY]
Now this TRULY surprised me! The book ends with a chapter on Indian nationalism!
Berlin investigates the complex and often ambivalent relationship between Rabindranath Tagore - India’s most celebrated poet and Nobel laureate - and the concept of nationalism.
Berlin examines Tagore’s critique of nationalism, situating it within the broader context of cultural dislocation and status anxiety. According to Berlin, the central tension in Tagore’s thought arises from nationalism's roots in psychological and social grievances: "Lack of adequate status, humiliation of the parents, and the sense of injury and indignation... drives men to social and political extremism." He emphasizes the historical universality of this phenomenon, from the French Revolution’s middle-class resentments to the Russian intelligentsia's revolt, driven by moral outrage and blocked ambition.
Tagore’s specific critique targets Western-imposed cultural alienation, where education becomes estranged from lived realities, creating “inner neuroses” extending far beyond India. Tagore sharply observed that Indian students who identify excessively with English education resemble "Savage chiefs… putting on European clothes and cheap glass beads," severing their education from meaningful personal and cultural identities. Berlin points out that similar alienations afflict immigrants in America, whose children read literature disconnected from their ancestral lives in "Russian or Bohemian or Greek towns... or the Jewish Pale of Settlement."
Tagore identifies nationalism as the problematic response to this alienation: it takes two forms-one that violently demands recognition to "catch up with, and overtake" superior cultures, and another, more pernicious type, that retreats into resentful isolationism, highlighting one’s own virtues and belittling others. For Tagore, nationalism replaces universal human bonds with narrower, aggressive identities rooted in “order, efficiency, discipline, production,” destroying true solidarity and humanity.
Berlin highlights that Tagore initially supported the Indian nationalist cause, but his deepening understanding of human nature and history turned him into a vocal critic of nationalism’s darker side. He believed that blind loyalty to the nation risked fostering aggression, hatred, and conformity which is an antithesis to the pluralistic, humanistic ideals he championed. For Tagore, authentic human development lay in transcending the confines of nationhood and embracing a universalist perspective rooted in culture, and moral autonomy.
What makes Berlin’s essay uncomfortable is his refusal to sentimentalize either Tagore’s universal humanism or the nationalists’ rage. He acknowledges the moral legitimacy of the demand for recognition but insists on confronting the darker side: “resentful isolationism” and the temptation to “extort [recognition] by violent means.” Berlin’s realism cuts through illusions about nationalism’s nobility or inevitability. He shows how it can just as easily become a cover for wounded pride and a desire to humiliate others in turn. Nationalism is admittedly seductive. I can see myself falling it.
Yet Berlin is unflinching in recognizing Tagore's practical limitations. Tagore's refusal to accommodate nationalism rendered him politically marginal in an era dominated by nationalist struggle. Tagore's ideals may be morally compelling, but Berlin makes it clear they were ultimately politically impractical, underscoring the painful truth that moral clarity often loses out to historical and political realities. What can I say, life isn't fair...
Anyway, excellent and fascinating.
[ARTISTIC COMMITTMENT - A RUSSIAN LEGACY]
Berlin argues explores the paradoxical legacy of the Russian liberal intelligentsia, who despite advocating freedom and intellectual openness, inadvertently set the stage for the cultural repression of Soviet-era artists and writers. The chapter sets out to explore these paradoxical dynamics, which is the clash between ideals and unintended consequences.
He argues that the original liberal intelligentsia’s earnest belief in rational progress, moral clarity, and social improvement - principles seemingly beyond reproach - nonetheless contained hidden dangers. In their zeal for social betterment, these intellectuals unintentionally helped craft the ideological “chains” later exploited by the Soviet regime to bind and censor artists. As Berlin poignantly frames it, these thinkers, “however unwittingly,” laid foundations that made Soviet oppression culturally plausible, a historical irony tragic precisely because it emerged from genuinely noble intentions. It is not too different from the arguments he makes in his books on the enlightenment and romanticism - that this laid fertile soil for how Marxism was eventually received in Russia (as the "scientific", sociological equivalent of Darwinism). To disagree with it therefore was not a moral stance, it was just objectively wrong - as if one were to rebel against the rules of physics.
Berlin isn't a twat, and he is not unfair: he goes out his way to show these intellectuals were not complicit through direct intent, but tragically, their commitments to progress and rational social order made possible the stifling of artistic freedom that marred the Soviet century.
This is is the sad, reoccurring echo of Russian history - of people who correctly identify injustices, but their actions in attempting to remedy those injustices lead to untold horror. It's a story I was practically weaned on, and it teaches one some modesty when it comes to professing ideas. (In my case, at times, it has hindered me too much from implementing solutions). Even noble ideals, when unchecked, can be weaponized against the very values they sought to defend.
It's a terrible truth - one that can paralyze you into inaction. But it is a truth that cannot be ignored.
Anyway, brilliant chapter, must read. Didn't really fit the rest of the book but a pleasant surprise.
[RABINDRANATH TAGORE AND THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF NATIONALITY]
Now this TRULY surprised me! The book ends with a chapter on Indian nationalism!
Berlin investigates the complex and often ambivalent relationship between Rabindranath Tagore - India’s most celebrated poet and Nobel laureate - and the concept of nationalism.
Berlin examines Tagore’s critique of nationalism, situating it within the broader context of cultural dislocation and status anxiety. According to Berlin, the central tension in Tagore’s thought arises from nationalism's roots in psychological and social grievances: "Lack of adequate status, humiliation of the parents, and the sense of injury and indignation... drives men to social and political extremism." He emphasizes the historical universality of this phenomenon, from the French Revolution’s middle-class resentments to the Russian intelligentsia's revolt, driven by moral outrage and blocked ambition.
Tagore’s specific critique targets Western-imposed cultural alienation, where education becomes estranged from lived realities, creating “inner neuroses” extending far beyond India. Tagore sharply observed that Indian students who identify excessively with English education resemble "Savage chiefs… putting on European clothes and cheap glass beads," severing their education from meaningful personal and cultural identities. Berlin points out that similar alienations afflict immigrants in America, whose children read literature disconnected from their ancestral lives in "Russian or Bohemian or Greek towns... or the Jewish Pale of Settlement."
Tagore identifies nationalism as the problematic response to this alienation: it takes two forms-one that violently demands recognition to "catch up with, and overtake" superior cultures, and another, more pernicious type, that retreats into resentful isolationism, highlighting one’s own virtues and belittling others. For Tagore, nationalism replaces universal human bonds with narrower, aggressive identities rooted in “order, efficiency, discipline, production,” destroying true solidarity and humanity.
Berlin highlights that Tagore initially supported the Indian nationalist cause, but his deepening understanding of human nature and history turned him into a vocal critic of nationalism’s darker side. He believed that blind loyalty to the nation risked fostering aggression, hatred, and conformity which is an antithesis to the pluralistic, humanistic ideals he championed. For Tagore, authentic human development lay in transcending the confines of nationhood and embracing a universalist perspective rooted in culture, and moral autonomy.
What makes Berlin’s essay uncomfortable is his refusal to sentimentalize either Tagore’s universal humanism or the nationalists’ rage. He acknowledges the moral legitimacy of the demand for recognition but insists on confronting the darker side: “resentful isolationism” and the temptation to “extort [recognition] by violent means.” Berlin’s realism cuts through illusions about nationalism’s nobility or inevitability. He shows how it can just as easily become a cover for wounded pride and a desire to humiliate others in turn. Nationalism is admittedly seductive. I can see myself falling it.
Yet Berlin is unflinching in recognizing Tagore's practical limitations. Tagore's refusal to accommodate nationalism rendered him politically marginal in an era dominated by nationalist struggle. Tagore's ideals may be morally compelling, but Berlin makes it clear they were ultimately politically impractical, underscoring the painful truth that moral clarity often loses out to historical and political realities. What can I say, life isn't fair...
Anyway, excellent and fascinating.
February 20, 2013
I don't know. Does this say more about me than the book? I haven't been able to finish this - it struck me as a set of pretentious truisms for the most part.
Am I a Philistine or what? Well, I actually do have a degree in philosophy. Maybe I am a little too close to the subject to read about meta-philosophy (or the philosophy of philosophy). Maybe my mind is no longer interested in the subjects covered by this book. Or I am not as "intellectual" as I was. Or maybe the style annoyed me. But I didn't like this book and I got bored with it and couldn't finish it. Maybe some other time.
Am I a Philistine or what? Well, I actually do have a degree in philosophy. Maybe I am a little too close to the subject to read about meta-philosophy (or the philosophy of philosophy). Maybe my mind is no longer interested in the subjects covered by this book. Or I am not as "intellectual" as I was. Or maybe the style annoyed me. But I didn't like this book and I got bored with it and couldn't finish it. Maybe some other time.
December 18, 2012
The greatest book to read if you want to know about history of philosophy, politics, humanity, and civilisation. Its a book that you will feel smarter when you are reading reading it.
The book is rich with information; the kind if book that you are not supposed to read in bed. You have to befulky awake to enjoy the well composed sentences and paragraphs of Berlin's.
I recommend this book for literature, philosophy, history, and political science students.
The book is rich with information; the kind if book that you are not supposed to read in bed. You have to befulky awake to enjoy the well composed sentences and paragraphs of Berlin's.
I recommend this book for literature, philosophy, history, and political science students.
Read
August 18, 2019Politologo e historiador, Isaiah Berlin, viene a ser un referente en la historia de las ideas, lo cual lo consideran una de las cumbres del pensamiento liberal. Con este texto magistral, recoge en nueve ensayos, la ideas que han gobernado la historia europea durante los últimos tres siglos.
Con su sorprendente erudición y lucidez van desde la revolución romántica como una de las crisis fundamentales del pensamiento moderno, el marxismo y el socialismo en el marco de la industrialización y el desarrollo científico y tecnológico que llega a nuestros días. Defiende la importancia de la educación y la cultura y su básica necesidad adyacente de libertad de expresión. Muy en sintonía con la actualidad también, Berlin reflexiona sobre la filosofía y su papel capital en el desarrollo político, pues como asegura en el texto correspondiente: «La filosofía es el arma más segura y profiláctica, pues toda su historia es una advertencia contra la creencia de que hay preguntas permanentes y soluciones finales».
El sentido de la realidad. El juicio político. Filosofía y represión gubernamental. El socialismo y las teorías socialistas. El marxismo y la Internacional en el siglo XIX. La revolución romántica: una crisis en la historia del pensamiento moderno. El compromiso artístico: un legado ruso. Kant como un origen desconocido del nacionalismo. Rabindranath Tagorey la conciencia de nacionalidad. Son cada uno de los temas del mismo.
Excelente texto.
os dejo en sus manos
Con su sorprendente erudición y lucidez van desde la revolución romántica como una de las crisis fundamentales del pensamiento moderno, el marxismo y el socialismo en el marco de la industrialización y el desarrollo científico y tecnológico que llega a nuestros días. Defiende la importancia de la educación y la cultura y su básica necesidad adyacente de libertad de expresión. Muy en sintonía con la actualidad también, Berlin reflexiona sobre la filosofía y su papel capital en el desarrollo político, pues como asegura en el texto correspondiente: «La filosofía es el arma más segura y profiláctica, pues toda su historia es una advertencia contra la creencia de que hay preguntas permanentes y soluciones finales».
El sentido de la realidad. El juicio político. Filosofía y represión gubernamental. El socialismo y las teorías socialistas. El marxismo y la Internacional en el siglo XIX. La revolución romántica: una crisis en la historia del pensamiento moderno. El compromiso artístico: un legado ruso. Kant como un origen desconocido del nacionalismo. Rabindranath Tagorey la conciencia de nacionalidad. Son cada uno de los temas del mismo.
Excelente texto.
os dejo en sus manos
June 1, 2011
Sir Isaiah Berlin is one of my favorite authors. I have quite a few of his books. He writes about the history of ideas which covers a lot of territory. His knowledge of history, philosophy and literature is encyclopedic. In his obituary Henry Hardy wrote "he showed in more than one direction the unexpectedly large possibilities open to us at the top range of human potential". In other words he was a genius at what he did. I love to read his writing but I have to really study it because he gets over my head so quickly. It is work but it is worth it.
This book like several others by Berlin is a book of essays that was put together by Hardy. Berlin's essays contain more real content than most books and my copy of this book is full of underlining and margin notes done to get the most I can out of what he wrote. I have not studied anything this thoroughly since law school. At the same time his writing is so fluid and full of detail that I find reading it enriching and enjoyable.
The essays are all on different topics. Several discuss aspects of topics that appear often in Berlin's writing. The title essay discusses the limitations on what can be learned in the study of history. He wrote a short interesting book called The Hedgehog and the Fox about Tolstoy's philosophy of history from War and Peace. Berlin's "sense of reality" is what governs what we can and can't know about history. He concludes that the limited knowledge of the facts of history restricts the ability to make broad conclusions about trends in history.
The essay starts out using Stalin and Hitler as examples of the fallacy of the idea that there is some type of human progress in history. Berlin challenges the validity of "systems of history" such as those of Hegel or Marx. There are simply too many variables in the facts of the past to be able to know them much less explain them. Marx may have had some good insights but when his ideas were supposedly put into practice the results he predicted did not come about. That is an incredibly simplistic explanation of one of the ideas in the essay.
Much of Berlin's writing focuses on the effect of the Romantic movement on Western thought. He considers the Romantic Revolution to be the third great turning point in European thought and behavior. Romanticism was a movement that brought about the destruction of the notion of truth and validity in ethics and politics and changed our outlook on the world. Prior to Romanticism one of the central tenets of Western thought was that for every question there is one correct answer, even if we don't know what it is right now. The Romantic movement introduced the concept that some questions have no answer and there could be two conflicting answers to the same question. I have been reading on a book by Berlin titled The Romantic Revolution.
The revolution started with the writings of Rousseau and Kant. Their ideas on individual free choice led others to develop the concept that the greatest act of the individual is the creation of something out of nothing. If the individual really has free choice they are not limited by any objective factors. One individual's choice may be contrary to that of someone else and be equally valid. Motive replaces consequence as the highest value of morality. A person could be admired for their sincerity even if you disagree with their ideas. A good example was the praise by the Governor of Virginia for John Brown's sincerity and commitment. That same Governor was happy to see Brown hang for murder and inciting a slave revolt. This revolution created another imperative that governs our actions. However low we rate the morality of Napoleon we admire his accomplishments and consider him a great man. Now we go back and forth from one ideal to the other in our judgment of what is good or right. This creates a logically unsatisfactory but enriched capacity for understanding men and societies.
One of my favorite essays is about the Marx and the First International. The First International was where the international socialist movement began in London in 1864. Berlin wrote an excellent biography on Marx which I have read and enjoyed. Berlin shows step by step how Marx created an ideology that became the weapon for the working class in their struggle against the capitalist exploiter. Later in the 19th century socialism dissipated into a movement that became one more voice in the political equilibrium that governs society. It helped to create a better world for the working class that lessened their misery and in most countries eliminated the need for the revolution Marx predicted. In the countries like Russia or China where revolutions took place there were no great masses of working people. The great masses of workers formed political parties and developed faith in gradualist methods. Now members of the socialist trade unions sit on the board of directors of corporations instead of fighting at the barricades. Marx used his great insights into industrial society to predict a world that never came to pass. His great theory of history ran aground on the numerous variables in the facts of human life and society.
In an essay on nationalism Berlin writes "a craving for recognition has grown to be more powerful than any other force today." My first thought was that this idea is applicable to the individual as well as society. What else but a craving for recognition motivated Jared. L. Lougher to shoot 19 people on January 8, 2011 or inspires people to become contestants on "American Idol". In Berlin's essay he talks about how this idea motivates the struggle of small nations and minorities all over the world. I am always amazed by Berlin's ability to encapsulate in a few words an insight that has such a wide application.
There are a total of nine essays in the book. Every word in his writing has a purpose and you must read the book for yourself and develop your own conclusions. To say the book is excellent is damning with faint praise. Reading one of these essays was like attending a lecture given by a very wise man speaking to me in an engaging personal manner. Explaining in clear direct language some knowledge he had gained that he wanted to pass on. I am sure I would have come out of the lecture with a smile on my face basking in the moment.
This book like several others by Berlin is a book of essays that was put together by Hardy. Berlin's essays contain more real content than most books and my copy of this book is full of underlining and margin notes done to get the most I can out of what he wrote. I have not studied anything this thoroughly since law school. At the same time his writing is so fluid and full of detail that I find reading it enriching and enjoyable.
The essays are all on different topics. Several discuss aspects of topics that appear often in Berlin's writing. The title essay discusses the limitations on what can be learned in the study of history. He wrote a short interesting book called The Hedgehog and the Fox about Tolstoy's philosophy of history from War and Peace. Berlin's "sense of reality" is what governs what we can and can't know about history. He concludes that the limited knowledge of the facts of history restricts the ability to make broad conclusions about trends in history.
The essay starts out using Stalin and Hitler as examples of the fallacy of the idea that there is some type of human progress in history. Berlin challenges the validity of "systems of history" such as those of Hegel or Marx. There are simply too many variables in the facts of the past to be able to know them much less explain them. Marx may have had some good insights but when his ideas were supposedly put into practice the results he predicted did not come about. That is an incredibly simplistic explanation of one of the ideas in the essay.
Much of Berlin's writing focuses on the effect of the Romantic movement on Western thought. He considers the Romantic Revolution to be the third great turning point in European thought and behavior. Romanticism was a movement that brought about the destruction of the notion of truth and validity in ethics and politics and changed our outlook on the world. Prior to Romanticism one of the central tenets of Western thought was that for every question there is one correct answer, even if we don't know what it is right now. The Romantic movement introduced the concept that some questions have no answer and there could be two conflicting answers to the same question. I have been reading on a book by Berlin titled The Romantic Revolution.
The revolution started with the writings of Rousseau and Kant. Their ideas on individual free choice led others to develop the concept that the greatest act of the individual is the creation of something out of nothing. If the individual really has free choice they are not limited by any objective factors. One individual's choice may be contrary to that of someone else and be equally valid. Motive replaces consequence as the highest value of morality. A person could be admired for their sincerity even if you disagree with their ideas. A good example was the praise by the Governor of Virginia for John Brown's sincerity and commitment. That same Governor was happy to see Brown hang for murder and inciting a slave revolt. This revolution created another imperative that governs our actions. However low we rate the morality of Napoleon we admire his accomplishments and consider him a great man. Now we go back and forth from one ideal to the other in our judgment of what is good or right. This creates a logically unsatisfactory but enriched capacity for understanding men and societies.
One of my favorite essays is about the Marx and the First International. The First International was where the international socialist movement began in London in 1864. Berlin wrote an excellent biography on Marx which I have read and enjoyed. Berlin shows step by step how Marx created an ideology that became the weapon for the working class in their struggle against the capitalist exploiter. Later in the 19th century socialism dissipated into a movement that became one more voice in the political equilibrium that governs society. It helped to create a better world for the working class that lessened their misery and in most countries eliminated the need for the revolution Marx predicted. In the countries like Russia or China where revolutions took place there were no great masses of working people. The great masses of workers formed political parties and developed faith in gradualist methods. Now members of the socialist trade unions sit on the board of directors of corporations instead of fighting at the barricades. Marx used his great insights into industrial society to predict a world that never came to pass. His great theory of history ran aground on the numerous variables in the facts of human life and society.
In an essay on nationalism Berlin writes "a craving for recognition has grown to be more powerful than any other force today." My first thought was that this idea is applicable to the individual as well as society. What else but a craving for recognition motivated Jared. L. Lougher to shoot 19 people on January 8, 2011 or inspires people to become contestants on "American Idol". In Berlin's essay he talks about how this idea motivates the struggle of small nations and minorities all over the world. I am always amazed by Berlin's ability to encapsulate in a few words an insight that has such a wide application.
There are a total of nine essays in the book. Every word in his writing has a purpose and you must read the book for yourself and develop your own conclusions. To say the book is excellent is damning with faint praise. Reading one of these essays was like attending a lecture given by a very wise man speaking to me in an engaging personal manner. Explaining in clear direct language some knowledge he had gained that he wanted to pass on. I am sure I would have come out of the lecture with a smile on my face basking in the moment.
October 23, 2025
Isaiah Berlin wrote so clearly about such complicated ideas. He's incredible. I got the book for the first two essays that are about the interplay of abstract ideas and organizing principles and reality. Concepts (socialism, rationalism) can be helpful in thinking about the world, but in the end are no substitute for cold reality. We can't create an unbreakable governing structure, Utopia is not just a few ideas or revolutions away. The work of governing is daily, changing, and must be rooted in trying to solve real people's problems based on actual facts.
I also loved the essay on Socialist theories. Fascinating history.
I also loved the essay on Socialist theories. Fascinating history.
January 13, 2022
Dense, not an easy read, but worth the effort. Bears re-reading -- I expect to get even more out of it when I read it again. The final two essays are especially important.
July 31, 2022
This was a hard read for me. Excellent ideas and arguments, however the writing style is something else. I'll read it again😂.
Read
September 5, 2007A concise, open and invaluable summary of the history of ideas as a subject. A precise and easy to read account of someof Berlin's central thoughts without becomming to internalised, academic or stuffy. A joy!
August 2, 2013
I am a history buff and was a bit overwhelmed by the thought of reading essays. But, Mr. Berlin's writing style, breadth of knowledge and insight made this a wonderful historical ideology a pleasure to read.
February 6, 2017
These essays are as poignant and topical as ever, notwithstanding the titular focus of a couple of them on Marxism, or the fact that they were mostly composed a half-century ago. Worth a read for anyone who cares about how our modern public life is informed by the history of ideas.
January 2, 2021
“不存在什么先验的理由可以认为，当我们发现真理的时候，它会是有趣的、激扬的或统一的。”伯林总是让人读得身心舒畅。
February 24, 2016
Highly thoughtful essays that help understand political and social reality. Brilliantly written, even lay people can understand what he says.
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