Isaiah Berlin

by John Gray

Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) was the greatest intellectual historian of the twentieth century. But his work also made an original and important contribution to moral and political philosophy and to liberal theory.



In 1921, at the age of eleven, Isaiah Berlin arrived in England from Riga, Latvia. By the time he was thirty he was at the heart of British intellectual life. He has remained its commanding presence ever since, and few would dispute that he was one of Britain's greatest thinkers. His reputation extends worldwide--as a great conversationalist, intellectual historian, and man of letters. He has been called the century's most inspired reader.

Yet Berlin's contributions to thought--in particular to moral and political philosophy, and to liberal theory--are little understood, and surprisingly neglected by the academic world. In this book, they are shown to be animated by a single, powerful, subversive value-pluralism which affirms the reality of a deep conflict between ultimate human values that reason cannot resolve. Though bracingly clear-headed, humane and realist, Berlin's value-pluralism runs against the dominant Western traditions, secular and religious, which avow an ultimate harmony of values. It supports a highly distinctive restatement of liberalism in Berlin's work--an agnostic liberalism, which is founded not on rational choice but on the radical choices we make when faced with intractable dilemmas. It is this new statement of liberalism, the central subject of John Gray's lively and lucid book, which gives the liberal intellectual tradition a new lease on life, a new source of life, and which comprises Berlin's central and enduring legacy.

In a new introduction, Gray argues that, in a world in which human freedom has spread more slowly than democracy, Berlin's account of liberty and basic decency is more instructive and useful than ever.

Genres: Philosophy, Biography, Politics, Nonfiction

233 pages, Kindle Edition

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.

[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.

[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.