About Isaiah Berlin
Latvian-British philosopher and historian of ideas (1909–1997), for decades the most prominent public intellectual at Oxford. Berlin's essay Two Concepts of Liberty (1958) drew a distinction implicit in liberal debates since the Enlightenment: negative liberty, freedom from external interference, versus positive liberty, freedom as self-mastery or self-direction. Berlin was more suspicious of positive-liberty traditions — from Rousseau through Hegel to 20th-century socialism — arguing that they could be used to justify coercion in the name of 'true' freedom. His distinction remains the most cited framework in Anglophone political philosophy.
Books by Isaiah Berlin
The Crooked Timber of Humanity
A profound collection of essays warning against the deepest source of political catastrophe: the belief that all genuine values can be reconciled in one perfect order. Berlin argues for 'value pluralism' — that human go…
Read about this book →Two Concepts of Liberty
A crucial map of two major ways people use the word freedom: freedom from interference and freedom as self-mastery.
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