
Knight_Bachelor_Isaiah_Berlin">Image:IsaiahBerlin.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Knight Bachelor Isaiah Berlin Sir Isaiah Berlin (June 6 1909 – November 5 1997) was a political philosopher and History of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberalism thinkers of the 20th century. [http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/writings_on_ib/hhonib/obituary1.html] Born in Riga, now Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire, he was the first Jew to be elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford; became the founding president of Wolfson College, Oxford; and from 1957 to 1967, served as the Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford. He was Knight Bachelor in 1957, was awarded the Order of Merit in 1971, and was president of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978. Berlin's work on liberal theory has had a lasting influence. His 1958 essay "Two Concepts of Liberty", in which he famously distinguished between positive liberty and negative liberty, has informed much of the debate since then on the relationship between liberty and social equality. ==Life== Berlin was born into a Jewish family, the son of Mendel Berlin, a timber merchant, and his wife Marie, ''née'' Volshonok. He spent his childhood in Riga, Latvia and St Petersburg (then called Petrograd), witnessing the Russian Revolutions of 1917, and arriving with his family in United Kingdom in 1921. In the UK, he was educated at St Paul's School, London, a private school, then at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he studied Greats (Classics) and PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics). He was to remain at Oxford for the rest of his life, apart from a period working for the British Information Services in New York (1940-1942), the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. (1942-5), and Moscow (1945-6). In 1956, he married Aline Halban, ''née'' de Gunzbourg. ==His work== Berlin is best known for his essay "Two Concepts of Liberty", which was 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 constraint, or "freedom from"; whereas positive liberty he associated with the idea of self-fulfillment, or the ability to make meaningful choices — "freedom to". Positive liberty focuses on an individual's hypothetical desires, desires that might form as a result of education, for example. This idea has been used to justify the constraints placed on individuals by structured societies, constraints that Berlin argued strongly against. His essay "Historical Inevitability" (1953) focused on a controversy in the philosophy of history. In Berlin's words, the choice is whether one believes that "the lives of entire peoples and society have been decisively influenced by exceptional individuals" or, rather, that whatever happens occurs as a result of impersonal forces oblivious to human intentions. Berlin is also well known for his writings on Russian intellectual history, most of which are collected in ''Russian Thinkers'' (1978), edited, like most of Berlin's work, by Henry Hardy. Berlin's writings on the Enlightenment and its critics — for whom Berlin coined the term the "Counter-Enlightenment" — and particularly Romanticism, contributed to his advocacy of an ethical theory he termed value-pluralism. [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berlin/#4] For Berlin, values are creations of mankind, rather than products of nature waiting to be discovered, though he also argued that the nature of mankind is such that certain values — for example, the importance of individual liberty — will hold true across cultures, which is what he meant when he called his position "objective pluralism." With his account of value pluralism, he proposed the view that moral values may be equally valid and yet incompatible, and may therefore come into conflict with one another in a way that is irresolvable. When values clash, it does not mean that one is more important than the other. Keeping a promise may conflict with the pursuit of truth; liberty may clash with social justice. Moral conflicts are "an intrinsic, irremovable part of human life ... These collisions of values are of the essence of what they are and what we are," (Berlin, 2002). ==Quote== "The very desire for guarantees that our values are eternal and secure in some objective heaven is perhaps only a craving for the certainties of childhood or the absolute values of our primitive past." - Isaiah Berlin "Liberty for wolves is death to the lambs." - Isaiah Berlin "Philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions." - Isaiah Berlin, quoted in ''The Listener'', 1978. ==Trivia== Isaiah Berlin was once confused with Irving Berlin by Winston Churchill who invited the latter for lunch, thinking he was the former. Berlin's ''The Hedgehog and the Fox'' made it to number 65 in the ''National Review's'' article on "The 100 Best Non-fiction Books of the Century. [http://www.nationalreview.com/100best/100_books.html] ==Bibliography== Major works: All publications listed from 1978 onwards are compilations of various lectures, essays, and letters, brought together and edited by Henry Hardy. *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195103262/102-9482255-7331333 Karl Marx: His Life and Environment]'' (1939) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D1566630193/102-9482255-7331333 The Hedgehog and the Fox : An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History]'' (1953) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0192810340/qid=1112062196/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books Four Essays on Liberty]'' (1969) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0140136258/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance Russian Thinkers]'' (1978) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670235520/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays]'' (1978) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670109444/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&st=* Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas]'' (1980) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691088586/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance Personal Impressions]'' (1980) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691058385/qid=1112061073/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-9482255-7331333 The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas]'' (1990) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0374527172/qid=1112061355/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays]'' (1997) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0374525692/qid=1112061203/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and their History]'' (1998) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691086621/qid=1112061437/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-9482255-7331333 The Roots of Romanticism]'' (1999) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691092761/qid=1112061572/sr=2-2/ref=pd_ka_b_2_2/102-9482255-7331333 The Power of Ideas]'' (2000) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691057273/qid=1112061787/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books Three Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder]'' (2000) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691090998/qid=1112061658/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books Freedom and its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty (1952)]'' (2002) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/019924989X/qid=1112062317/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books Liberty]'' (revised and expanded edition of ''Four Essays On Liberty'') (2002) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0815709048/qid=1112061903/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books The Soviet Mind: Russian Culture Under Communism]'' (2004) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/052183368X/qid=1112061996/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books Flourishing - Letters 1928-1946]'' (2004) ==References== *Berlin, Isaiah. ''Freedom and its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty'', recorded 1952; ed. Henry Hardy, 2002. ISBN 0691114994. ==See also== *Liberalism *Contributions to liberal theory ==Further reading== *[http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/history/historian/Isaiah_Berlin.html Isaiah Berlin & the history of ideas] *[http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/ The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library], Wolfson College, Oxford *[http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/broadcasts/roots32.mp3 A recording of the last of Berlin's Mellon Lectures], Wolfson College, Oxford *[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/24540.stm BBC obituary] *[http://www.chiefrabbi.org/speeches/berlin.htm Tribute from Chief Rabbi at his funeral] *[http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/tribute/2berlins.htm Anecdote] from [http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/tribute/ Wolfson College's tribute page] *[http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk/entries/berlin Entry on Berlin in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy] *[http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/letterstoberlin.html Letter to Berlin from Tony Blair], October 23, 1997 *John Gray. ''Isaiah Berlin''. (1996) *Michael Ignatieff, ''Isaiah Berlin: A Life''. (1999), authorized biography *George Crowder, ''Isaiah Berlin: Liberty and Pluralism''. (2004) 1909 births 1997 deaths 20th Century philosophers English philosophers Secular Jewish philosophers Social philosophy Erasmus Prize winners ISBN needed
==Trivia== Regarding the trivia point about Ronald Reagan. I heard the exact same story but for Winston Churchhill. Could they have both happened or is one a mistake of the other? "Isaiah Berlin was once confused with Irving Berlin by Winston Churchill who invited the latter for lunch, thinking he was the former." The way I heard the story it was the other way around, i.e. as it was before 24.128.151.54 "fixed" it -- Churchill wanted Irving but got Isiah. Somehow that rings truer actually. Does anyone know for certain? User:Flapdragon 03:29, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC) == Jewish fellows at Oxford == (:) The comment about Berlin's being only the third Jew elected Fellow of an Oxford College needs some qualification (I emended it from the original identification of him as the second Jew to be elected a fellow). Berlin was the third openly Jewish individual to hold a Fellowship at Oxford (and the first openly Jewish individual to be elected a Fellow of All Souls). Those before him were Samuel Alexander (1859-1938), a professor of philosophy originally from Australia, who was a fellow at Lincoln College, Oxford from 1882-93 (the college is said to have been unaware that he was Jewish when they appointed him). James Joseph Sylvester (1814-97) was technically not elected to a Fellowship; he was appointed the Savillian Professor of Geometry, and by virtue of this became a Professorial fellow of New College, Oxford. Berlin was preceeded at All Souls by Leopold Stennet Amery, whose mother was born Jewish, but had converted to Protestantism; Amery was not raised a Jew, and hid his Jewish ancestry (although an opponent of anti-Semitism and Nazism and strong supporter of Zionism himself, his son, John Amery, bizarrely and sadly became a Nazi sympathizer, and was executed for treason after World War II)
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Isaiah Berlin
Knight_Bachelor_Isaiah_Berlin">Image:IsaiahBerlin.jpg|right|thumb|250px|Knight Bachelor Isaiah Berlin Sir Isaiah Berlin (June 6 1909 – November 5 1997) was a political philosopher and History of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberalism thinkers of the 20th century. [http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/writings_on_ib/hhonib/obituary1.html] Born in Riga, now Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire, he was the first Jew to be elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford; became the founding president of Wolfson College, Oxford; and from 1957 to 1967, served as the Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford. He was Knight Bachelor in 1957, was awarded the Order of Merit in 1971, and was president of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978. Berlin's work on liberal theory has had a lasting influence. His 1958 essay "Two Concepts of Liberty", in which he famously distinguished between positive liberty and negative liberty, has informed much of the debate since then on the relationship between liberty and social equality. ==Life== Berlin was born into a Jewish family, the son of Mendel Berlin, a timber merchant, and his wife Marie, ''née'' Volshonok. He spent his childhood in Riga, Latvia and St Petersburg (then called Petrograd), witnessing the Russian Revolutions of 1917, and arriving with his family in United Kingdom in 1921. In the UK, he was educated at St Paul's School, London, a private school, then at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he studied Greats (Classics) and PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics). He was to remain at Oxford for the rest of his life, apart from a period working for the British Information Services in New York (1940-1942), the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. (1942-5), and Moscow (1945-6). In 1956, he married Aline Halban, ''née'' de Gunzbourg. ==His work== Berlin is best known for his essay "Two Concepts of Liberty", which was 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 constraint, or "freedom from"; whereas positive liberty he associated with the idea of self-fulfillment, or the ability to make meaningful choices — "freedom to". Positive liberty focuses on an individual's hypothetical desires, desires that might form as a result of education, for example. This idea has been used to justify the constraints placed on individuals by structured societies, constraints that Berlin argued strongly against. His essay "Historical Inevitability" (1953) focused on a controversy in the philosophy of history. In Berlin's words, the choice is whether one believes that "the lives of entire peoples and society have been decisively influenced by exceptional individuals" or, rather, that whatever happens occurs as a result of impersonal forces oblivious to human intentions. Berlin is also well known for his writings on Russian intellectual history, most of which are collected in ''Russian Thinkers'' (1978), edited, like most of Berlin's work, by Henry Hardy. Berlin's writings on the Enlightenment and its critics — for whom Berlin coined the term the "Counter-Enlightenment" — and particularly Romanticism, contributed to his advocacy of an ethical theory he termed value-pluralism. [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berlin/#4] For Berlin, values are creations of mankind, rather than products of nature waiting to be discovered, though he also argued that the nature of mankind is such that certain values — for example, the importance of individual liberty — will hold true across cultures, which is what he meant when he called his position "objective pluralism." With his account of value pluralism, he proposed the view that moral values may be equally valid and yet incompatible, and may therefore come into conflict with one another in a way that is irresolvable. When values clash, it does not mean that one is more important than the other. Keeping a promise may conflict with the pursuit of truth; liberty may clash with social justice. Moral conflicts are "an intrinsic, irremovable part of human life ... These collisions of values are of the essence of what they are and what we are," (Berlin, 2002). ==Quote== "The very desire for guarantees that our values are eternal and secure in some objective heaven is perhaps only a craving for the certainties of childhood or the absolute values of our primitive past." - Isaiah Berlin "Liberty for wolves is death to the lambs." - Isaiah Berlin "Philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions." - Isaiah Berlin, quoted in ''The Listener'', 1978. ==Trivia== Isaiah Berlin was once confused with Irving Berlin by Winston Churchill who invited the latter for lunch, thinking he was the former. Berlin's ''The Hedgehog and the Fox'' made it to number 65 in the ''National Review's'' article on "The 100 Best Non-fiction Books of the Century. [http://www.nationalreview.com/100best/100_books.html] ==Bibliography== Major works: All publications listed from 1978 onwards are compilations of various lectures, essays, and letters, brought together and edited by Henry Hardy. *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195103262/102-9482255-7331333 Karl Marx: His Life and Environment]'' (1939) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D1566630193/102-9482255-7331333 The Hedgehog and the Fox : An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History]'' (1953) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0192810340/qid=1112062196/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books Four Essays on Liberty]'' (1969) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0140136258/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance Russian Thinkers]'' (1978) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670235520/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays]'' (1978) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670109444/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&st=* Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas]'' (1980) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691088586/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance Personal Impressions]'' (1980) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691058385/qid=1112061073/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-9482255-7331333 The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas]'' (1990) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0374527172/qid=1112061355/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays]'' (1997) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0374525692/qid=1112061203/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and their History]'' (1998) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691086621/qid=1112061437/sr=2-1/ref=pd_ka_b_2_1/102-9482255-7331333 The Roots of Romanticism]'' (1999) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691092761/qid=1112061572/sr=2-2/ref=pd_ka_b_2_2/102-9482255-7331333 The Power of Ideas]'' (2000) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691057273/qid=1112061787/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books Three Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder]'' (2000) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691090998/qid=1112061658/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books Freedom and its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty (1952)]'' (2002) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/019924989X/qid=1112062317/sr=1-4/ref=sr_1_4/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books Liberty]'' (revised and expanded edition of ''Four Essays On Liberty'') (2002) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0815709048/qid=1112061903/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books The Soviet Mind: Russian Culture Under Communism]'' (2004) *''[http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/052183368X/qid=1112061996/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9482255-7331333?v=glance&s=books Flourishing - Letters 1928-1946]'' (2004) ==References== *Berlin, Isaiah. ''Freedom and its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty'', recorded 1952; ed. Henry Hardy, 2002. ISBN 0691114994. ==See also== *Liberalism *Contributions to liberal theory ==Further reading== *[http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/history/historian/Isaiah_Berlin.html Isaiah Berlin & the history of ideas] *[http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/ The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library], Wolfson College, Oxford *[http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/broadcasts/roots32.mp3 A recording of the last of Berlin's Mellon Lectures], Wolfson College, Oxford *[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/24540.stm BBC obituary] *[http://www.chiefrabbi.org/speeches/berlin.htm Tribute from Chief Rabbi at his funeral] *[http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/tribute/2berlins.htm Anecdote] from [http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/tribute/ Wolfson College's tribute page] *[http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk/entries/berlin Entry on Berlin in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy] *[http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/letterstoberlin.html Letter to Berlin from Tony Blair], October 23, 1997 *John Gray. ''Isaiah Berlin''. (1996) *Michael Ignatieff, ''Isaiah Berlin: A Life''. (1999), authorized biography *George Crowder, ''Isaiah Berlin: Liberty and Pluralism''. (2004) 1909 births 1997 deaths 20th Century philosophers English philosophers Secular Jewish philosophers Social philosophy Erasmus Prize winners ISBN needed
Isaiah Berlin
==Trivia== Regarding the trivia point about Ronald Reagan. I heard the exact same story but for Winston Churchhill. Could they have both happened or is one a mistake of the other? "Isaiah Berlin was once confused with Irving Berlin by Winston Churchill who invited the latter for lunch, thinking he was the former." The way I heard the story it was the other way around, i.e. as it was before 24.128.151.54 "fixed" it -- Churchill wanted Irving but got Isiah. Somehow that rings truer actually. Does anyone know for certain? User:Flapdragon 03:29, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC) == Jewish fellows at Oxford == (:) The comment about Berlin's being only the third Jew elected Fellow of an Oxford College needs some qualification (I emended it from the original identification of him as the second Jew to be elected a fellow). Berlin was the third openly Jewish individual to hold a Fellowship at Oxford (and the first openly Jewish individual to be elected a Fellow of All Souls). Those before him were Samuel Alexander (1859-1938), a professor of philosophy originally from Australia, who was a fellow at Lincoln College, Oxford from 1882-93 (the college is said to have been unaware that he was Jewish when they appointed him). James Joseph Sylvester (1814-97) was technically not elected to a Fellowship; he was appointed the Savillian Professor of Geometry, and by virtue of this became a Professorial fellow of New College, Oxford. Berlin was preceeded at All Souls by Leopold Stennet Amery, whose mother was born Jewish, but had converted to Protestantism; Amery was not raised a Jew, and hid his Jewish ancestry (although an opponent of anti-Semitism and Nazism and strong supporter of Zionism himself, his son, John Amery, bizarrely and sadly became a Nazi sympathizer, and was executed for treason after World War II)
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