Isaiah Berlin was one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century, who spent a lifetime examining the political impulses of modern Western culture, and gave credence to left and right, seeking a middle way that allowed the greatest possible individual liberty while promoting the maximum social good, emphasizing that personal liberty cannot exist without a degree of social responsibility that is often found lacking in late-capitalist society. Berlin was born in Russia on the cusp of the revolution, and his family fled his homeland, eventually finding its way to England, where Berlin became one of Oxford's most prominent intellectuals. In the essay `Historical Inevitability,'' Berlin takes issue with Hegel and his heirs, including Marx, who sought to find an ultimate goal to history, which the laws and forces of history work inexorably toward, and concludes that chance plays as great a role in history as the views and wills of individual men - or of philosophers and theorists.
In ``Two Concepts of Liberty,'' he examines the interplay and divergence between what he terms positive and negative liberty. Negative liberty is for Berlin, freedom from coercion. Positive liberty is the desire for the individual to be his own master. Superficially, there seems to be little difference between the two, but in political terms they are in constant tension, and have yielded both democratic and authoritraian systems. Berlin concludes this masterful analysis by quoting economist Joseph Schumpeter: `` `To realise the realtive valdity of one's convictions, and yet stand for them unflichingly is what distinguishes a civilzed man from a barbarian.' '' But Berlin adds: ``To demand more than this is perhaps a deep and incurable metaphysical need; but to allow it to determine one's practice is a symptom of an equally deep, and more dangerous, moral and political immaturity.''
I have often been struck by the philosophical similarities between Berlin and Albert Camus. Humanity, they both conclude, cannot survive without the knowledge that no single idea has the right to suppress other ideas or those who hold them. Berlin, throughout this wise and wonderful book, makes this case with as much wit, flair and intellectual depth as his great French contemporary. His message, for those with the courage and intellect to grasp it, could not be more timely in an age when ideology has trumped governing in America.
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Maurício Fontana Filho
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Philosophy for Everyman. Excellent.
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