Volume 27, Number 4 · March 20, 1980
The Choices of Isaiah Berlin
By Jonathan Lieberson, Sidney Morgenbesser
Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas
by Isaiah Berlin
Viking Press, 394 pp., $16.95
The Idea of Freedom: Essays in Honour of Isaiah Berlin
edited by Alan Ryan
Oxford University Press, 297 pp., $15.95
At the center of the thought of the philosopher and historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin is a conception of man as a free and never wholly predictable agent, expressing his interests through diverse values, cultural settings, ways of thinking, acting, feeling. In the previous issue, we described Berlin's views on the ancestry of this conception in Machiavelli, Vico, and the 'Counter-Enlightenment' thinkers. But we left unanswered the important question of Berlin's view of the political arrangements that should govern men if they indeed conform to this conception.
Review, 5789 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |