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 | Isaiah Berlin |
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 idea: 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. "Gray's book is as much a reconstruction as a presentation of Berlin's thought. . . . Gray's reconstruction is . . . impressive and revealing. It points persuasively to both the overall coherence and the internal tensions of Berlin's thought. . . . Gray has written an acute and illuminating exposition of Berlin's world view. . . . He probably gets closer to Berlin than anyone else has done."--Michael Walzer, The New York Review of Books "Succeed[s] in bringing the daring of [Berlin's] thinking so clearly into view. . . . Berlin's commitment to liberalism for all its difficulties remains solid, and Mr. Gray's argument is that this `agonistic' liberalism is our best bet. . . . It is an argument not to be missed."--Colin Walters, The Washington Times "An excellent exposition of Isaiah Berlin's ideas. [Gray] is particularly interesting in his account of Berlin's idea of negative freedom."--William Phillips, Partisan Review "Isaiah Berlin is without a doubt the greatest living authority on the history of ideas. . . . He stands as one of the pre-eminent modern exemplars of political liberalism. . . It is the singular merit of John Gray to have distilled from Berlin's voluminous writings the philosophical essence of his liberalism within this slim volume. . . . In his thoughtful study of Berlin's political philosophy, John Gray performs the admirable service of demonstrating how consummately civilized a man Isaiah Berlin is."--David Glasner, National Review "A clearly written and well-argued book that is essential reading for anyone concerned with contemporary moral and political thought."--Ethics
Subject Areas: Hardcover published in 1996 A selection of the Reader's Subscription Book Club. File created: 4/23/2008 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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