Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) entfaltete in Berlin als Gemeindeprediger, Universitätsprofessor und Akademiemitglied ein wirkmächtiges theologisches und philosophisches System zwischen Aufklärung, Deutschem Idealismus und Romantik. Die Kritische Gesamtausgabe (KGA) seiner zu Lebzeiten publizierten sowie seiner nachgelassenen Werke und Briefe ist in fünf Abteilungen gegliedert, wobei jeder Abteilung auch der ihr zugehörige handschriftliche Nachlass zugeordnet ist: I. Schriften und Entwürfe II. Vorlesungen III. Predigten IV. Übersetzungen V. Briefwechsel und biographische Dokumente Die seit 1972 vorbereitete Edition wird kooperativ von den beiden (...) Forschungsstellen in Kiel und in Berlin erarbeitet. Die 1967 gegründete Kieler Forschungsstelle ist eine Einrichtung der dortigen Theologischen Fakultät; die 1979 an der Theologischen Hochschule gegründete Berliner Forschungsstelle ist jetzt in der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften beheimatet. Die editorische Arbeit in Kiel, die zunächst 1975-1983 durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft finanziert wurde und seit 1984 von der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen im Rahmen des Akademien-Programms der Bund-Länder-Kommission für Bildungsplanung und Forschungsförderung betreut wird, konzentrierte sich zunächst auf die I. Abteilung "Schriften und Entwürfe". Diese Abteilung, deren Musterband 1980 publiziert wurde und die insgesamt 14 Bände in 17 Teilbänden (plus Registerband) umfasst, wurde editorisch termingerecht Ende 2002 abgeschlossen; die letzten beiden Textbände erschienen im Herbst 2003. Die editorische Arbeit in Berlin, die zunächst vom Berliner Senat und der Evangelischen Kirche (EKU und EKBB) über die Schleiermachersche Stiftung finanziert wurde un. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MEISTER ECKHART AND THE NEOPLATONIC HERITAGE: THE THINKER'S WAY TO GOD RICHARD Wooos, O.P. Loyola University of Ohioago Ohicago, Illinois IN BOTH HIS LIFE rand preaching, Meister Eokrhart's " way" was pre-eminently.a spirituality of the mind. The srpeoulat:ive inqui.rires.and p:roibings thaJt animate his iSChD'l-·arly woliks 1also f!:>iervrude his sermons ·and treatisies, while a pastoral, homiletic inrberrtion iieciproca:1ly permeates the scholarly.worrks, particularly in regard to.the Meister'1s fascination with rthe Woil1d. (...) Heinrich Deni:fle, 1who disonviered and first commented upon Eckhart's Laitin writings in the 1880s, concluded that the Meister faclmd the clarity of conception and precision of expression characteristic of the great scholastic figmes who preoeded him, partiou1ady Albert the Grea:t 1and 'lihomas Aquinrus.1 B:ut more reoent Eckhart scholars have increasingly •argued that Denifle's oonoern to :ve£ute uncritically inflated characteriz,ations of Eckhart's philosophloa:l genius, notrubly that of Wilhelm Preger,.led him to undel'V'alue and indeed misrepvesen:t •the Meister's ireal goal a;nd bme achievement. Indeed, tto the modern critical eye, aided :by a oontury 1 "Eckhart ein unklarer Denker war, der sich der Consequenzen seiner Lehrer resp. seiner ausdruckweise nicht bewusst war. Gerade bei den schwierigen Lehrpunkten, wo Klarheit und Scharfe der Begriffe und des Ausdrucks mehr als je geboten ist, tritt dies zu Tage. Gerade in den entscheidenden Momenten verlasst ihn die Klarheit.... Eckhart besass aber nicht die geistige Begabung iiber die Scholastik hinauszugeben und doch innerhalb der Granzen der Wahrheit zu bleiben." "Meister Eckharts lateinische Schriften, und die Grundanschauung seiner Lehre," in A.rahiv fii,r Literatur unCl Kirchengeschichte Cles Mittelalters, ed. H. Denifie and Franz Ehrle (Graz: Akademische Druck u. Verlagsanstalt, 1956), vol. 2, pp. 482, 521. 609 610 RICHARD WOODS, O.P. of ]urbher di:s:cioverieis 1rund study, " the scholastic Eckhart is an original.and spooulaxbivie til:rintker, 1and not only a spirit's itineriary fa~om.aJJJd ha:ck to its eternail. Sourioe-4hie Ohristian NoopLatonic schema th.at Eckhart im.heri'bed room St. Albert tb!e Greait rund, 1behind him, Hugh and Richa;rid of St. Victo:r, Thomas Ga1lus, John Sarraoenus, John Soottus Eriugena, Diornysiius the Areop1aigibe, P!l.'odus, and, penultimrutely, Pilotinus!himself. For thls gre:art theoa Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke: Herausgegeben im Auftrage der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft, 11 Vols. to date (Stuttgart and Berlin: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1958-). German sermons will be identified hereafter by their number in the Deutsche Werke and, for English translation, by the corresponding page number in the Walshe edition. 9 " Eine Koiner Handscrift mit lateinischen Eckhart-Exzerpten," Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 31 (1961) : 204-12. In volume three of his edition, Walshe includes a translation of a fragment of one of Eckhart's sermons discovered by Prof. Kurt Ruh in 1967 and published in the Zeitschrift fii,r deutohes Aitertum 111 (1982) : 219-25. See ed. cit., pp. 131-35. ECKHART AND NEOPLATONISM 618 ~ogical tradition, liecently examined in some detail iby John Macquarrie alllld Andrew Louth, stretches hack evoo £artlier to tbie Oappadocian Fraithe'I"s, Origien, Philo, :and at the source, Pilato.in Smee the 1app1e1amance of Eoklhamt'1s more aoadiemic Laltin wiorrks, op;inion has heen divided as 1 00 their importance :velative ibo the more familiar German sermons iand tT1eatises for understarndmg the Meister~s authentic tooching. Some recent commenibato 'l.1s 1 sti1l 1:Jend to favor the lattier aJ.moot enti'11ely, even wihile acknOW11edging t:hie impo'11tooce of the forn11er; some favor the Latin.11 Critical opinion :seems 'bo have turned in the direction of remphrusizing the importalllice of both.the Latin and the German :works in 01der 1bo unders:tand the whole Eckhartthe teacher and the p:veacheT.12 But to understand to what extent Ed.mart ias,a tlheologian, philosopher, arrd mystic was indebted to Obrisltian Nooplatmrism it is raliso n:ecess1acy to see him in the oonteJct of his,w;orks, his method, and his scholarly and apostolic career. The Scholar and His Temper While Echltart had ra ik!een phi1osorphica1 temperament, he did not 1rus,a rule compose racrudemic 1weatises. Ratiher, he scatltJeTed... (shrink)

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) entfaltete in Berlin als Gemeindeprediger, Universitätsprofessor und Akademiemitglied ein wirkmächtiges theologisches und philosophisches System zwischen Aufklärung, Deutschem Idealismus und Romantik. Die Kritische Gesamtausgabe (KGA) seiner zu Lebzeiten publizierten sowie seiner nachgelassenen Werke und Briefe ist in fünf Abteilungen gegliedert, wobei jeder Abteilung auch der ihr zugehörige handschriftliche Nachlass zugeordnet ist: I. Schriften und Entwürfe II. Vorlesungen III. Predigten IV. Übersetzungen V. Briefwechsel und biographische Dokumente Die seit 1972 vorbereitete Edition wird kooperativ von den beiden (...) Forschungsstellen in Kiel und in Berlin erarbeitet. Die 1967 gegründete Kieler Forschungsstelle ist eine Einrichtung der dortigen Theologischen Fakultät; die 1979 an der Theologischen Hochschule gegründete Berliner Forschungsstelle ist jetzt in der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften beheimatet. Die editorische Arbeit in Kiel, die zunächst 1975-1983 durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft finanziert wurde und seit 1984 von der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen im Rahmen des Akademien-Programms der Bund-Länder-Kommission für Bildungsplanung und Forschungsförderung betreut wird, konzentrierte sich zunächst auf die I. Abteilung "Schriften und Entwürfe". Diese Abteilung, deren Musterband 1980 publiziert wurde und die insgesamt 14 Bände in 17 Teilbänden (plus Registerband) umfasst, wurde editorisch termingerecht Ende 2002 abgeschlossen; die letzten beiden Textbände erschienen im Herbst 2003. Die editorische Arbeit in Berlin, die zunächst vom Berliner Senat und der Evangelischen Kirche (EKU und EKBB) über die Schleiermachersche Stiftung finanziert wurde und seit 1994 in der Obhut der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften liegt, ist seit Beginn vorrangig der V. Abteilung "Briefwechsel und biographische Dokumente" gewidmet. Hier sind bisher neun Bände erschienen, der letzte dokumentiert die Hallenser Zeit bis 1807. In Berlin wurde 1989 auch die Arbeit an der II. Abteilung "Vorlesungen" eröffnet, deren Gedeihen allerdings durch personelle Sparmaßnahmen nach dem Erscheinen des Musterbandes 1998 behindert wurde. Mehrere Bände, finanziert über Einzelprojekte,liegen zur Zeit vor. Die editorische Arbeit in Kiel ist seit Jahresbeginn 2003 neu auf die III. Abteilung "Predigten" gerichtet, wiederum betreut von der Göttinger Akademie. Über das bisher publizierte Predigtkorpus von 583 gedruckten Predigten und Predigtentwürfen hinaus sollen in den kommenden Jahren 750 bisher unbekannte Predigten (238 eigenhändige Predigtentwürfe der Jahre 1794-1808 und 512 nachschriftlich überlieferte Predigten der Jahren 1809-1833) editorisch erschlossen und publiziert werden. (shrink)

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834) entfaltete in Berlin als Gemeindeprediger, Universitatsprofessor und Akademiemitglied ein wirkmachtiges theologisches und philosophisches System zwischen Aufklarung, Deutschem Idealismus und Romantik. DIe Kritische Gesamtausgabe (KGA) seiner zu Lebzeiten publizierten sowie seiner nachgelassenen Werke und Briefe ist in funf Abteilungen gegliedert, wobei jeder Abteilung auch der ihr zugehorige handschriftliche Nachlass zugeordnet ist: I. SChriften und Entwurfe II. VOrlesungen III. PRedigten IV. uBersetzungen V. BRiefwechsel und biographische Dokumente Die seit 1972 vorbereitete Edition wird kooperativ von den beiden (...) Forschungsstellen in Kiel und in Berlin erarbeitet. DIe 1967 gegrundete Kieler Forschungsstelle ist eine Einrichtung der dortigen Theologischen Fakultat; die 1979 an der Theologischen Hochschule gegrundete Berliner Forschungsstelle ist jetzt in der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften beheimatet. Die editorische Arbeit in Kiel, die zunachst 1975-1983 durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft finanziert wurde und seit 1984 von der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen im Rahmen des Akademien-Programms der Bund-Lander-Kommission fur Bildungsplanung und Forschungsforderung betreut wird, konzentrierte sich zunachst auf die I. ABteilung "Schriften und Entwurfe". DIese Abteilung, deren Musterband 1980 publiziert wurde und die insgesamt 14 Bande in 17 Teilbanden (plus Registerband) umfasst, wurde editorisch termingerecht Ende 2002 abgeschlossen; die letzten beiden Textbande erschienen im Herbst 2003. Die editorische Arbeit in Berlin, die zunachst vom Berliner Senat und der Evangelischen Kirche (EKU und EKBB) uber die Schleiermachersche Stiftung finanziert wurde und seit 1994 in der Obhut der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften liegt, ist seit Beginn vorrangig der V. ABteilung "Briefwechsel und biographische Dokumente" gewidmet. HIer sind bisher neun Bande erschienen, der letzte dokumentiert die Hallenser Zeit bis 1807. In Berlin wurde 1989 auch die Arbeit an der II. ABteilung "Vorlesungen" eroffnet, deren Gedeihen allerdings durch personelle SparmaSSnahmen nach dem Erscheinen des Musterbandes 1998 behindert wurde. MEhrere Bande, finanziert uber Einzelprojekte,liegen zur Zeit vor. Die editorische Arbeit in Kiel ist seit Jahresbeginn 2003 neu auf die III. ABteilung "Predigten" gerichtet, wiederum betreut von der Gottinger Akademie. uBer das bisher publizierte Predigtkorpus von 583 gedruckten Predigten und Predigtentwurfen hinaus sollen in den kommenden Jahren 750 bisher unbekannte Predigten (238 eigenhandige Predigtentwurfe der Jahre 1794-1808 und 512 nachschriftlich uberlieferte Predigten der Jahren 1809-1833) editorisch erschlossen und publiziert werden. (shrink)

"A celebrated master of the spoken as well as the written word, Isaiah Berlin here gives us a rare memoir in the form of a dialogue." "Isaiah Berlin is renowned the world over for his analysis of the ideas that have influenced or transformed societies. He has a deep commitment to liberty and pluralism, and has devoted the half century and more of his professional life as a teacher and lecturer to exploring the conditions that allow these ideals (...) to flourish, and those that threaten them." "Berlin here intersperses insights into the development of his ideas and political philosophy with rich personal reminiscences. He discusses Machiavelli, Marx, Vico, Herder, and Herzen, among others, and their influence over him." "As he leads us from Petrograd to Oxford, Washington, Moscow, London, and Jerusalem, he speaks of his friends and contemporaries: W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Igor Stravinsky, A. J. Ayer, Bertrand Russell, and many others. He tells of his moving encounters with Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, and Chaim Weizmann, and of his passion for music and literature." "Frank and engaging, Conversations with Isaiah Berlin is a remarkable record of one of the great intellectual odysseys of our time."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

Isaiah Berlin: A Celebration gathers tributes, reflections, and commentaries on the great thinker and his philosophy, politics, and life-including contributions from Michael Ignatieff, Leon Wieseltier, Ronald Dworkin, Stephen Spender, and many others. "Some [essays], like Joseph Brodsky's tribute, are touchingly personal. Others, like G. A. Cohen's 'Isaiah's Marx, and Mine,' mingle personal reminiscences with a more theoretical look at Berlin's ideas. . . . The volume is a fitting tribute to a thinker famed for his erudition, eclecticism, and (...) clarity of style."--Merle Rubin, The Christian Science Monitor "One of the many merits of this rich and rewarding collection is the sense-very imperfectly conveyed here-it transmits of the tone of Berlin's writings and conversation, of the multiplicity of his interests and the variety of his achievements. . . . The essays testify to the character of Berlin's mind as a luminous prism, in which the cultural traditions of Russia, England and Judaism are marvelously refracted."--John Gray, Times Literary Supplement "[T]he collection testifies to the learning and profundity of Berlin's thought and, by way both of reminiscence and influence, to the charm and gaity of its expression."--Anthony Quinton, The Times of London. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Jahrbuch für Wissenschaft und Ethik Jahrgang: 20 Heft: 1 Seiten: 225-236.

-- Bd. 22. Exzerpte und Notizen (1809-1831) -- Bd. 23. Vorlesungen über die Wissenschaft der Logik -- Bd. 24. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Natur <1-3> -- Bd. 25. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie des subjektiven Geistes ; Anhang -- Bd. 26. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie des Rechts (4 v.) -- Bd. 27. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte -- Bd. 28. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Kunst -- Bd. 29. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie (...) der Religion und Vorlesungen über die Beweise vom Dasein Gottes -- Bd. 30. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie -- Bd. 31. Katalog der Bibliothek Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegels (2 v.). (shrink)

Isaiah Berlin is heralded as one of the great thinkers of the 20th century and this editied work by a group of distinguished scholars is an examination of an Humean liberal intellectual. Isaiah Berlin's legacy still excites intense scholarly debate.

The work reported in this monograph was begun in the winter of 1967 in a graduate seminar at Berkeley. Many of the basic data were gathered by members of the seminar and the theoretical framework presented here was initially developed in the context of the seminar discussions. Much has been discovered since1969, the date of original publication, regarding the psychophysical and neurophysical determinants of universal, cross-linguistic constraints on the shape of basic color lexicons, and something, albeit less, can now also (...) be said with some confidence regarding the constraining effects of these language-independent processes of color perception and conceptualization on the direction of evolution of basic color term lexicons. (shrink)

"Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century", Historical Inevitability", "Two Concepts of Liberty", "John Stuart Mill and the Ends of Life". These four essays deal with the various aspects of individual liberty, including the distinction between positive and negative liberty and the necessity of rejecting determinism if we wish to keep hold of the notions of human responsibility and freedom.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year “For anyone wanting to understand the twists and turns of the history of ideas, this book will be indispensable.”―John Gray, New York Times Book Review The Sense of Reality was the last new collection of essays published by Isaiah Berlin in his lifetime. All informed by Berlin’s lifelong fascination with the history of ideas, these engaging studies range widely: the subjects explored include realism in history; judgment in politics; the (...) history of socialism; the nature and impact of Marxism; the radical cultural revolution instigated by the Romantics; Russian notions of artistic commitment; and the origins and practice of nationalism. The title essay, taking its cue from the impossibility of recreating a bygone epoch, is a superb centerpiece. Now with a new foreword by Timothy Snyder and a new appendix comprising a previously unpublished essay on the great Russian critic Vissarion Belinksy and a previously uncollected lecture on utopianism, The Sense of Reality is a rich and illuminating collection from one of the most seductive writers and thinkers of the twentieth century. (shrink)

"Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made."--Immanuel Kant Isaiah Berlin was one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century--an activist of the intellect who marshaled vast erudition and eloquence in defense of the endangered values of individual liberty and moral and political pluralism. In the Crooked Timber of Humanity he exposes the links between the ideas of the past and the social and political cataclysms of our present century: between the Platonic (...) belief in absolute Truth and the lure of authoritarianism between the eighteenth-century reactionary ideologue Joseph de Maistre and twentieth-century fascism between the romanticism of Schiller and Byron and the militant--and sometimes genocidal--nationalism that convulses the modern world. (shrink)

Berlin's intense consciousness of the plurality of values, the nature of historical understanding, and the fragility of human freedom premeates essays ranging from his early debates on logical positivism to his later work.

Liberty is an expanded edition of Isaiah Berlin's classic of liberalism, Four Essays on Liberty. Berlin's editor Henry Hardy has incorporated a fifth essay, as Berlin wished, and added further pieces on the same topic, so that Berlin's principal statements on liberty are available together for the first time. He also describes the gestation of the book and throws further biographical light on Berlin's preoccupation with liberty in appendices drawn from his unpublished writings.

In this outstanding collection of essays, Isaiah Berlin, one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century, discusses the importance in the history of thought of dissenters whose ideas still challenge conventional wisdom--among them Machiavelli, Vico, Montesquieu, Herzen, and Sorel. With his unusual powers of imaginative re-creation, Berlin brings to life original minds that swam against the current of their times.

"This volume sheds considerable light on Berlin's thinking and clarifies some of the central themes of his philosophy. After an introductory memoir, the book is divided into four sections. The first is a selection from the correspondence conducted between Berlin and Polanowska-Sygulska from 1983 to 1997. These letters are published here in their entirety for the first time. The second section comprises two interviews Berlin gave in 1991 for Polish periodicals. Next come edited transcripts of a number (...) of conversations recorded between 1986 and 1995. In one of these, Berlin tellingly recalls his childhood and youth. In other exchanges, he is pressed to be more concise about some of his most contested views, particularly his concepts of liberty and value pluralism, and to respond to criticism of these ideas by a wide range of authors. (shrink)

This essay examines the origins of three political doctrines of the twentieth‐century—Communism, Fascism, and Marxism—which Berlin linked through attributing to them the assumption that human life tended in ‘only one direction’. He contrasted this briefly with his own view that human goals were really various and ‘at times incompatible’.

The essays collected in this new volume reveal Isaiah Berlin at his most lucid and accessible. He was constitutionally incapable of writing with the opacity of the specialist, but these shorter, more introductory pieces provide the perfect starting-point for the reader new to his work. Those who are already familiar with his writing will also be grateful for this further addition to his collected essays. The connecting theme of these essays, as in the case of earlier volumes, is the (...) crucial social and political role--past, present and future--of ideas, and of their progenitors. A rich variety of subject-matters is represented--from philosophy to education, from Russia to Israel, from Marxism to romanticism--so that the truth of Heine's warning is exemplified on a broad front. It is a warning that Berlin often referred to, and provides an answer to those who ask, as from time to time they do, why intellectual history matters. Among the contributions are "My Intellectual Path," Berlin's last essay, a retrospective autobiographical survey of his main preoccupations and "Jewish Slavery and Emancipation," the classic statement of his Zionist views, long unavailable in print. His other subjects include the Enlightenment, Giambattista Vico, Vissarion Belinsky, Alexander Herzen, G.V. Plekhanov, the Russian intelligentsia, the idea of liberty, political realism, nationalism, and historicism. The book exhibits the full range of his enormously wide expertise and demonstrates the striking and enormously engaging individuality, as well as the power, of his own ideas. "Over a hundred years ago, the German poet Heine warned the French not to underestimate the power of ideas: philosophical concepts nurtured in the stillness of a professor's study could destroy a civilization."--Isaiah Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty , 1958. (shrink)

This lecture insisted upon negative liberty as the political complement to the human capacity for free choice, and made matching metaphysical claims: the nature of being, and especially the conflicts amongst values, were inconsistent with totalitarian claims. Berlin, arguing along this line, provided an account of the perversion of positive liberty into a warrant for such claims, discussed nationalism, and emphasized the value‐pluralism, now linked so frequently with his name.

The masterly essay on Tolstoy’s view of history, in which Sir Isaiah Berlin underlines a fundamental distinction between those people (foxes) who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things and those (hedgehogs) who relate everything to a central, all-embracing system.

This short story, written when Berlin was twelve, is his first surviving essay. It reveals the disposition that found expression in his more mature work. Berlin contrasts the settled life of ‘a cosy little home’ with the crude consequentialism of Commissar Uritsky and its destructive effects. The story is a morality tale: Uritsky meets his just end.

‘IB was one of the great affirmers of our time.’ John Banville, New York Review of Books The title of this final volume of Isaiah Berlin’s letters is echoed by John Banville’s verdict in his review of its predecessor, Building: Letters 1960–75, which saw Berlin publish some of his most important work, and create, in Oxford’s Wolfson College, an institutional and architectural legacy. In the period covered by this new volume (1975–97) he consolidates his intellectual legacy with a (...) series of essay collections. These generate many requests for clarification from his readers, and stimulate him to reaffirm and sometimes refine his ideas, throwing substantive new light on his thought as he grapples with human issues of enduring importance. Berlin’s comments on world affairs, especially the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and the collapse of Communism, are characteristically acute. This is also the era of the Northern Ireland Troubles, the Iranian revolution, the rise of Solidarity in Poland, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, and wars in the Falkland Islands, the Persian Gulf and the Balkans. Berlin scrutinises the leading politicians of the day, including Reagan, Thatcher and Gorbachev, and draws illuminating sketches of public figures, notably contrasting the personas of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrey Sakharov. He declines a peerage, is awarded the Agnelli Prize for ethics, campaigns against philistine architecture in London and Jerusalem, helps run the National Gallery and Covent Garden, and talks at length to his biographer. He reflects on the ideas for which he is famous – especially liberty and pluralism – and there is a generous leavening of the conversational brilliance for which he is also renowned, as he corresponds with friends about politics, the academic world, music and musicians, art and artists, and writers and their work, always displaying a Shakespearean fascination with the variety of humankind. Affirming is the crowning achievement both of Berlin’s epistolary life and of the widely acclaimed edition of his letters whose first volume appeared in 2004. (shrink)

Berlin's position in ‘Political Ideas’ postulated a human ability to make free choices. His lecture ‘Historical Inevitability’ attacked determinism as a foundation of the view that ‘the world has a direction’ and that society is governed by deterministic laws. Instead, Berlin suggested that determinism was implausible, because it would require radical changes in our ‘moral and psychological categories.’.

These essays are not marginal ruminations, but rather Berlin's most important studies in the history of ideas.

Isaiah Berlin; I—The Presidential Address: “From Hope and Fear Set Free”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 64, Issue 1, 1 June 1964, Pages 1–30.