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Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays
"The goal of philosophy is always the same, to assist men to understand themselves and thus to operate in the open, not wildly in the dark."--Isaiah Berlin
This volume of Isaiah Berlin's essays presents the sweep of his contributions to philosophy from his early participation in the debates surrounding logical positivism to his later work, which more evidently reflects his life-long interest in political theory, the history of ideas, and the philosophy of history. Here Berlin describes his view of the nature of philosophy, and of its main to uncover the various models and presuppositions--the concepts and categories--that men bring to their existence and that help form that existence. Throughout, his writing is informed by his intense consciousness of the plurality of values, the nature of historical understanding, and of the fragility of human freedom in the face of rigid dogma.
This volume of Isaiah Berlin's essays presents the sweep of his contributions to philosophy from his early participation in the debates surrounding logical positivism to his later work, which more evidently reflects his life-long interest in political theory, the history of ideas, and the philosophy of history. Here Berlin describes his view of the nature of philosophy, and of its main to uncover the various models and presuppositions--the concepts and categories--that men bring to their existence and that help form that existence. Throughout, his writing is informed by his intense consciousness of the plurality of values, the nature of historical understanding, and of the fragility of human freedom in the face of rigid dogma.
209 pages, Paperback
First published March 28, 1979
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About the author
Isaiah Berlin
189 books757 followersSir Isaiah Berlin was a philosopher and historian of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the twentieth century. He excelled as an essayist, lecturer and conversationalist; and as a brilliant speaker who delivered, rapidly and spontaneously, richly allusive and coherently structured material, whether for a lecture series at Oxford University or as a broadcaster on the BBC Third Programme, usually without a script. Many of his essays and lectures were later collected in book form.
Born in Riga, now capital of Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire, he was the first person of Jewish descent to be elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. From 1957 to 1967, he was Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1963 to 1964. In 1966, he helped to found Wolfson College, Oxford, and became its first President. He was knighted in 1957, and was awarded the Order of Merit in 1971. He was President of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978. He also received the 1979 Jerusalem Prize for his writings on individual freedom. Berlin's work on liberal theory has had a lasting influence.
Berlin is best known for his essay Two Concepts of Liberty, 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 constraints on, or interference with, agents' possible action. Greater "negative freedom" meant fewer restrictions on possible action. Berlin associated positive liberty with the idea of self-mastery, or the capacity to determine oneself, to be in control of one's destiny. While Berlin granted that both concepts of liberty represent valid human ideals, as a matter of history the positive concept of liberty has proven particularly susceptible to political abuse.
Berlin contended that under the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel (all committed to the positive concept of liberty), European political thinkers often equated liberty with forms of political discipline or constraint. This became politically dangerous when notions of positive liberty were, in the nineteenth century, used to defend nationalism, self-determination and the Communist idea of collective rational control over human destiny. Berlin argued that, following this line of thought, demands for freedom paradoxically become demands for forms of collective control and discipline – those deemed necessary for the "self-mastery" or self-determination of nations, classes, democratic communities, and even humanity as a whole. There is thus an elective affinity, for Berlin, between positive liberty and political totalitarianism.
Conversely, negative liberty represents a different, perhaps safer, understanding of the concept of liberty. Its proponents (such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill) insisted that constraint and discipline were the antithesis of liberty and so were (and are) less prone to confusing liberty and constraint in the manner of the philosophical harbingers of modern totalitarianism. It is this concept of Negative Liberty that Isaiah Berlin supported. It dominated heavily his early chapters in his third lecture.
This negative liberty is central to the claim for toleration due to incommensurability. This concept is mirrored in the work of Joseph Raz.
Berlin's espousal of negative liberty, his hatred of totalitarianism and his experience of Russia in the revolution and through his contact with the poet Anna Akhmatova made him an enemy of the Soviet Union and he was one of the leading public intellectuals in the ideological battle against Communism during the Cold War.
Born in Riga, now capital of Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire, he was the first person of Jewish descent to be elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. From 1957 to 1967, he was Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1963 to 1964. In 1966, he helped to found Wolfson College, Oxford, and became its first President. He was knighted in 1957, and was awarded the Order of Merit in 1971. He was President of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978. He also received the 1979 Jerusalem Prize for his writings on individual freedom. Berlin's work on liberal theory has had a lasting influence.
Berlin is best known for his essay Two Concepts of Liberty, 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 constraints on, or interference with, agents' possible action. Greater "negative freedom" meant fewer restrictions on possible action. Berlin associated positive liberty with the idea of self-mastery, or the capacity to determine oneself, to be in control of one's destiny. While Berlin granted that both concepts of liberty represent valid human ideals, as a matter of history the positive concept of liberty has proven particularly susceptible to political abuse.
Berlin contended that under the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Immanuel Kant and G. W. F. Hegel (all committed to the positive concept of liberty), European political thinkers often equated liberty with forms of political discipline or constraint. This became politically dangerous when notions of positive liberty were, in the nineteenth century, used to defend nationalism, self-determination and the Communist idea of collective rational control over human destiny. Berlin argued that, following this line of thought, demands for freedom paradoxically become demands for forms of collective control and discipline – those deemed necessary for the "self-mastery" or self-determination of nations, classes, democratic communities, and even humanity as a whole. There is thus an elective affinity, for Berlin, between positive liberty and political totalitarianism.
Conversely, negative liberty represents a different, perhaps safer, understanding of the concept of liberty. Its proponents (such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill) insisted that constraint and discipline were the antithesis of liberty and so were (and are) less prone to confusing liberty and constraint in the manner of the philosophical harbingers of modern totalitarianism. It is this concept of Negative Liberty that Isaiah Berlin supported. It dominated heavily his early chapters in his third lecture.
This negative liberty is central to the claim for toleration due to incommensurability. This concept is mirrored in the work of Joseph Raz.
Berlin's espousal of negative liberty, his hatred of totalitarianism and his experience of Russia in the revolution and through his contact with the poet Anna Akhmatova made him an enemy of the Soviet Union and he was one of the leading public intellectuals in the ideological battle against Communism during the Cold War.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 16, 2012
A collection of some of Berlin's writing through the years. The first half of the book is extremely pedantic and comes across like a graduate thesis -- excessive terminology, a focus on impractical and theoretical concepts, and a failure to connect the discussion to the ultimate goals of philosophical thought. The second half, however, shows an extremely matured writing style which understands how to link academic philosophical concepts with the important questions Berlin often asks: why are we here? what is happiness and how can it be attained? what impact does knowledge have on freedom?
August 29, 2021
I very much enjoy reading pretty much anything by Berlin. His style may at times feel a little dated but it is a pleasure to read his English. Erudite, accessible and pleasurable to read.
Although Betlin is mostly known for his writing on the history of ideas, he did start out as a philosopher and these essays reflect his philosophical interests. They are to some extent period pieces but still I think worth reading. Having said this, even if these are intended as philosophical essays, it is easy to see Berlin’s interest in the history of ideas - and several pieces such as “the concept of scientific history” or “does political theory still exist” could comfortably be read as essays in the history of ideas.
Although Betlin is mostly known for his writing on the history of ideas, he did start out as a philosopher and these essays reflect his philosophical interests. They are to some extent period pieces but still I think worth reading. Having said this, even if these are intended as philosophical essays, it is easy to see Berlin’s interest in the history of ideas - and several pieces such as “the concept of scientific history” or “does political theory still exist” could comfortably be read as essays in the history of ideas.
January 17, 2020
If you've been reading Berlin the historian of ideas, I think what you need to know to decide if you want to read this collection of essays, you'll find in MacIntyre´s Foreward:
"Building on his work we can identify three denials whose truth Berlin presupposes throughout his later writings.
The first is a denial that considerations drawn from the theory of meaning give us good reason to privilege some one class of sentences or statements, so that other types of sentence or statement are to be regarded as meaningful only in so far as they are translatable into or reducible to members of the privileged class [...] The second is a denial that, among the conflicting sets of concepts, categories and models through which we understand our lives and on the basis of which we act, there is or could be found one to which every rational agent owes her or his allegiance [..] [The third is] a denial that we have good reason to believe that history is governed by laws whose operations predetermine its course and that historical enquiry, in its search for those laws and in its modes of explanation, closely resembles the enquiries of the natural sciences. All three denials are aspects of a more general rejection of the positivism of the 1930s [...]
It was because of Berlin’s confidence that he was justified in this rejection and in all three denials that he was able to proceed with his enquiries in the history of ideas. The grounds for that confidence are to be found in the essays republished in Concepts and Categories."
Berlin was initially a philosopher and it's not always easy to separate one Berlin from the other but IMO you only need to learn about what MacIntyre calls the second and third denials. The second you'll find in "Does Political Theory Still Exist?", an introduction to Berlin's pluralism which is presupposed in most of his work. The third denial, you're introduced to in "The Concept of Scientific History", and to some degree "From Hope and Fear Set Free".
"Building on his work we can identify three denials whose truth Berlin presupposes throughout his later writings.
The first is a denial that considerations drawn from the theory of meaning give us good reason to privilege some one class of sentences or statements, so that other types of sentence or statement are to be regarded as meaningful only in so far as they are translatable into or reducible to members of the privileged class [...] The second is a denial that, among the conflicting sets of concepts, categories and models through which we understand our lives and on the basis of which we act, there is or could be found one to which every rational agent owes her or his allegiance [..] [The third is] a denial that we have good reason to believe that history is governed by laws whose operations predetermine its course and that historical enquiry, in its search for those laws and in its modes of explanation, closely resembles the enquiries of the natural sciences. All three denials are aspects of a more general rejection of the positivism of the 1930s [...]
It was because of Berlin’s confidence that he was justified in this rejection and in all three denials that he was able to proceed with his enquiries in the history of ideas. The grounds for that confidence are to be found in the essays republished in Concepts and Categories."
Berlin was initially a philosopher and it's not always easy to separate one Berlin from the other but IMO you only need to learn about what MacIntyre calls the second and third denials. The second you'll find in "Does Political Theory Still Exist?", an introduction to Berlin's pluralism which is presupposed in most of his work. The third denial, you're introduced to in "The Concept of Scientific History", and to some degree "From Hope and Fear Set Free".
September 16, 2018
Berlin discusses the variety of elements which inform the human condition, the human need to understand freedom, to challenge determinism, and to create workable definitions in order to live fully.
October 13, 2023
至少对我而言，本书不是很值得一读。
一方面，在很多主题上，这些收录的文章都不是以赛亚·伯林最好的论述。
另一方面，不同于以往，我没法通过伯林那一系列关于逻辑实证主义文章去清晰地了解这一哲学流派的确切思路。这是因为一来，我之前就对逻辑实证主义的了解相当有限，况且它也不太容易被理解；二来，本书译者的中文水准相当堪忧。结果，在我阅读的过程中，一半精力用来理解伯林的论述，另一半则完全用在破解译者留下的这一段段的乱码上了。
启用这么一位在语言的准确性和逻辑性上力有不逮的译者，来翻译这么些介绍逻辑实证主义的文章，实在是一种巨大的反讽啊……
一方面，在很多主题上，这些收录的文章都不是以赛亚·伯林最好的论述。
另一方面，不同于以往，我没法通过伯林那一系列关于逻辑实证主义文章去清晰地了解这一哲学流派的确切思路。这是因为一来，我之前就对逻辑实证主义的了解相当有限，况且它也不太容易被理解；二来，本书译者的中文水准相当堪忧。结果，在我阅读的过程中，一半精力用来理解伯林的论述，另一半则完全用在破解译者留下的这一段段的乱码上了。
启用这么一位在语言的准确性和逻辑性上力有不逮的译者，来翻译这么些介绍逻辑实证主义的文章，实在是一种巨大的反讽啊……
100-199-philosophy
November 20, 2019192
March 21, 2021
前面几篇论文囫囵吞枣地先咽下去了……
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews