Isaiah Berlin: Difference between revisions

Berlin is known for his inaugural lecture, "Two Concepts of Liberty," delivered in 1958 as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford. The lecture, later published as an essay, reintroduced the study of political philosophy to the methods of [[analytic philosophy]]. Berlin defined 'negative liberty' as absence of coercion or interference in private actions by an external political body, which Berlin derived from the Hobbesian definition of liberty. 'Positive liberty' Berlin maintained, could be thought of as self-mastery, which asks not what we are free from, but what we are free to do. Berlin contended that modern political thinkers often conflated positive liberty with rational action, based upon a rational knowledge to which, it is argued, only a certain elite or social group has access. This rationalist conflation was open to political abuses, which encroached on negative liberty, when such interpretations of positive liberty were, in the nineteenth century, used to defend nationalism, paternalism, social engineering, historicism, and collective rational control over human destiny.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kocis |first=Robert |title=IsaishIsaiah Berlin: A Kantian and Post-Idealist Thinker |date=17 November 2023 |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=9781786838957 |series=Political Philosophy Now |date=17 November 2023 |pages=71–95 |language=en}}</ref>