Romanticism, Skepticism, Liberalism

Reading Isaiah Berlin

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3971083
AutoresJames G Mellon (0000-0002-1296-4697, Independent Scholar, 3390 Desmond Ave., Apt. 3, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3L 4C6, Canada, autor de correspondencia)
Año2023
Volumen28
Número2
Páginas139-154
Fecha de publicación2023-02-17
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe European Legacy (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1084-8770 • E-ISSN: 1470-1316
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10848770.2022.2157315
OpenAlexW4313440187
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas25

The aim of this article is neither to challenge nor to defend Isaiah Berlin’s thought but rather to identify the main influences on his concept of liberalism. Berlin’s justification for liberalism is distinctive in that it reflects influences of Romanticism and Augustinianism. Unlike some liberals, his liberalism does not reflect unambiguous confidence in the products of the Enlightenment. Berlin valued the freedom of expression and identity, yet he feared that these freedoms faced potential threats from both left and right. These considerations led Berlin to found his liberalism on the notion of limited government, as is reflected in his bias towards negative, rather than positive, liberty. Negative liberty implies restraint on the part of the state in order to limit anything that might act as an impediment to individual freedom. In contrast, positive liberty implies that the state may have to be active even to the point of imposing restrictions on individual freedom in order to ameliorate effective limits on liberty imposed as a consequence of societal inequities. Berlin is justly deemed to have been one of the great political theorists of the twentieth century. Few, even among his critics, would deny this, and even those who disagree with Berlin’s conclusions would acknowledge that his framing of the questions and his references to history have elevated and enriched the debate on liberalism

Classical liberalism · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Individualism · Liberalism · Negative liberty · Political science · Politics · Romanticism · Skepticism · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Religion and Society Interactions