Isaiah Berlin’s Liberal Reformation

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6442786
AutoresAlicia Steinmetz (0000-0002-5956-1473, Florida International University, autor correspondente)
Ano2024
Volume22
Fascículo1-2
Páginas296-317
Data de publicação2024-12-09
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoModern Intellectual History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1479-2443 • E-ISSN: 1479-2451
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1479244324000374
OpenAlexW4405190321
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas15

This article clarifies the relationship between Isaiah Berlin’s liberalism, pluralism, humanism, and “aestheticism” by analyzing his unique approach to, and stories about, the history of ideas. I argue that Berlin should be understood as a reformer of liberalism, who understood his intervention in intellectual-historical terms. Reacting against what he saw as threats to human liberty and dignity rooted in the monist rational–scientific aspirations and expectations of Enlightenment-influenced political ideologies, Berlin responded by reinterpreting liberalism’s commitment to negative liberty through an aesthetic conception of the human being and a pluralist way of thinking about politics. In addition to reconstructing how Berlin’s writings on the history of ideas enact this liberal reformation, and clarifying the ways in which his resulting liberalism is and is not aesthetic, I also evaluate the potential implications of Berlin’s work for thinking about liberal politics in the present

Political science · Giambattista Vico and Joyce · History · Philosophy · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought