Isaiah Berlin and the Politics of Freedom

by Bruce Baum (editor), Robert Nichols (Editor)

Since his death in 1997, Isaiah Berlin's writings have generated continual interest among scholars and educated readers, especially in regard to his ideas about liberalism, value pluralism, and "positive" and "negative" liberty. Most books on Berlin have examined his general political theory, but this volume uses a contemporary perspective to focus specifically on his ideas about freedom and liberty.



Isaiah Berlin and the Politics of Freedom brings together an integrated collection of essays by noted and emerging political theorists that commemorate in a critical spirit the recent 50th anniversary of Isaiah Berlin's famous lecture and essay, "Two Concepts of Liberty." The contributors use Berlin's essay as an occasion to rethink the larger politics of freedom from a twenty-first century standpoint, bringing Berlin's ideas into conversation with current political problems and perspectives rooted in postcolonial theory, feminist theory, democratic theory, and critical social theory. The editors begin by surveying the influence of Berlin's essay and the range of debates about freedom that it has inspired. Contributors' chapters then offer various analyses such as competing ways to contextualize Berlin's essay, how to reconsider Berlin's ideas in light of struggles over national self-determination, European colonialism, and racism, and how to view Berlin's controversial distinction between so-called "negative liberty" and "positive liberty."



By relating Berlin's thinking about freedom to competing contemporary views of the politics of freedom, this book will be significant for both scholars of Berlin as well as people who are interested in larger debates about the meaning and conditions of freedom.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics

284 pages, Paperback

First published December 20, 2012

Reviews

[Craig Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gravitated to this collection of academic essays after reading Timothy Snyder's excellent On Freedom which, although it only names the philosopher Isaiah Berlin in passing, is clearly an extension of ideas presented in Berlin's 1958 lecture (and subsequent essay), "Two Concepts of Liberty." Although the last two-third are oriented into Political Science conversations I'm not particularly interested in for their own sake, the book ultimately provided just what I was hoping for. A clear introduction and the opening two essays (by James Tully and George Crowder) lay out the contexts, arguments, and stakes of Berlin's influential ideas very clearly. Most impressively, read together Tully and Crowder engage in a debate that never backs away from disagreements, some fundamental, but ultimately allowed me to derive a fairly clear synthesis. The short version is that while Berlin's commitment to "negative liberty" (freedom from interference with one's ability to act) has been used--Crowder would probably say coopted--by adherents of a brutal neoliberal capitalist agenda, he shouldn't be given the blame. Crowder argues convincingly that the value of Berlin's approach requires recognition of his philosophical commitment to "value pluralism," entailing the recognition that liberty/freedom, while a high value, is not the only value. Tradeoffs, Berlin understood, are inevitable and costs are real. Yes, he valued "negative freedom" more highly than I would; no, he wasn't justifying colonialism or exploitation. I was somewhat surprised to learn that his personal politics tended strongly toward what I'd call social democratic policies and that he clearly endorsed income redistribution while, for philosophical reasons I don't find adequate, refusing to call that "positive liberty."

The essays by Maria Dimova Cookson and Carol C. Gould, while engaging in quite a bit of poly sci "inside baseball" usefully expanded on aspects of the debate.