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Article: Berlin's two concepts of liberty: a reassessment and revision.(Isaiah Berlin)
- Article from:
- Polity
- Article date:
- July 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Palgrave Macmillan, a Division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The essence of liberty has always lain in the ability to choose as you wish to choose, because you wish so to choose, uncoerced, unbullied, not swallowed up in some vast system; and in the right to resist, to be unpopular, to stand up for your convictions merely because they are your convictions. That is true freedom, and without it there is neither freedom of any kind, nor even the illusion of it. (1)
--Isaiah Berlin
Berlin's Position
The distinction Isaiah Berlin drew between negative and positive liberty was not new; however he, perhaps more than any previous thinker, explored to the full its political implications. That, at least, was his ...