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Article: Isaiah Berlin.
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- November 25, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 National Review, Inc. 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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ISAIAH Berlin is without a doubt the greatest living authority on the history of ideas. His historical inquiries into the works of a remarkably diverse group of thinkers and philosophical concepts constitute one of the intellectual treasures of our time.
Yet since his early days as an abstract philosopher at Oxford, Berlin has made almost no forays into pure political philosophy. The closest he has come to a comprehensive statement of his political philosophy is his famous essay "Two Concepts of Liberty," which gave currency to the distinction between negative and positive liberty and argued that negative liberty is the more worthy of defense. Even so, he stands as ...