Isaiah Berlin

                                                       Isaiah Berlin (1909–1997) 

The topic given to me was Isaiah Berlin a world known Russian-British social and political theorist, Philosopher and historian of ideas. He was an essayist, conversationalist, raconteur, and lecturer. Isaiah Berlin was born in Riga (now capital of Latvia). He is the Son of Mendel Berlin, a prosperous Timber merchant. And son of Maria Nee Volshonok. They moved to Anderapool, in Russia and in 1917 to Petrograd, they stayed there until the Russian revolution of 1917. In 1957 he married Aline Halban (Nee de Gunzbourg) He was elected Chichele professor of social and political theory at Oxford; his inaugural lecture delivered in 1958 was the two concepts of liberty. Considered as the World’s greatest talker. Isaiah Berlin was the president of the Aristotelian society from 1963-1964. He played crucial role in founding Wolfson college, oxford and became its first president.  Berlin Was appointed a CBE in 1946, knighted in 1957, and appointed to the Order of the merit in 1971. He Was President of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978. He also received the 1979 Jerusalem Price for his writings on individual freedom. An annual Isaiah Berlin Lecture is held at the Hampstead Synagogue, at Wolfson College, oxford at the British Academy, and in Riga. Berlin's Work on liberal theory and on value pluralism has had a lasting influence

                                                                                                          

And now on his beliefs; The two concepts of liberty—or freedom (he uses the words interchangeably)—are the “negative”  And the “positive.” The former, generally professed in the West and to some extent even practiced There, deals with the question: “What is the area within which the subject…is or should be left to do Or be what he wants to do or be, without interference by other persons?” The latter, universally Professed and practiced in the Sino-Soviet East, deals with a very different question: “What, or who, Is the source of control or interference that can determine someone to do, or be, one thing rather than Another?” Negative” freedom is a familiar enough concept, defined by liberal and conservative Theorists, from Locke and Hobbes to Mill, constant, Bentham, and Tocqueville. They have disagreed As to the area to be left to the individual free of society’s control (Hobbes thought damned little) but They all have agreed that something must be left— “To invade that preserve, however small, would Be despotism.” “The doctrine is comparatively modern, “Negative liberty is the absence of obstacles, Barriers or constraints. One has negative liberty to the extent that actions are available to one in this Negative sense.  Mr. Berlin writes: “Positive” liberty is both older—Plato’s republic was “free” in This sense and this sense only—and newer; its historical importance begins, I would guess, with the French Revolution. As Mr. Berlin writes, it has much more popular appeal; the masses can be set in Motion far more easily by an appeal to free themselves, en masse, from colonialism or the Bourgeoisie than by a call to individual freedom. Indeed if, as is almost invariably the case, the Victorious underdogs find their new masters as or more restrictive than the old ones. Philosophically, This kind of liberty rests on the assumption that there is one “real” human nature, with “rational” Needs. Every prophet of positive freedom, from Plato to Khrushchev, thinks he knows what this “Real” human nature is. Positive liberty is the possibility of acting-or the fact of acting-in such a way As to take control of one’s life and realize one’s fundamental purposes. While negative liberty is Usually attributed to individual agents, positive liberty is sometimes attributed to collectives, or to Individuals considered primarily as members of given collectives.

 Conclusion of the difference between negative and positive freedom. In negative freedom no one

Can stop or interfere with what one decides to do for it is his own life, there is no obstacle, there is

No hindrance in the decisions you’re making. Wherein positive freedom there is interference and

You’re told to do because it will do you good in the long term there is hindrance and regulation/

Control.  Basically what the two concepts of liberty shows is the good kind of liberty that being

Restricted for good, and will do good to you in the long run and the bad kind of liberty wherein there

Is no interference whatever you want to do is tolerable, your decisions are absolute. For me I think

Good liberty is much more preferable hence ‘Good liberty’, sometimes in life our decisions aren’t

Always correct. Yes it may look like our decision is right for us but for others it might not always

Seem fit, Depending on their perspective and philosophy in life. Not all the decisions we make is

Right. We sometimes need guidance and consulting whether we’re really doing the right thing.

If I were to choose a quote from Isaiah Berlin it would be ‘Injustice, poverty, slavery, ignorance-These may be cured by reform or revolution. But men do not live only by fighting evils. They live But they live by positive goals, Individual and collective, a vast variety of them seldom predictable, At times in compatible’. What this quote means to me personally is that, in life it’s not always about Helping others. We too live by our own being, for our own goals, our own responsibilities as Different individuals.