Isaiah Berlin (1907–97) was a British liberal philosopher and historian of ideas. One of the founders of the discipline now known as intellectual history, he is celebrated for his writings on political philosophy and the concept of liberty.
Born in Riga, Latvia, Russian Empire, Berlin immigrated to England with his Russian-speaking Jewish family in 1921. He was educated at St Paul’s School, London, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He spent most of his academic career at Oxford, where he became a Fellow of All Souls (1932,) Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory (1957–67,) and president of Wolfson (1966–75.) He also served as a diplomat in the British embassies in Moscow and Washington.
Berlin’s most influential book, The Hedgehog and the Fox (1953,) divides the world’s thinkers into those (the foxes) who, like Aristotle and Shakespeare, “knew many things,” and those (the hedgehogs) who, like Plato and Dante, “knew one big thing.”
Berlin’s other works include Karl Marx: His Life and Environment (1939,) Historical Inevitability (1954,) The Age of Enlightenment (1956; on 18th-century philosophers,) Two Concepts of Liberty (1958,) Vico and Herder (1976,) Concepts and Categories (1978,) Against the Current (1979,) Magnus of the North (1993,) four volumes of essays (1978–80) and translations of Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev.
Michael Ignatieff wrote Isaiah Berlin: A Life (1998.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Isaiah Berlin
To understand is to perceive patterns.
—Isaiah Berlin
Topics: Understanding
Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not.
—Isaiah Berlin
Topics: Curiosity
Lenin could listen so intently that he exhausted the speaker.
—Isaiah Berlin
Topics: Listening
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