From logical positivism to 'metaphysical rationalism': Isaiah Berlin on the 'fallacy of reduction'

History of Political Thought

Volumn 29, Issue 1, 2008, Pages 109-131

  Reed, Jamie ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 41849138657     PISSN: 0143781X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (73)

1. I. Berlin, Flourishing: Letters 1928-1946, ed. H. Hardy (London, 2004), p. 497.
2. This shift in academic focus resulted in Berlin's appointment to the Chichele Chair of Social and Political Theory at Oxford University in 1957.
3. While the influence taken by Berlin's early analytic work on his later writings has been noted by some authors, the aim of this article is to provide a more sustained examination of these themes than has hitherto been undertaken. See, for example, M. Ricciardi, 'Berlin on Liberty', in The One and the Many: Reading Isaiah Berlin, ed. G. Crowder and H. Hardy (New York, 2007), pp. 123-5;
4. N. Coles, Human Nature and Human Values: Interpreting Isaiah Berlin (Bexhill on Sea, 2004), pp. 197-218;
5. G. Crowder, Isaiah Berlin: Liberty and Pluralism (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 14-21;
6. C.J. Galipeau, Isaiah Berlin's Liberalism (Oxford, 1994), pp. 15-16;
7. D. Pears, 'Philosophy and the History of Philosophy', in Isaiah Berlin: A Celebration, ed. A. Margalit and E. Ullmann-Margalit (Chicago, 1991).
8. The final contributions to the specific field of analytic philosophy presented by Berlin are 'Logical Translation' and 'Empirical Propositions and Hypothetical Statements' published in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 50 (1949-50) and Mind, 59 (1950), respectively.
9. I. Berlin, Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays, ed. H. Hardy (London, 1999), p. xii.
10. Thus, along with issues in analytical philosophy Berlin was influenced by themes relating to the dangers of totalitarianism, Russian intellectual history, the meaning of Jewish identity and cultural belonging, the philosophy of history, Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment thought, and the nature of historical understanding, to name only a few. For Berlin's own reflection on the different influences on his outlook see I. Berlin, 'The Three Strands in My Life', The Jewish Quarterly, 27 (2-3) ( 1979), pp. 5-7.
11. A.J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (London, 2001), p. 16.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid., pp. 13-29.
14. Berlin, Concepts and Categories, p. 12.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., pp. 33-4.
17. The disagreements between Austin and Ayer were central to the intellectual environment in which Berlin was located during the 1930s. For Berlin's own account of this period see I. Berlin, 'J.L. Austin and the Early Beginnings of Oxford Philosophy', Personal Impressions, ed. H. Hardy (Oxford, 1982), pp. 101-15.
18. See, for example, Russell's two lectures 'The Philosophy of Logical Atomism' (1918) and 'Logical Atomism' (1924), in B. Russell, Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901-1950, ed. R.C. Marsh (London, 1956).
19. J.L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford, 1964), p. 4.
20. Berlin, Concepts and Categories, p. 30.
21. I. Berlin, 'Work on the Philosophy of Language' (1940s?) MS 568, fols. 146-260, Isaiah Berlin Papers, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. The originally unpublished and untitled paper has been catalogued under the heading 'Work on the Philosophy of Language' and dated as 'late 1940s?'. My referencing will conform to this suggested dating.
22. Berlin, 'Work on the Philosophy of Language', MS Berlin 568, fol. 146.
23. Ibid., fol. 154.
24. Ibid., fol. 223.
25. Ibid., fol. 253-4.
26. Ibid., fol. 255 (Berlin's italics).
27. Ibid., fol. 257.
28. Berlin, Concepts and Categories, pp. 79-80.
29. Pears, 'Philosophy and the History of Philosophy', p. 36.
30. Berlin, Concepts and Categories, p. 57.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid., p. 70.
34. Ibid., p. 78.
35. Berlin, 'Work on the Philosophy of Language', MS Berlin 568, fols. 185-6.
36. Berlin, Concepts and Categories, p. 80.
37. Ibid.
38. I. Berlin [1934], 'Matter', http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/lists/naclass/ matter.pdf in Henry The Isaiah Berlin Virtual Library, ed. Hardy, accessed 17 December 2004, p. 1.
39. Berlin, Concepts and Categories, p. 76.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid., pp. 77-9.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid., p. 78.
44. Ibid., p. 11.
45. L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (London, 2001) §6.54, p. 89.
46. I. Berlin, The Power of Ideas, ed. H. Hardy (London, 2000), p. 4.
47. Berlin, Concepts and Categories, p. 159.
48. For instance, the concepts of free-will and determinism are of this type. These notions constitute fundamentally contrasting conceptions of how human experience is interpreted. For Berlin's discussion of these terms see I. Berlin [1954], 'Historical Inevitability', in Liberty: Incorporating Four Essays on Liberty, ed. H. Hardy (Oxford, 2002), pp. 94-165.
49. Berlin, Concepts and Categories, p. 159.
50. I. Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism, ed. H. Hardy (London, 2000), p. 3.
51. Berlin, Liberty, p. 212.
52. I. Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History (London, 1992), p. 79.
53. Berlin, Liberty, p. 55.
54. I. Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas, ed. H. Hardy (London, 1991), pp. 5-6.
55. See also I. Berlin, Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas, ed. H. Hardy (London, 1997), pp. 80-1;
56. and Berlin, Liberty, p. 62.
57. Berlin, 'Two Concepts of Liberty', in Liberty, pp. 166-217.
58. Berlin, Liberty, p. 4.
59. Ibid., pp. 278-9.
60. Ibid., pp. 213-14.
61. Berlin, 'Work on the Philosophy of Language', MS Berlin 568, fols. 185-6.
62. Berlin, Concepts and Categories, p. 57.
63. I. Berlin, Freedom and Its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty, ed .H. Hardy (London, 2002).
64. Ibid., pp. 103-4.
65. D.M. Weinstock, 'The Graying of Berlin', Critical Review, 11(4) (1997), p. 488.
66. C. Taylor, 'Plurality of Goods', in The Legacy of Isaiah Berlin, ed. R. Dworkin, M. Lilla, R.B. Silvers (New York, 2001), pp. 114-15.
67. Berlin, Liberty, p. 111.
68. R. Jahanbegloo, Conversations with Isaiah Berlin (London, 2000), p. 44.
69. Berlin, 'From Hope and Fear Set Free', in Liberty, pp. 252-79.
70. Berlin, Liberty, p. 172.
71. Berlin, Concepts and Categories, p. 57.
72. Ibid., p. 76.
73. I would like to thank Chloe Taylor and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments on earlier versions of the article.