The Legacy of Isaiah Berlin

Read the most by: boys and girls

The papers given at the conference and collected in this volume concentrate on three aspects of Berlin's concept of pluralism. Aileen Kelly, Mark Lilla, and Steven Lukes trace the development and consequences of his distinction between "hedgehogs," thinkers who have a single, unified theory of human action and history, and "foxes," who believe in multiplicity and resist the impulse to subject humanity to a universal vision. Ronald Dworkin, Bernard Williams, Thomas Nagel, and Charles Taylor examine how liberalism can be sustained in the face of Berlin's insight that equally legitimate values, such as liberty and equality, may come into irreconcilable conflict. Avishai Margalit, Richard Wollheim, Michael Walzer, and Robert Silvers take up Berlin's advocacy for the State of Israel and his hopes for it as a place where the often contrary values of liberalism and nationalism might find harmonious resolution.