Isaiah Berlin

This article is about the 20th-century philosopher. For the 18th-century rabbi, see Isaiah Berlin (rabbi).

Sir
Isaiah Berlin
OM CBE FBA
Berlin in 1983
Born(1909-06-06)6 June 1909
Riga, Livonia, Russian Empire
Died5 November 1997(1997-11-05) (aged 88)
Oxford, England, United Kingdom
Alma materCorpus Christi College, Oxford
Spouse
Aline de Gunzbourg
​
(m. 1956)​
Era20th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
School
Institutions
Doctoral students
Other notable students
Main interests
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Sir Isaiah Berlin OM CBE FBA (24 May/6 June 1909[4] – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas.[5] Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks were sometimes recorded and transcribed, and many of his spoken words were converted into published essays and books, both by himself and by others, especially by his principal editor from 1974, Henry Hardy.

Born in Riga (now the capital of Latvia, then a part of the Russian Empire) in 1909, he moved to Petrograd, Russia, at the age of six, where he witnessed the revolutions of 1917. In 1921, his family moved to the UK, and he was educated at St Paul's School, London, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford.[6] In 1932, at the age of twenty-three, Berlin was elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. In addition to his own output, he translated works by Ivan Turgenev from Russian into English, and during World War II, worked for the British Diplomatic Service. From 1957 to 1967, he was Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1963 to 1964. In 1966, he played a role in creating Wolfson College, Oxford, and became its founding President. Berlin was appointed a CBE in 1946, knighted in 1957, and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1971. He was President of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978. He also received the 1979 Jerusalem Prize for his lifelong defence of civil liberties, and on 25 November 1994, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws at the University of Toronto, for which occasion he prepared a "short credo" (as he called it in a letter to a friend), now known as "A Message to the Twenty-First Century", to be read on his behalf at the ceremony.[7]

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, as well as his opposition to Marxism and communism, has had a lasting influence.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference sep was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Rosen, Frederick (2005). Classical Utilitarianism from Hume to Mill. Routledge. p. 251. According to Berlin, the most eloquent of all defenders of freedom and privacy [was] Benjamin Constant, who had not forgotten the Jacobin dictatorship
  3. ^ Brockliss, Laurence; Robertson, Ritchie (2016). Isaiah Berlin and the Enlightenment. Oxford University Press. Berlin refers to Diderot and Lessing as 'two of my favorite thinkers in the eighteenth century.'
  4. ^ His date of birth was officially registered as 24 May, according to the Julian calendar then in force in the Russian Empire. Latvian State Historical Archive, Rīgas rabināts, 4346. fonds, 2. apraksts, 58. lieta, 71. lp. o. p., 72. lp.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference bbcobit was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference conccat was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ The New York Review of Books, 23 October 2014, "A Message to the 21st Century", http://www.sjpcommunications.org/images/uploads/documents/Isaiah_Berlin.pdf Archived 9 January 2021 at the Wayback Machine