The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of EssaysIsaiah Berlin was one of the leading thinkers of our time and one of its finest writers. The Proper Study of Mankind brings together his most celebrated writing: here the reader will find Berlin's famous essay on Tolstoy, "The Hedgehog and the Fox"; his penetrating portraits of contemporaries from Pasternak and Akhmatova to Churchill and Roosevelt; his essays on liberty and his exposition of pluralism; his defense of philosophy and history against assimilation to scientific method; and his brilliant studies of such intellectual originals as Machiavelli, Vico, and Herder. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
accepted action activity answer authority believed better called causes central century character choice Christian civilisation claim common conceived concepts condition course create critics culture described desire determined doctrine empirical equally evidence existence experience explain expression fact feeling follow forces freedom French German given goals groups Herder historians human ideal ideas ignorance imagination individual interests Italy kind knowledge language later laws least less liberal liberty lives logical Machiavelli means merely methods mind moral natural natural sciences notion objective once particular past pattern perhaps philosophers physical political possible principle question rational reality reason remained responsibility rules Russian scientific seek seems sense social society speak theory things thinkers thought tion Tolstoy tradition true truth turn understand universal values vision whole wish writing