The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas"Sir Isaiah Berlin may be our most important living philosopher, an activist of the intellect who marshals vast erudition and eloquence in defense of the endangered values of individual liberty and moral and political pluralism. In The Crooked Timber of Humanity he exposes the links between the idea of the past and the social and political cataclysms of our present century: between the Platonic belief in absolute Truth and the lure of authoritarianism; between the eighteenth-century reactionary ideologue Joseph de Maistre and twentieth-century fascism; between the romanticism of Schiller and Byron and the militant - and sometimes genocidal - nationalism that convulses the modern world"--Unedited summary from book cover. |
From inside the book
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Page 123
... reason . In an effort to refute the view that history is reason in action , if by reason is meant the operation of anything resembling the normal working of the discursive human intellect , Maistre multiplies examples of the self ...
... reason . In an effort to refute the view that history is reason in action , if by reason is meant the operation of anything resembling the normal working of the discursive human intellect , Maistre multiplies examples of the self ...
Page 130
... reason not because it returns more convincing answers than reason , but because it returns no answer at all . It does not persuade or argue , it commands . Faith is truly faith only when it is blind ; once it looks for justification it ...
... reason not because it returns more convincing answers than reason , but because it returns no answer at all . It does not persuade or argue , it commands . Faith is truly faith only when it is blind ; once it looks for justification it ...
Page 220
... reason in action . He saves himself from subjectivism , and indeed irrationalism , by insisting that the will is truly free only so far as it wills the dictates of reason , which generate general rules binding on all rational men . It ...
... reason in action . He saves himself from subjectivism , and indeed irrationalism , by insisting that the will is truly free only so far as it wills the dictates of reason , which generate general rules binding on all rational men . It ...
Contents
The Pursuit of the Ideal | 1 |
The Decline of Utopian Ideas in the West | 20 |
Giambattista Vico and Cultural History | 49 |
Copyright | |
4 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas Isaiah Berlin No preview available - 1990 |
The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas Isaiah Berlin No preview available - 1990 |
The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas Isaiah Berlin No preview available - 1991 |
Common terms and phrases
ancient authority believed Bonald Christian church civilisation common conception Condorcet conflict consciousness created creative CROOKED TIMBER culture divine doctrine eighteenth century ends Enlightenment equally eternal existence fact faith Fascism feeling Fichte forces France freedom French Friedrich Schlegel German Giambattista Vico goals happiness harmonious Hegel human ideal ideas ignorance imagination incompatible individual intellectual Isaiah Berlin Johann Gottfried Herder Joseph de Maistre kind knowledge language laws Léon Bloy liberal liberty live Maistre's mankind Marx Marxist methods modern Montesquieu moral movement natural sciences nineteenth century objective organisation outlook perfect perhaps philosophers Plato political principle progress questions rationalist realise reason recognised relativism resistance revolution romantic romanticism Rousseau rules Russian scientific seek seems sense social society spirit St Petersburg thinkers thought tradition true answers truth ultimate ultramontane understand universal Utopias values Vico and Herder Vico's violent virtues vision Voltaire