Against the Current: Essays in the History of IdeasBerlin's main theme in these essays is the importance in the history of ideas of dissenters whose thinking still challenges conventional wisdom - among them Machiavelli, Vico, Montesquieu, Herzen and Sorel. With his unusual powers of imaginative re-creation, he brings to life original minds that swam against the current of their times, and in the process offers a powerful defence of variety in our visions of life. |
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... believed, above all, in the direct evidence yielded by observation. His central doctrines were absorbed into the texture of nineteenth-century liberal thought and practice, what had once seemed novel and arresting became commonplace ...
... believed, above all, in the direct evidence yielded by observation. His central doctrines were absorbed into the texture of nineteenth-century liberal thought and practice, what had once seemed novel and arresting became commonplace ...
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... less inadequate approximations; if, moreover, the forms of speech and the myths, poetry and religion of so-called primitive men are not, as Voltaire and the Encyclopédistes typically believed, the first childlike stammering.
... less inadequate approximations; if, moreover, the forms of speech and the myths, poetry and religion of so-called primitive men are not, as Voltaire and the Encyclopédistes typically believed, the first childlike stammering.
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Essays in the History of Ideas Isaiah Berlin. Voltaire and the Encyclopédistes typically believed, the first childlike stammering of truths more clearly and more fully formulated by later rational thinkers, but rather the unique ...
Essays in the History of Ideas Isaiah Berlin. Voltaire and the Encyclopédistes typically believed, the first childlike stammering of truths more clearly and more fully formulated by later rational thinkers, but rather the unique ...
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... believed that abstract networks of general laws, while they might help us (like tools or weapons) to dominate and exploit areas of reality, must blunt our sense of the vivid freshness of immediate experience, and blind us to the unique ...
... believed that abstract networks of general laws, while they might help us (like tools or weapons) to dominate and exploit areas of reality, must blunt our sense of the vivid freshness of immediate experience, and blind us to the unique ...
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... believed that imagination, intuition and traditional values were superior to all forms of scientific calculation, reason and analysis. So powerful was the myth he thus created that by its spell he was able to bind together his ...
... believed that imagination, intuition and traditional values were superior to all forms of scientific calculation, reason and analysis. So powerful was the myth he thus created that by its spell he was able to bind together his ...
Contents
The Originality of Machiavelli | |
The Divorce between the Sciences and the Humanities | |
Vicos Concept of Knowledge | |
Montesquieu | |
Hume and the Sources of German AntiRationalism | |
Herzen and his Memoirs | |
The Life and Opinions of Moses Hess | |
Benjamin Disraeli Karl Marx and the Search for Identity | |
The Naïveté of Verdi | |
Past Neglect and Present Power | |
Authors Note | |
Index | |
Other editions - View all
Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas - Second Edition Isaiah Berlin Limited preview - 2013 |
Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas - Second Edition Isaiah Berlin Limited preview - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
Aileen Kelly Alexander Herzen believed Benjamin Disraeli Berlin central century Christian civilisation common conceived conception consciousness created culture Descartes Disraeli doctrine E. H. Carr empirical ends Enlightenment essays fact faith French Georges Sorel German Giambattista Vico Hamann Hegel Henry Hardy Herder Herzen Hess history of ideas human Hume Hume’s ibid ideal imagination individual intellectual Isaiah Berlin Italian Jewish Jews justice Kant Karl Marx knowledge language laws letter liberal lives London Machiavelli man’s mankind Marx Marx’s Marxist men’s metaphysical methods modern Montesquieu moral Moses Hess myth natural sciences Niccolò Machiavelli one’s organisation original outlook Oxford passionate perhaps philosophical political Prince principles radical rationalist realise reality reason religion repr Review revolution revolutionary Roman Russian scepticism scientific seems sense social socialist society Sorel Spinoza spirit theory thinkers thought tradition trans true truth understand universal values Verdi Vico Vico’s vision Voltaire writings