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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 81
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... individual: to analyse and lay bare the origins and nature not, it is true, of motivation and hidden springs of behaviour, but of the often implicit, deeply embedded, formative ideas, concepts and categories – some of which are more ...
... individual: to analyse and lay bare the origins and nature not, it is true, of motivation and hidden springs of behaviour, but of the often implicit, deeply embedded, formative ideas, concepts and categories – some of which are more ...
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... individual self is embedded, and of which it is in no small measure a product. It is above all else concerned to tell us who and what we are, and by what stages and often tortuous paths we have become what we are. It stresses the ...
... individual self is embedded, and of which it is in no small measure a product. It is above all else concerned to tell us who and what we are, and by what stages and often tortuous paths we have become what we are. It stresses the ...
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... individual, to a more ancient tradition, that of the Greek polis or of republican Rome – an essentially collective or communal morality according to which to be a human being and to have values and purposes is identical with being a ...
... individual, to a more ancient tradition, that of the Greek polis or of republican Rome – an essentially collective or communal morality according to which to be a human being and to have values and purposes is identical with being a ...
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... individual or collective, which Herder was the first to point to as one of the deepest and most enduring needs of men. From the hippies and the flower children to Heidegger, Habermas and the School of Frankfurt, the fundamental message ...
... individual or collective, which Herder was the first to point to as one of the deepest and most enduring needs of men. From the hippies and the flower children to Heidegger, Habermas and the School of Frankfurt, the fundamental message ...
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... individual liberty, membership of and identification with a historically continuous community. If men could be persuaded by rational argument that this was so, they would change their practice accordingly. It was this 'Utopian socialism ...
... individual liberty, membership of and identification with a historically continuous community. If men could be persuaded by rational argument that this was so, they would change their practice accordingly. It was this 'Utopian socialism ...
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