This is a collection of six lectures originally given by Isaiah
Berlin on BBC Radio in 1952, transcriptions edited by Henry Hardy.
The lectures give quick brush-paintings of the philosophies of six
major thinkers - Helvetius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel, Saint-Simon
and Maistre - and their attempts to construct a moral and political
science; or, as Berlin puts it, to answer the question: 'Why should
anyone obey anyone else?' They were the first ever to be broadcast
without the aid of a prepared script, and caused something of a
sensation when they were aired; Berlin's torrential style and
extempore illustrations caught the imagination of his listeners to
such an extent that The Times headed their leader column with a
comment on the series. Isaiah Berlin famously spoke with a rapidity
and intensity that was at once captivating and extremely hard to
understand. Hardy as a result is faced with a Herculean editorial
task - and a task in which he acquits himself superbly, bringing to
life not only the sense of Berlin's lectures, but something of the
style in which he delivered them. The resulting transcript shows
Berlin to be possessed of an extraordinary gift for explaining
complex ideas in clear and simple language, without appearing to
dumb down, back off or gloss needlessly. He speaks swiftly,
succinctly and conversationally - he can almost be heard, so
natural is the flow of the editing - completely enunciating in a
few pages ideas which took their originators whole books to
expound. Each lecture reads independently as an incisive
encapsulation of the thought of a major figure in Western
philosophy, capped by a brief section showing why that thought is
antithetic to human liberty. Berlin creates in flowing language a
historical reader and, ultimately, a warning. Masterful. (Kirkus
UK)
Isaiah Berlin's celebrated radio lectures on six formative anti-liberal thinkers were delivered on the BBC's Third Programme in 1952. They are published here for the first time, fifty years on.
Freedom and its Betrayal? is one of Isaiah Berlin's earliest and most convincing expositions of his views on human freedom and the history of ideas, views which later found expression in such famous works as 'Two Concepts of Liberty', and were at the heart of his lifelong work on the Enlightenment and its critics.
In his lucid examinations of sometimes difficult ideas Berlin demonstrates that a balanced understanding and a resilient defence of human liberty depend on learning both from the errors of freedom's alleged defenders and from the dark insights of its avowed antagonists. This book throws light on the early development of Berlin's ideas, and supplements his already published writings with fuller treatments of Helvétius, Rousseau, Fichte, Hegel and Saint-Simon, with the ultra-conservative traditionalist Maistre bringing up the rear.
Freedom and its Betrayal shows Berlin at his liveliest and most torrentially spontaneous, testifying to his talents as a teacher of rare brilliance and impact. Listeners tuned in expectantly each week to the broadcasts and found themselves mesmerised by Berlin's astonishingly fluent extempore style. A leading historian of ideas, who was then a schoolboy, records that the lectures 'excited me so much that I sat, for every talk, on the floor beside the wireless, taking notes'. This excitement is at last recreated here for all to share.
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