Oxford Advanced Thematic Anthology 2 Answer Key
Terry Chavarin
In 1957, a year after he had married Aline Halban (ne deGunzbourg), Berlin was elected Chichele Professor of Social andPolitical Theory at Oxford (his inaugural lecture, delivered in 1958,was Two Concepts of Liberty). Later in 1957 he was knighted.He resigned his chair in 1967, the year after becoming foundingPresident of Wolfson College, Oxford (which he essentially created), apost from which he retired in 1975. In his later years he hoped towrite a major work on the history of European Romanticism, but thishope was unfulfilled. From 1966 to 1971 he was also a visitingProfessor of Humanities at the City University of New York, and heserved as President of the British Academy from 1974 to 1978.Collections of his writings, edited by Henry Hardy (sometimes with aco-editor), began appearing in 1978: there are, to date, fourteen suchvolumes (plus new editions of four works published previously byBerlin), as well as an anthology, The Proper Study ofMankind, and a four-volume edition of his letters. Berlinreceived the Agnelli, Erasmus and Lippincott Prizes for his work onthe history of ideas, and the Jerusalem Prize for his lifelong defenceof civil liberties, as well as numerous honorary degrees. He died in1997.
In the case of non-philosophical questions, even if the answer isunknown, the means for discovering the answer is known, or accepted,by most people. Thus questions of empirical fact can be answered byobservation. Other questions can be answered deductively, by referringto established rules: this is the case, for example, with mathematics,grammar and formal logic. For example, even if we do not know thesolution to a difficult mathematical problem, we do know the rules andtechniques that should lead us to the answer.
Berlin insisted that there is no single criterion of meaningfulness,no absolutely incorrigible type of knowledge. The quest for certaintywas self-defeating: to restrict oneself to saying only that whichcould be said without any doubt or fear of being mistaken was tosentence oneself to silence. To say anything about the world requiresbringing in something other than immediate experience:
Berlin criticised the positivist view of the sciences as theparadigmatic form of knowledge, which the humanities should measurethemselves by and seek to emulate. He argued that the humanitiesdiffered fundamentally from the sciences both in the nature of theirsubject matter (as Vico and Dilthey had maintained), and in the sortof knowledge that they sought (as Rickert insisted). As a result,different methods, standards and goals were appropriate to each.
A related question concerns the role of reason in moral deliberation.If values are incommensurable, must all choices between conflictingvalues be ultimately subjective or irrational? If so, how doespluralism differ from radical relativism and subjectivism? If not,how, exactly, does moral reasoning work? How can we rationally makechoices between values when there is no system or unit of measurementthat can be used in making such deliberations? One possible answer tothe last question is to offer an account of practical, situationalreasoning that is not quantitative or rule-based, but appeals to themoral sense mentioned above. This is what Berlin suggests; but, onceagain, he does not offer a systematic explanation of the nature ofnon-systematic reason. (On incommensurability see Chang 1997 andCrowder 2002.)
Berlin intended his writings on political judgement as a warning topolitical theorists not to overreach themselves. Political theory cando much good in helping us to make sense of politics. But politicalaction is a practical matter, which should not, and cannot, be foundedon, or dictated by, general principles established through abstracttheorising.
4a15465005