Relevant History (Free subscription) | 08/31/2008
... sometimes self-contradictory and incomplete, at times fanatical, unitary inner vision. (from Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox ) culture
Hindu (Free subscription) | 09/19/2008
In his seminal essay, Isaiah Berlin divided great thinkers into hedgehogs and foxes. A hedgehog (example, Hegel) is someone who perceives the world through the lens of a big, dominant idea. In contrast, the viewpoint of a fox (example, Aristotle) ...
3quarksdaily (Free subscription) | 09/17/2008
Mr. Kirsch is the not the first to take Disraeli's Jewish mythmaking seriously, and to explore what it did for him. Hannah Arendt and Isaiah Berlin, both outsiders to English political culture, wrote in a similar vein decades earlier. But...
Antony Loewenstein (Free subscription) | 09/20/2008
... account of the “blogging wars” about Israel; DD Guttenplan’s recollection of IF Stone’s and Sir Isaiah Berlin’s correspondence over whether Jews should express criticism of Israel in front of gentiles; Eyal Weizman’s review of decisions by the Israeli high court over the route of the separation wall; Lerman’s observations on Anglo-Jewish communal bodies’ reactions to the issues of...
The Rehearsal Studio (Free subscription) | 09/05/2008
There is much in the text of John McCain's speech last night at the Republican National Convention to persuade us that " government of the people, by the people, for the people " is far more important than political parties or perhaps even what Isaiah Berlin has called " political judgement ." In many ways I agree with him. If we look back at the worst examples of political judgment (to...
Relevant History (Free subscription) | 08/31/2008
John Kay, talking about Isaiah Berlin and expert opinion: Isaiah Berlin, historian of ideas, made a distinction between the intelligence of the hedgehog – which knows one big thing – and the intelligence of the fox – which knows many...
TommyWonk (Free subscription) | 08/27/2008
Tonight is Joe Biden's big night. The Guardian has posted a piece I wrote on what to expect from Joe Biden tonight . Biden's speeches can run long, which invites another comparison with another gifted speechmaker, Bill Clinton. Isaiah Berlin wrote a famous essay (more quoted than read) called the Hedgehog and the Fox, based on the punch line of the Aesop fable: "The fox knows many things,...
Only a Game (Free subscription) | 08/28/2008
... 1950s and 1960s, which culminated in his doctorate at Oxford University, under the supervision of Isaiah Berlin and Elizabeth Anscombe (a student of Wittgenstein), both of whom are key figures in twentieth century philosophy. He has since held numerous professorships at major universities. Politically active, he has four times run for office in his home state of Quebec, most famously...
