CURRENT BOOKS A Philosopher with a Difference ISAIAH BERLIN By John Gray. Princeton Univ. Press. 183 pp. $19.95 by Gertrude Himmelfarb here is a story, perhaps apocryphal, of interests and knowledge range well beyond Tthe Yiddish theater whose marquee the academy, into politics, literature, proclaimed, “Tonight / King Lear / Trans- music, art, and whatever else appeals to his lated and Much Improved.” Isaiah Berlin, ever-curious, ever-engaged mind. English intellectual par excellence, who So too is Berlin a philosopher with a dif- came to England at the age of 11, who dear- ference. Indeed, he insists that he is not a ly loves and is much beloved by his adopted philosopher, that he abandoned that calling country, but who still thinks of himself early in his career, when he found the pre- three-quarters of a century later as a Russian vailing mode of analytic philosophy too Jew (“That is how I was born and that is attenuated, too removed from reality. who I will be to the end of my life”), would Instead, he describes himself as a historian appreciate that story. He might even appre- of ideas (an intellectual historian, as he ciate being translated and improved, as it would be called in America). And it is in were, by John Gray—appreciate the that role that he has made his distinctive motive, at least, of an admirer who can contribution to scholarship. think of no better way to pay homage to It is ironic, therefore, to find Berlin’s Berlin than to make of him the very model work subjected to a systematic philosophi- of an English academic philosopher. cal analysis by Gray (a political theorist at As Berlin is an Englishman with a differ- Oxford), when Berlin himself has eschewed ence, so is he an academic with a differ- just such an analysis—not, obviously, ence. Except for his wartime service because he is incapable of it, but because it in America and a brief stint in is uncongenial. He is a prolific writer, but of Moscow, he has spent most of essays and extended essays, not books; his life at Oxford University, seven volumes of his collected essays much of it at All Souls have appeared, his only book being a College, the very citadel of small early volume on Marx. For the British academia. But he most part, his essays focus on particular is hardly the typical insu- historical figures. Machiavelli, Montes- lar professor. quieu, Mill, and Marx are among the His friends and few major figures he has dealt acquaintances in- with at length. For the rest, he clude almost every has preferred to write about public figure and intel- those who have never made it lectual of any conse- into the philosophical canon: quence in half a dozen Johann Gottfried von Herder, countries. (When Win- Giambattista Vico, Johann Ham- ston Churchill asked to ann, Aleksandr Herzen, Leo meet Berlin, then at the Tolstoy, Joseph de Mais- British embassy in Wash- tre, Georges Sorel, Niko- ington, an underling ar- lai Bakunin. ranged a meeting with Moreover, Berlin’s Irving Berlin; Churchill essays read less like soon repaired that articles in philo- error.) And Berlin’s sophical journals 72 WQ Spring 1996 than like the conversation for which he is or conversation. Instead he has chosen to renowned—erudite, spirited, expansive, focus on Berlin’s “political thought, and on with names, ideas, and allusions tumbling the moral theory, and the conception of out almost breathlessly. “I’ve never written philosophy, that it expresses and embod- much,” he recently told an interviewer. “I ies,” believing this to be his most enduring learned to dictate to secretaries while at the intellectual achievement and his great con- embassy in Washington.” Dictated or not, tribution to liberalism. his essays resemble his conversation—just It is an impoverished political thought, as his conversation has all the fluency and however, that cannot accommodate Ber- complexity of a well-wrought essay. lin’s essays on the Russians, which are What Berlin’s essays do not have, howev- among his most passionate and stimulating er, is the unified, systematic, comprehen- writings. For example, his essay on Herzen sive character that Gray tries to derive from and Bakunin elucidates, even better than them. The opening paragraph of Gray’s his essay on Mill, Berlin’s own views of lib- book announces its theme: “The central erty. It was after reading Herzen’s diary, claim of this book is that all of Berlin’s work which expressed so tragically both Herzen’s is animated by a single idea of enormous zeal for revolution and his respect for the subversive force. This is the idea, which I individual freedom and dignity that were call values-pluralism, that ultimate human imperiled by revolution, that Berlin values are objective but irreducibly diverse, declared Herzen to be “my hero for the rest that they are conflicting and often uncom- of my life.” binable, and that sometimes when they come into conflict with one another they nother conspicuous omission is the are incommensurable; that is, they are not A maxim that Berlin has made famous. comparable by any rational measure.” Gray His essay on Tolstoy opens with a quotation baptizes Berlin’s philosophy “agonistic plu- from the Greek poet Archilochus: “The fox ralism,” and the political outlook associated knows many things, but the hedgehog with it, “agonistic liberalism” (from the knows one big thing.” “The Hedgehog and Greek word agon, meaning competition or the Fox” is one of Berlin’s best-known rivalry). essays, and scores of commentators have That pluralism is one of the principal joined him in assigning intellectual and ideas in Berlin’s work is indisputable. That cultural figures to one or the other category. it is the “single idea” animating all his work Plato, Dante, Hegel, and Dostoevsky are is not. Indeed, the very notion of a single Berlin’s prime specimens of the hedgehog; idea is incongruous, for it goes against the Aristotle, Erasmus, Shakespeare, and grain of that very pluralism. Berlin might be Goethe, of the fox. Tolstoy is ambiguous, speaking of himself when he praises for he “was by nature a fox, but believed in Montesquieu for not being “obsessed by being a hedgehog.” some single principle, seeking to order and Berlin himself is a fox who believes in explain everything in terms of some central being a fox. He has learned many things moral or metaphysical category.” He also from the varied thinkers he has studied, and commends Montesquieu for doing what he he has acquired an abiding distrust of any himself has so successfully done: “His virtu- form of monism. It is this distinctive play of osity reaches its highest peak, he is most mind that Gray tries to fit into the frame- himself, when he tries to convey a culture work of academic philosophy by such awk- or an outlook or a system of values different ward contrivances as “agonistic pluralism” from his own and from that of the majority and “agonistic liberalism.” In doing so, he is of his readers.” in danger of creating a Berlin who, like Gray’s interpretation of Berlin depends, Tolstoy, is by nature a fox but believes in he says, on “several strategic omissions.” He being a hedgehog. has not made use of Berlin’s unpublished What makes Berlin an unregenerate fox writings, early philosophical papers, Rus- is his rejection not only of such obvious sian studies, or wartime dispatches; nor has monistic philosophies as Platonism and he attended to his friendships, personality, Hegelianism but also of the Enlighten- Current Books 73 ment, for it too posits universal values. It in some cases, authoritarianism rather views the good life as based upon reason than liberalism. and human nature, and it conceives of his- tory as progressing in accord with some pur- erlin is fascinated by all of them even pose, or telos, with perfectibility as its end. Bwhile being wary of some of them. For Berlin, unlike the philosophes, one’s Even in Joseph de Maistre (1754?–1821), values are not necessarily rational, or uni- the least congenial of them, he finds versal, or compatible with the values of oth- insights into human character, society, ers, or even compatible with one’s other val- nationality, and language that make both ues; nor are they always conducive to one’s conventional liberals and conservatives own good, let alone the good of society or seem vacuous and naive. De Maistre, the progress of humanity. Berlin concludes, is neither a theocratic reactionary nor a modern authoritarian but erlin insists that his idea of pluralism an “ultra-modern” totalitarian and protofas- Bis not relativistic. Values are objective, cist. This judgment may be excessive, given he says, because they can be understood de Maistre’s reverence for religion and his and appreciated even by individuals and contempt for militarism. But it is interesting cultures that do not share them. And they that Berlin could suspend that judgment can be understood and appreciated by them long enough to appreciate those qualities of because “fully rational people” have certain de Maistre that, if not totalitarian, are sure- values “in common,” and “what makes ly illiberal. men human is what is common to them.” Gray agonizes over the dilemma of rec- For Gray, this “objective pluralism” onciling Berlin’s sensitivity to (and, often, redeems Berlin from both the familiar mod- sympathy with) the Counter-Enlighten- erate kind of relativism and the radical rela- ment with his commitment to the liberal- tivism of postmodernism. ism that is so much a product of the Yet this denial of relativism is not Enlightenment, and then of reconciling entirely persuasive, for it presupposes pre- pluralism itself with liberalism.