Isaiah Berlin

Also known as Sir Isaiah Berlin, Isaiah Mendelevich Berlin

Russo-British-Latvian Jewish social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas (1909–1997)

AI overview

Isaiah Berlin was a 20th-century philosopher and historian of ideas who explored how different political and philosophical traditions shape society and human freedom. His work remains influential because he developed frameworks for understanding conflicts between competing values—like liberty and equality—that continue to matter in contemporary politics and ethics.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born: 6 June 1909
Died: 5 November 1997
Works: 90

Top works

Russian Thinkers
ha-Enoshut, bul ʻets ʻiḳesh
Karl Marx, his life and environment
El poder de las ideas
Chaim Weizmann as leader

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type: Group
Origin: United States
Active from: 1978

2008 universal fire victimclassic pop and rockdance-popnew wavepoppop rock

Discography

Official site Discogs Stream

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Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners: 79
Total plays: 206

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Recent publications · Crossref

5 total works indexed

Improved Synthesis of Graphene Oxide
· 2010 · cited 11,321x
Bevacizumab plus Irinotecan, Fluorouracil, and Leucovorin for Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
· 2004 · cited 8,498x
Canu: scalable and accurate long-read assembly via adaptive <i>k</i> -mer weighting and repeat separation
· 2017 · cited 6,994x
SPIRIT 2013 Statement: Defining Standard Protocol Items for Clinical Trials
· 2013 · cited 5,858x
SPIRIT 2013 explanation and elaboration: guidance for protocols of clinical trials
· 2013 · cited 4,727x

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Quotes

“To confuse our own constructions and inventions with eternal laws or divine decrees is one of the most fatal delusions of men.”
“Philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions.”
“Few new truths have ever won their way against the resistance of established ideas save by being overstated.”
“Everyone knows what made Berkeley notorious. He said that there were no material objects. He said the external world was in some sense immaterial, that nothing existed save ideas — ideas and their authors. His contemporaries thought him very ingenious and a little mad.”
“While there may exist no more than the normal extent of disagreement about the meaning of particular terms or theses contained in these works, there is a startling degree of divergence about the central view, the basic political attitude of Machiavelli.”
“The fundamental sense of freedom is freedom from chains, from imprisonment, from enslavement by others. The rest is extension of this sense, or else metaphor.”

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Wikidata facts

Image: IsaiahBerlin1983.jpg

Show 5 more facts

name in native language: Isaiah Berlin
Commons category: Isaiah Berlin
date of death: 1997-11-05
date of birth: 1909-06-06
birth name: Jesaja Berlins

Sources (1)

wikidata.org

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~31 min read

Article

Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks were sometimes recorded and transcribed, and many of his spoken words were converted into published essays and books, both by himself and by others, especially by his principal editor from 1974, Henry Hardy.

Born in Riga, he moved to Petrograd at the age of six, where he witnessed the Russian Revolution. In 1921, his family moved to England, and he was educated at St Paul's School, London, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1932, at the age of 23, Berlin was elected to a prize fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. In addition to his own output, he translated works by Ivan Turgenev from Russian into English. During the Second World War he worked for the British Diplomatic Service.