POL 205: Berlin on Two Concepts of Liberty

Phocaean and I discuss Isaiah Berlin’s essay “Two Concepts of Liberty.”

1. We define negative and positive liberty and how John Stuart Mill does not satisfyingly reconcile them.

2. We discuss Berlin’s own attempt to resolve this tension and his failure to do so.

3. We look at how Berlin seems to point toward a so-called messy pluralism but in fact has a universalist position undergirding his view.

4. We consider why it is that Berlin admires Constant so much on one hand, and yet fails to properly digest his teaching on the other.

5. We blame Berlin for coping with his failure through a poetic flight from reason. We also speak a little more extemporaneously about related questions and issues.