Isaiah Berlin and the Enlightenment

ISBN: 9780198783930 出版年：2016 页码：273 Oxford University Press

This chapter assesses Karl Marx: His Life and Environment (1939), a book which offers an important snapshot of Berlin’s early understanding of topics that he continued to pursue: the nature of Enlightenment ideas, their impact on Marx’s thought, and the ‘counter-attack’ they provoked (from Hegel amongst others). The contrast with Berlin’s later views is sometimes striking. Marx is not treated as an archetypal Enlightenment thinker (but as having affinities and contrasts with Enlightenment thought); the Enlightenment influence on his writings is identified as broadly positive (responsible for its realism, clarity, and empirical insight); and Marx is not criticized for rejecting the truth of value pluralism (but for denying the historical importance of ideas and human agency).