ROMANTIC INDIVIDUALITY AND PLURALISM

Abstract

In the work of Sir Isaiah Berlín there is a significant thematic nucleus: the study of the origins of the Russian Intelligentsia. Within this framework are forged some of the central ideas of Professor Berlin's particular form of Iiberalism. Above all, the connection between a proposal for a unity of theory and practice and a pluralist vision. This distinguishes Berlin's thought from the doctrinaire liberalism of Hayek or the critical rationalism of Popper and has its roots in an understanding of romantic individuality and the possibilities of esthetic Language which Berlin appears to take from the life and works of Belinsky, Herzen, Turgenev and, in a different way, from Tolstoy.