Vision and Revision: A Note on the Text of Isaiah Berlin's Four Essays on Liberty
| Date | 01 March 1971 |
| Author | A. Arblaster |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1971.tb01923.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1971 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
VISION AND REVISION:
A NOTE ON THE TEXT
OF
ISAIAH BERLIN’S
FOUR
ESSAYS
ON
LIBERTY
A. ARBLASTER
University
of
Shefield
In
a
footnote to the Introduction to
Four Essays on Liberty1
Sir Isaiah Berlin declares:
‘While
I
have not altered the text
in
any radical fashion,
I
have made
a
number of changes
intended to clarify some of the central points which have been misunderstood by critics
and reviewers.’
(F.E.
pp. ix-x)
And
he
goes
on to say that
‘I
have done my best to remedy’
. . .
‘errors and obscurities’ to which
his attention had been drawn. All four essays had been published before, three of them in pamph-
let
or
book form,* and ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ in particular has become
a
common reference
point in the teaching and discussion of political theory. Any substantial changes in the text are
therefore bound to
be
of some importance to those who have hitherto relied on theearlier versions
of the essays.
What might constitute ‘radical’changes in
a
text is no doubt a matter of individual judgement.
However an examination of ‘Four Essays’ shows that while the sequence of sentences and
paragraphs and the general train of argument do remain generally unchanged, there are a great
many changes in words and phrases, not all of which could possibly
be
described as intended
only to clarify misunderstood points,
or
to remedy errors and obscurities. These changes cast
interesting light on certain changes in the climate of opinion since the essays first appeared, and
on some aspects of Berlin’s style of argument.
Radical
or
not, the changes are certainly numerous. Given
a
fairly generous definition of
what constitutes a single alteration-an altered phrase is counted as one, although it may involve
more than one verbal change-there are at least seventy in the forty pages of the first essay,
‘Political Ideas in the Twentieth Century’. This gives one an idea of the scale of the amendments.
Many are insignificant, but some are substantial. The two footnotes on p.
1
(F.E.),
and the
footnotes on pp.
6,
10,
and
15,
are all new, as is the final sentence of section VI of the
essay
(F.E.
p.
34).
Section VII
(F.E.
pp.
34-5)
is entirely new, and the last page of the essay
(F.E.
p.
40)
has been very substantially rewritten. The plea here against ‘Messianic ardour’ and fanatical
zeal
has been strengthened, partly by the addition of a new sentence, while the original ‘anti-political’
ending has been considerably amended. Berlin originally wrote:
‘Above
all,
it must
be
realized that the kinds of problems which this
or
that method of
education
or
system of scientific
or
religious
or
social organization is guaranteed to solve
are
eo
fact0
not the central questions of human life. They are not, and never have been, the
fundamental issues which embody the changing outlook and the most intense preoccupation
of their time and generation.’ (F.A. p.
385)
1
Four
Essays
on
Liberty
(Oxford University Press,
1969).
Henceforth referred to in bracketed
page references as
F.E.
2
The original versions of theessays were published as follows: ‘Political Ideas in the Twentieth
Century’appeared in the American journal Foreign Affairs, Vol.
28,
No.
3
(April
1950).
Referred
to in bracketed page references as F.A. ‘Historical Inevitability’ (Oxford University
Press,
1954).
Referred to in page references as H.I. ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ (Oxford University Press,
1958).
Referred to
in
page references
as
T.C.L. ‘John Stuart Mill and The Ends of Life’ (published by
the Council
of
Christians and Jews,
1959).
6
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