Historical Inevitability
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good. Jacket: No dust jacket - cloth/board in good condition. Page Condition: Good. Markings: Previous owner (handwritten name on title page: "N. Christesen"). Binding condition: Binding intact.
What is history, and are human beings truly free? Historical Inevitability confronts one of the most provocative questions in modern philosophy: whether the course of history is determined by vast, impersonal forces, or whether individual agency and moral responsibility retain any genuine meaning. Delivered as the Auguste Comte Memorial Trust Lecture at the London School of Economics and Political Science on 12 May 1953, this celebrated essay by one of the twentieth century's foremost liberal thinkers mounts a formidable challenge against historical determinism in all its forms — from Marxist materialism to Hegelian idealism. Isaiah Berlin argues with characteristic brilliance and erudition that to absolve individuals of moral responsibility by attributing outcomes to historical necessity is not merely a philosophical error, but a profound ethical danger. His prose is lucid, combative, and deeply humane, drawing on a vast range of thinkers from Tolstoy to Hegel to construct an argument that remains urgently relevant. A cornerstone of twentieth-century political philosophy, this slim but formidable work leaves the reader questioning not just the nature of history, but the very foundations of human freedom.
Author: Isaiah Berlin
Format: Hardback
Published: 1954, Geoffrey Cumberlege, Oxford University Press
Genre: Philosophy
Condition remarks:
Condition: Good. Jacket: No dust jacket - cloth/board in good condition. Page Condition: Good. Markings: Previous owner (handwritten name on title page: "N. Christesen"). Binding condition: Binding intact.
What is history, and are human beings truly free? Historical Inevitability confronts one of the most provocative questions in modern philosophy: whether the course of history is determined by vast, impersonal forces, or whether individual agency and moral responsibility retain any genuine meaning. Delivered as the Auguste Comte Memorial Trust Lecture at the London School of Economics and Political Science on 12 May 1953, this celebrated essay by one of the twentieth century's foremost liberal thinkers mounts a formidable challenge against historical determinism in all its forms — from Marxist materialism to Hegelian idealism. Isaiah Berlin argues with characteristic brilliance and erudition that to absolve individuals of moral responsibility by attributing outcomes to historical necessity is not merely a philosophical error, but a profound ethical danger. His prose is lucid, combative, and deeply humane, drawing on a vast range of thinkers from Tolstoy to Hegel to construct an argument that remains urgently relevant. A cornerstone of twentieth-century political philosophy, this slim but formidable work leaves the reader questioning not just the nature of history, but the very foundations of human freedom.