Isaiah Berlin’s Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment

This chapter focuses on the work of Isaiah Berlin. In 1973, Berlin produced the essay on “The Counter-Enlightenment,” which is commonly said to mark the invention of that term, at least in English. In the years following his retirement, his work on the Counter-Enlightenment enhanced his standing over the past twenty-five years, invigorating keen interest in new circles, most notably among communitarians who had earlier found his liberalism unpalatable. Perhaps even more than his liberalism, however, it is Berlin's pluralism that now forms the mainspring of his reputation. It is largely through his elaboration and embellishment of his notion of the Counter-Enlightenment that his pluralism has come to be seen as the mainspring of his political philosophy as a whole.