Sir Isaiah Berlin - Clips on Life, Liberty and Death

Accessible from http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/writings_on_ib/hhonib/confessions_of_an_editor.html

First clip:
"It may be that others are interested in the facts for their own sake, to satisfy their curiosity; and invent or study sciences in order to satisfy this same curiosity; or perhaps they do so in order the better to control material forces; all this may be so, but to him this seems trivial beside the need to answer the ultimate questions -- Why are we here? What is our goal? How can we satisfy -- how can we allay the spiritual agony of those who will not rest unless they obtain true answers to these questions? ..."

Second clip:
"Inaugural Lecture: 'Two Concepts of Freedom' -- no, 'of ...' -- no, 'of Liberty', sorry. Begins. Mr Vice-Chancellor, the subject to which my Chair is dedicated -- social and political theory -- has fallen upon evil days in this country. It is a melancholy reflection that in the land which has made a great, perhaps the greatest, contribution to political thought, among a people which still feels a legitimate pride in the names of Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Mill, Green, Bradley, so few men of [inaudible] and capacity for theoretical thought should today wish to deal with social or political ideas."

Third clip:
"I had a very good life. Absolutely. On my deathbed I can say I've had a very interesting life, I've had a very good life -- I did, certainly ...

... I'm not afraid of death. The process of dying may be rather painful, but apart from pain, if a brick fell on me quite suddenly, that would be all right. You know what Herzen said about the purpose of life? The purpose of life is life. That's my motto. Otherwise, he says, if the purpose of life is what life is marching towards, its purpose is death. We don't say that -- the purpose of life is life. When life ceases, nothing is worth talking about."

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Sir
• Isaiah
• Berlin
• Life
• Two Concepts of Liberty
• Death
• Lecture
• Audio
• Social Science
• Henry Hardy

[empire161]

@halothewynd1

No problemo.

[halothewynd1]

Many thanks for posting -Ed



[empire161]

Apologies for not posting the full clips - they are unavailable online.