A changing essentialism and a limited self-creativity: Isaiah Berlin and a new idea of human nature between classical tradition and postmodernism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14422/pen.v81.i314.y2025.005Keywords:
human nature, essentialism, classic, postmodern, Isaiah BerlinAbstract
The text analyzes Isaiah Berlin’s idea of human nature and argues that it represents an essentialism that paradoxically includes the notions of change and creation. After confirming that Berlin believed in a certain idea of human nature, two of its most relevant characteristics are examined: its empiricism —as opposed to apriorism— and its creativity —product of a romantic perspective. This proves that Berlin’s notion of human being must be understood as modifiable and self-creative. These features confirm that Berlin’s view differs from the one that characterized Western philosophy from classical Greece to the Enlightenment, what justifies calling Berlin a contemporary thinker. However, to identify Berlin with a postmodern position would be excessive, because his thought does contain certain limits to the idea of human nature. Those limits connect to the aforementioned Western intellectual tradition, which Berlin was not willing to renounce.
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