ABSTRACT
I can think of no single English-language essay in political theory whose influence has been more enduring than Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty,” apart perhaps from J. S. Mill’s On Liberty: an essay written just a century earlier (1859) and itself an important precursor of Berlin’s argument in 1958. Since then, generations of students have cut their teeth in analytical political theory on the distinction between negative and positive liberty while more ideologically-driven enthusiasts have either taken up the mantle of negative liberty or defended its positive versions against detractors. Yet revisiting Berlin’s essay now, I find myself surprised anew at just how complex and even free-wheeling his presentation is, and how devoid of the dichotomous clarity or analytical rigour his expositors seek.
