You have a friend who has been an avid reader in the past. He has been mired in depression for months. He wants to read his way out. The trouble is he not only enjoys a good story, he appreciates and loves good writing.
This is very sharp. Berlin is one of my favorites, and appreciate seeing the attention paid both to his effervescence and for the weight that being “doomed to choose” and discard unchosen values possibilities imposes on pluralist liberals, contra claims that liberal life is either weightless or value-neutral.
As for the role of literature, I think, with Alex Zakaras that the connective thread between Berlin’s liberalism and his pluralism, which allows his thinking to be distinctively liberal without lapsing into monism, is a dispositional approach to value-choosing that is basically empathetic, imaginative, and generous, as well as appreciative of human variousness.
I think there must be a more affirmative role for literature and poetry in cultivating this kind of disposition. What do you think?
Fascinating, as ever, Henry! I wonder if you would submit that the "clinical" virtue Empson ascribes to poetry ("resolving conflicts in the author and thus preventing him from going mad"), as quoted later in the Perry article, would, if applied equally to the reader, constitute a "concrete aspect of life," as you put it.
Feb 12, 2026
Treat this like a thought experiment.
You have a friend who has been an avid reader in the past. He has been mired in depression for months. He wants to read his way out. The trouble is he not only enjoys a good story, he appreciates and loves good writing.
What novels would you recommend?
v much depends on his taste but classics like Austen and Eliot or an anthology of good poetry?
This is very sharp. Berlin is one of my favorites, and appreciate seeing the attention paid both to his effervescence and for the weight that being “doomed to choose” and discard unchosen values possibilities imposes on pluralist liberals, contra claims that liberal life is either weightless or value-neutral.
As for the role of literature, I think, with Alex Zakaras that the connective thread between Berlin’s liberalism and his pluralism, which allows his thinking to be distinctively liberal without lapsing into monism, is a dispositional approach to value-choosing that is basically empathetic, imaginative, and generous, as well as appreciative of human variousness.
I think there must be a more affirmative role for literature and poetry in cultivating this kind of disposition. What do you think?
that is more or less my view, yes, but I have not read Zakaras—will look him up, thanks for the reference
You’re welcome—I believe the piece I read was called “Isaiah Berlin’s Cosmopolitan Ethics.”
Fascinating, as ever, Henry! I wonder if you would submit that the "clinical" virtue Empson ascribes to poetry ("resolving conflicts in the author and thus preventing him from going mad"), as quoted later in the Perry article, would, if applied equally to the reader, constitute a "concrete aspect of life," as you put it.