It should be noted that alternative reading o f Collingwood’s theory o f re-enactment is not ruled out 49 Ibid., p.40.

show either that Berlin’s own historical approach does not depend on an absolute distinction between inner and outer life to formulate his empathetic approach, or that a

belief in a homoiousis between the object to be known and the knower does not

necessarily imply a form o f idealism. This section precisely argues that Berlin’s thinking style is deeply rooted in a form o f realism rather than idealism and his empathetic method involves to an acute sensitivity to the actual human experience.

To begin with, one should agree with Luff’s observation that empathy in Berlin’s thought is a ‘functional equivalent’ o f Idealist Transcendentalism. For as a matter o f fact this historical approach is meant to function as a methodological strategy to

transcend cultural differences and overcome difficulties arising from the temporal or

spatial distance between the object to be known and the knower. However, this may not be able to warrant her claim that Berlin implicitly holds a form o f ‘transcendentalism’ in the strictly idealist sense o f the term. To explain, first o f all, it is necessary to point out that the ‘absolute distinction’ Luff discerns in Berlin’s historical methodology in fact applies to the temporal separateness between the past and the present, and such division seems to be hardly disputable. Indeed, for one to think about the past at all, one must uphold this distinction - which in fact can be considered to be the ‘founding principle of history’.50 O f course, this does not gainsay the fact that the past is in a sense constitutive o f the present or that our knowledge o f the present is necessarily shaped by our knowledge o f the past. For

what is at issue here is not the past as known to us but past events. And it is in this

sense that Berlin’s division may be said to be ‘absolute’. What is more, given that what Berlin always has in mind as the object to be known is the past thinker’s ideas, the division he really makes strictly speaking is one between the historian’s mind and the past thinker’s thought or vision o f the world whose subjectivity is inevitable as

implied by the very idea o f ‘the past’. That is to say, the homoisousis between object

and knower in the case o f Berlin’s historical methodology in effect does not refer to

the metaphysically extravagant relation between a past state o f affairs and the present

mental state o f the historian as Hegelian or Collingwoodian idealism seems to imply.

To this point, Luft may reply that even so the ideas or visions to be grasped by a Berlinian historian still remain as if they are metaphysical entities above and over in the air. And she may point to some o f Berlin’s remarks ‘central ideas, [or] the great

ideas which have occupied minds in the Western world, have a certain life o f their

own’ - which after all is one o f the marks that distinguishes Berlin from the

Cambridge School and no doubt is reminiscent of a form o f Platonic idealism.51 Nevertheless, as argued by William Dray, who probably has done more than anyone else to rid Collingwood o f his metaphysical extravagance, thinking essentially is an

activity, rather than a mere ‘object’ for contemplation or a ‘flow o f consciousness’ to

be recorded or even a ‘spectacle’ to be watched. And what this implies is that an

attempt to understand past thinkers’ ideas must engage with those ideas; that is to say,

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we cannot discover what a past idea was without at the same time re-thinking it. As

it seems, when applied to the sphere o f ideas, there is a good reason why a historian must adopt the empathetic approach. And to do so is no more mysterious than the fact that one can learn ‘2 + 2 = 4 ’. Admittedly, to interpret Collingwood in this way is to confine the application o f his theory o f re-enactment to the sphere o f thought, and this is certainly much narrower than it was meant to be - in any event, Collingwood would like it to be applicable to aesthetic experience. However, Dray’s point seems to fill up the gap left by Berlin’s formulation o f empathy. For, as the object to be understood is the ideas, there is good reason that one must go through the process o f thinking through the mind o f the past thinker - yet the process in reality must take place in the historian’s own mind. There is no mystery here. What Berlin’s historical approach

ultimately relies on is, once again, the cognitive power shared by all men, rather than

the kind o f Platonic metaphysics Luft has attributed to Berlin - unless ideas and numbers categorically must be regarded as Platonic entities and mathematics a branch of metaphysics. From this it follows that what a Berlinian historian must do is to

rethink the worldview as envisaged by the thinker studied, rather than to time-travel

back to any past state of affairs, and what he really ‘entering into’ is but the

51 Ramin Jahanbegloo, Conversations with Isaiah Berlin (London: Phoenix Press, 1993). p.25.

52 William H. Dray, History as Re-enactment - R.G. C ollingwood’s Idea o f History (Oxford: Clarendon

reconstructed vision (of the world o f past thinkers) in his own mind, not the minds o f past thinkers - hence no metaphysical identification between object and knower is entailed in Brelin’s empathetic approach.

Since Luft is aware o f Berlin’s intention to interpret Vico’s fantasia in cognitive

terms, it is not clear why she should have interpreted Berlin’s historical approach as a metaphysics-laden theory of mind. More importantly, if this reading is correct, what is

really presupposed by Berlin’s own historical methodology is a common humanity, i.e.

our ‘capacity for imaginatively “entering” worlds different from our own, or perhaps even any experience that differs from the most familiar,’ rather than the possibility o f

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literally entering into such worlds long gone in history. Thus interpreted, instead of

idealism, what Berlin really endorses is a form of empiricism. This empiricism is

rooted in human experience and does not need to go far to look for evidence. Indeed,

Berlin once illustrates Vico’s fantasia by pointing to the fact that ‘[i]f I can introspect

and explain my own conduct in terms o f purpose, then I can do this also in the case o f

others, for in the very process of communication I assume them to be creatures like myself.’54 Unmistakably the possibility of empathy as Berlin understands it is grounded upon an empirical fact rather than any metaphysical contemplation. In fact, the same point can be found in his neglected essay ‘From Hope and Fear Set Free’ where he argues as follows:

It seems to me that I can, at times, though perhaps not always, place myself, as it were,

at an outside vantage-point, and contemplate myself as if I were another human being,

and calculate the chances of my sticking to my present resolution with almost the same degree of detachment and reliability as I should have if I were judging the case of someone else with all the impartiality that I could muster.55

53 Isaiah Berlin, ‘Vico: Philosophical Ideas’ in Three Critics o f the Enlightenment (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 2000), pp.52.

54 Isaiah Berlin, ‘One o f the Boldest Innovators in the History o f Human Thought’ in The Pow er o f

Ideas (London: Pimlico, 2000), p.59.

55 Isaiah Berlin, ‘From Hope and Fear Set Free’ in The Proper Study o f Mankind (London: Pimlico,

As a matter of fact, this passage highlights the fact that man can always reflect upon his own thoughts and behaviour from an ‘outside vantage-point’ as if he is third person. And Berlin’s intention here apparently is to establish the possibility o f

entering into the minds o f others by pointing to the fact that self-reflection is possible.

Thus, rather paradoxically, for Berlin what makes analogous understanding between

men possible is men’s faculty to see themselves from outside. Against this, one may

complain that this amounts to saying that what makes internal knowledge possible is

the availability o f an external perspective to observe oneself, and it surely flies in the

face o f the fact that while in the case o f self-reflection one can appeal to memory, an act o f entering into the mind o f others does not enjoy such monopoly o f access. In other words, the difference between empathy and self-reflection is too great to validate Berlin’s use of this analogy. To support Berlin, one may reply that if self- reflection is meant to be as objective as possible, it must not rely on purely subjective memory because memory is not always reliable as it is subject to decay, re­ interpretation or even manipulation. Rather, it must also rely on sources that are also open to other people. At any rate, in the case of studying the history o f ideas where ideas are clearly written down in words, a thinker’s writings are as good as memory. Of course, the issue concerning whether human memory is reliable as a source o f self- understanding is a controversial one as relevant scientific investigation still goes on today, and obviously this thesis should not pretend to be able to pronounce a final verdict. However, it should be pointed out that the validity o f Berlin’s empathetic approach ultimately lies not in the theoretical study of human mind or memory but the practical implementation o f this method. Or, to put it differently, the validity o f this approach as a historical method in the end must be settled in the field o f history o f ideas. Berlin understands this point very well, and the fact that he again and again tries to enter the minds o f past thinkers and return with vivid accounts o f their visions o f the world may be regarded as an attempt to prove this by demonstration. In any event, for Berlin empathetic understanding is no more difficult or mysterious than self-reflection.

More importantly, what is also revealed by the above quotation is an important

the starting point o f his philosophical inquiry. Probably this may be understood as an acute sensitivity to what is actually experienced by men and a strong aversion to any metaphysical contemplation when it comes to moral and political affairs. At any rate, his style o f reasoning operates predominantly at the empirical level rather then the metaphysical, and that may be the reason why he never loses sight of reality as experienced by men, even when he is engaged with big metaphysical issues. Indeed,

that is how he refutes A. J. Ayer’s phenomenalism. Note that phenomenalism is the

monistic view that all empirical statements can be translated into statements, on one- to-one basis, about our own personal experiences (i.e. mental appearances). If it is correct, then ‘each of us starts alone with his or her own sense-data, which we then have to use in prodigious feats o f construction in order to avoid solipsism.’56 And at the heart o f the debate around this view is the question whether all our knowledge o f the world in it could be reduced to our knowledge of our own experiences which are basically the totality o f our own sense-data. According to David Pears, Berlin’s argument against phenomenalism can be summarised as a single question: ‘If physical objects really could be reduced to sense-data, then unobserved physical objects with observed effects would be sets of possible sense-data causing sets o f actual sense-data.

But how could a mere possibility cause anything actual?57 Or, to paraphrase, if

hypothetical statements about sense-data are nothing but pure descriptions o f our dispositions as perceivers rather than the objects perceived empirically, then the phenomenalist owes us an account about how anything could possess nothing but dispositional properties. What is more, as Berlin reminds David Pears, if Ayer’s phenomenalism is true, then a friend behind a rock would amount to nothing but our own possible sense-data, and we should not believe even about the existence o f his body behind the rock. However, we should not forget about the fact that he also has a

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mind and a point o f view from which it is we who have disappeared behind the rock.

As one can see, if we are to accept phenomenalism as true, we are logically bound to