Abstract

"The central claim of this book is that all of Berlin's work is animated by a single idea of enormous subversive force". That single idea is value pluralism, the notion that ultimate human values are diverse and sometimes incommensurable. This idea inspires a political outlook Gray calls agonistic liberalism. What this idea subverts is the conception of liberalism as a universal truth with a privileged place in history and sees it instead as a particular historical form of life.