O legado de Isaiah Berlin: ensinamentos de raposa para ouriços

Abstract

The present work started from the complex question about the theory of values, how to approach them and what is the best way to understand them, whether it is through unity or plurality. At first, Ronald Dworkin's defense of his theory of unity was presented in opposition to what the author understands to be Isaiah Berlin's theory in general and its related pluralism in specific. Given this, it is argued that Dworkin describes Berlin's theory poorly, and to show this misconception, the main purpose of this work is to consistently discern Isaiah Berlin's thought around three main points: (i) history; (ii) philosophy and (iii) political theory. Therefore, we sought, primarily, to present what the author understands to be the nature of the investigation in these three basic points and the way in which they are arranged in a single hermeneutic approach, which is fundamentally articulated by the holistic sense of reality, by the pluralism and by the hermeneutic intertwining of fact and value. Subsequently, it is argued that Dworkin's theory is better understood in Berlinian terms, with a constitutive relationship between fact and value in the aesthetic hypothesis, in the concept of interpretation and in dense political concepts, contrary to what the author later defends. In the end, I argue roughly that it is in this interpretative line that we should theorize values, based at the same time on notions of “being” and “ought-to-be” and on the unity and plurality that structure our human condition.