Unfinished Dialogue

by Isaiah Berlin and Beata Polanowska-Sygulska

This volume is the fruit of nearly fifteen years of discussion-in person and by letter-between world-famous British philosopher Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) and Dr. Beata Polanowska-Sygulska of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland. Berlin always felt a special affinity for scholars from Eastern Europe, and the unique chemistry between him and this younger enthusiast for his ideas yielded a remarkable body of material, most of it hitherto unpublished.Divided...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591023769
• ISBN13: 9781591023760
• Release Date: February 2006
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Length: 317 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Recommended for intermediate to advanced philosophy students

Unfinished Dialogue is a published record of correspondence between Oxford University Professor of Social and Political Theory Isaiah Berlin, and Dr. Beata Polanowska-Sygulska, as conducted as conducted from 1983 to 1997. Selections from their exchange of letters, published for the first time, form the first of four sections; the next three are comprised of two interviews Berlin gave in 1991 for Polish periodicals, edited transcripts of conversations recorded between 1986 and 1995, and an allotment of articles by Polanowska-Sygulska on Berlin's thought, as derived from her years of immersion in his work. Berlin's philosophical ideas, and his affinity for the Eastern-European perspective of Polanowska-Sygulska, show through in this serious-minded, respectful, and extensively detailed analysis of the interplay between two great minds. At times fairly technical, Unfinished Dialogue is recommended for intermediate to advanced philosophy students.