SOURCE: “Isaiah Berlin: Understanding, Not Mastery,” in Commonweal, Vol. CXXXV, No. 14, August 14, 1998, p. 16.

In the following tribute, McCabe asserts that one of Berlin's outstanding qualities was his attempt to understand, rather than to master, his subject.

Isaiah Berlin's greatest contribution to the world of ideas may have been his exemplary commitment to the ideal of genuine understanding over mere intellectual mastery. More than most philosophers, he understood not only that mastery of a subject is not synonymous with deep understanding, but also that the pursuit of the first may imperil the second. The drive for intellectual mastery grows out of the assumption that the world is ultimately made for us and that the disciplined exercise of a properly trained mind can make all things clear: the deepest fabric of reality, the unvarying structures of human consciousness, the proper end of human activity. It is a comforting idol, but...