Oxford professor will lecture at Canterbury

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33962, 1 October 1975, Page 16

Oxford professor will lecture at Canterbury

Sir Isaiah Berlin, philosopher and historian, and for 10 years professor of social and political theory at the University of Oxford, will be in Christchurch for several days at the end of October to lecture at the University of Canterbury. Sir Isaiah is president of Wolfson College, the graduate college of Oxford University which opened in 1968. With a break during World War n, the whole of his career has been passed at Oxford. He has lectured throughout the world. Sir Isaiah will be lecturing on cultural history at the University of Canterbury on

October 17 and 20. His first ’ lecture will be on Vico, ’ Voltaire and the Great ’ Schism and the second is I called “When did it begin?” » Vico was a jurist, philo- ' sopher, and historian, who ’ studied law at the Univer--1 sity of Naples. He later de- ! voted himself to philology, > history, and philosophy, and • in 1697 became professor of ' rhetoric at Naples. His great work “Scienza f Nuova” questioned the hjs--1 tory of civilization. Sir Isaiah was bom in - Riga in 1909, the son of a ! Jewish timber merchant who settled in Britain. He was educated at St Paul’s School 5 and Corpus Christi, Oxford, • graduating with a first in J literae humaniores (greats) ' and again with a first in modem greats, the next ? year. s Before World War II he i was a Fellow of All Souls,

and tutor in philosophy at New College, Oxford. He was Fellow of New .College from 1938 to 1950. He was appointed lecturer in philosophy in the faculty of social studies in 1946, and from 1957 to 1967 was Chichele professor of social and political theory. He was a Fellow of All Souls for a second time from 1950, until his appointment as president of Wolfson College. Sir Isaiah has published a number of books, including one about Karl Marx. He is the Governor bf the University of Jerusalem, and of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Sir Isaiah received the C.B.E. in 1946 and a knighthood and Fellowship of the British Academy in 1957. He was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1971, and has received many honorary degrees.