Abstract

Drawing on unpublished handwritten notes preserved among the Papers of Isaiah Berlin in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the essay offers the first reconstruction of the structure and contents of the lecture on ‘The Rise of Cultural Pluralism’, delivered by the historian of ideas in Tehran in October 1977. The article highlights two important elements that above all emerge from the analysis of the drafts, contextualised within the philosopher’s intellectual journey. It reveals, indeed, Berlin’s earliest reflection on the distinction between pluralism and relativism. Furthermore, it brings forth his hitherto unknown proposition of the causal links between European modern ‘discovery’ and studies of Oriental cultures, the development of German Romanticism, and the emergence of the pluralistic disposition. This interpretation is ultimately compared with the almost opposite one provided by Edward Said in the book Orientalism, published the year after Berlin’s lecture in Iran.