 Berlin’s conception of philosophy was shaped by his early exposure to, and rejection of, both Idealism and logical  positivism.[1]  With the former he associated an excessively exalted view of philosophy as the ‘queen of the sciences’, capable of establishing fundamental, necessary, absolute, universal truths. With the latter he associated the reductionist and deflationary view of philosophy as, at best, a handmaiden to the sciences, and at worst a sign of intellectual immaturity bred of scientistic confusion and credulity.