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Berlin has made the famous distinction between negative and positive liberty. For many liberals, negative liberty is modern individual liberty manifested in markets, while interference by the State is a form of positive liberty. Berlin was also repelled by Rousseau’s concept of the general will, which he considered as a form of collectivist holism. The paper argues that this philosophy is a mistaken interpretation of Berlin’s two concepts of liberty and of Rousseau’s general will. In a simple model of individual and collective choice under conditions of bounded rationality, it is shown that positive and negative liberty are interdependent. The collective choices made under positive liberty can be modeled as the stochastic version of Rousseau’s general will, provided that liberal democracy enables the conditions of free public deliberation. In that case, the individual freedom cherished by Berlin is compatible with positive liberty.

On november 3rd, 1997, a conference was held in Paris devoted to a review of the activities of "section 39 : Space, Territories and Societies", a CNRS commission which most French human geographers, along with some architects, urbanists and sociologists joined. The presentation of the research field "Geography and Culture" led to a strong discussion between the two reviewers in charge of the presentation and later with both of them and the public.This paper was written in reaction to this discussion. It is argued here that it is time for French geographers to stop focusing on methodological issues, for the situation is far more complex than just an opposition between deductive quantitative and nomothetic geography on the one side, and empirical, qualitative and idiographic geography on the other side. In fact, a deductive approach can rely on qualitative data only, and an empirical approach can lead to some theoretical developments. But one cannot deny that there is an urgent need for empirical geography to formalise its methodology. Also, in reaction to Professor Anne Buttimer´s remarks who, invited to react as a foreign expert, underlined that French cultural geography gives most of its attention to heritage and historical issues, some explanations to this situation are developed.