This thoughtful and penetrating book, addressed to political scientists, sociologists, historians, and anthropologists, interprets nationalism in terms of its social roots, which it locates in industrial social organization. Professor Gellner asserts here that a society's affluence and economic growth depend on innovation, occupational mobility, the effectiveness of the mass media, universal literacy, and an all-embracing educational system based on a shared, standard idiom. These factors, taken together, govern the relationship between culture and the state. Political units that do not conform to the principle, "one state, one culture" feel the strain in the form of nationalistic activity.
The Psychoanalytic Movement explains how the language of psychoanalysis became the dominant way in which the middle classes of the industrialized West speak about their emotions. Explains how the language of psychoanalysis became the dominant way for the industrialized West to speak about emotion. Argues that although psychoanalysis offers an incisive picture of human nature, it provides untestable operational definitions and makes unsubstantiated claims concerning its therapeutic efficacy. Includes new foreword by Jose Brunner that expands on the central argument of the book and argues that Gellner and Freud might be seen as kindred spirits.
A provocative essay on a subject that, since the collapse of the Soviet empire, has become once again, a central subject of contemporary politics. Lucid, witty and brilliant, Gellner's essay combines the perspectives of politics, history, philosophy and anthropology with the multidisciplinary flair for which he is renowned
First published in 1959, this classic challenge to the prevailing philosophical orthodoxy of the day, remains the most devastating attack on a conventional wisdom in philosophy to this day.
The forecast demise of nationalism under the new moral orders of communism and internationalism has proved illusory. In the present century, to an extent greater perhaps than in all others, nationalism has been the dominant force in the affairs of humankind. Why should this have been? Why is it that a national identity should continue to be the aspiration of almost all peoples without one and, at the same time, the justification - in the process of obtaining, securing and expanding it- for casting aside every trace and tradition of civility? In Encounters with Nationalism Ernest Gellner seeks some answers. His approach is to consider first the ideas of the main modern thinkers on the subject, from Marx, List, Malinowski and Carr, to Masaryk, Heidegger, Patocka, Hroch, Havel and Said. He examines the origins, subjects and context of their writings, their interactions with culture and politics, and their influence - both on theory and on events. The range is wide, covering Eastern, Western and Islamic societies, and includes extensive discussions of the related themes of civil society, theocracy, communism, imperialism, capitalism and liberalism. Professor Gellner is never less than trenchant. He is concerned here not only to understand, but to criticize. He confronts several powerful and fashionable notions that fuel and/or attempt to explain contemporary nationalism - among them postcolonialism. On the one hand he exposes their incoherence and irresponsibility; on the other he places them alongside ideas of real currency. Nor does he evade the controversy surrounding the nature of judgement itself: the reader will also find here concise and penetrating discussions of relativism, pluralism, objectivity and the possibility of universal values.
Since the 17th century, Western society has had a turbulent relationship with Reason. Descartes set out to reorganize all his opinions in the light of Reason, allowing, as Pascal bitterly reproached him, nothing else. In the course of the centuries which followed, the relationship with Reason became the object of a vigorous, often passionate debate. David Hume declared Reason to be impotent; Immanuel Kant observed that men suffered from 'misology' as the result of their disappointed expectations from Reason; G.W.F. Hegel declared that the main insight of philosophy consisted of the realization that Reason masterminded and guided all history. The debate has not remained restricted to philosophy. Max Weber, the most influential modern sociologist, was obsessed with the distinctive role of Reason in Western society, and the part it played in engendering industrialism. Social anthropologists have been preoccupied both with the universality and the diversity of conceptual thought. Emile Durkheim taught them to ask why all men were rational, whilst Max Weber taught sociologists to ask why some men were more rational than others. This book brings together the philosophical, historical and sociological discussions of rationality and strives to make clear the underlying issues and the continuity of the debate in the various disciplines.
Ernest Gellner explores here the links between anthropology and politics, and shows just how central these are. The recent postmodernist turn in anthropology has been linked to the expiation of colonial guilt. Traditional, functionalist anthropology is characteristically regarded as an accessory to the crime, and anyone critical of the relativistic claims of interpretative anthropology (as Ernest Gellner is) is likely to be charged (as he sometimes is) with being an ex post imperialist. Ernest Gellner argues that cultures are crucially important in human life as constraining systems of meaning. Cultural transition means that the required characteristics are transmitted from generation to generation, leading, he shows, to both greater diversity and to far more rapid change than is possible among species where transmission is primarily by genetic means. But the relative importance of semantic and physical compulsion needs to be explored rather than pre-judged. The weakness of idealism, which at present operates under the name of hermeneutics, is that it underplays the importance of coercion, and that it presents cultures as self-justifying and morally sovereign: this line of argument, the author demonstrates, is fundamentally flawed.
The essays in this volume gather together Gellner's thinking on the connection between philosophy and life and they approach the topic from a number of directions: philosophy of morals, history of ideas, a discussion of individuals including R. G. Collingwood, Noam Chomsky, Piaget and Eysenck and discussions on the setting of philosophy in the general culture of England and America.
Gellner's political philosophy in these volumes combines the down-to-earth realism of political sociology with a rational treatment of the normative issues of traditional political thought. In these essays Gellner strives to understand the religions of nationalism, communism and democracy, returning again and again to the basic values of the liberal: social tolerance, rational criticism, human decency and justice.
Ernest Gellner made major contributions in very diverse fields, notably philosophy and social anthropology. His attacks on the orthodoxies of his time made it difficult for him to be fully accepted into either of these academic communities, but that suited him well enough: he seemed to enjoy leading a one-man crusade for critical rationalism, defending enlightenment universalism against the rising tides of idealism and relativism. His influence spread far beyond social anthropology: the fierce tone of the polemics of the 1950s against Oxford philosophers was repeated during the 1990s in tangles in the TLS with the literary critic Edward Said. For Gellner the issues were essentially the same: the vital need to refute the claim that ideas lead the world.
First Published in 1992. On questions of faith, Ernest Gellner believes, three ideological options are available to us today. One is the return to a genuine and firm faith in a religious tradition. The other is a form of relativism which abandons the notion of unique truth altogether and resigns itself to treating truth as relative to the society or culture in question. The third, which Gellner calls enlightenment rationalism, upholds the idea that there is a unique truth, but denies that any society can ever possess it definitively. Learned and stimulating, Professor Gellner’s book is an important contribution to our understanding of postmodernism and the relations between Islam and the West. It will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the ideological condition of contemporary society.
Ernest Gellner's last book focuses on two key figures of the twentieth century: Wittgenstein and Malinowski, showing how the thought of both men grew from a common intellectual and social background, epitomising his belief that philosophy is about important historical, social and personal issues.
Why contemporary Islam is able to support austerely traditional and conservative regimes as well as revolutionary ones is the subject of this collection of essays. Professor Gellner's position is supported by a series of case studies and critical evaluations of rival interpretations.
Considers human diversity and change and rejects the usual solutions to problems of relativism. Presents a new mode of inquiry in its stead a mixture of philosophy, history, and anthropology that appears to be more meaningful.
Ernest Renan was one of the intellectual giants of the second half of the nineteenth century in France, the man who first opened up the study of nationalism. In this book, Shlomo Sand, the author of the best-selling The Invention of the Jewish People, demonstrates the complexity of Renan's thought. Sand shows the relationship of Renan's work to that of key twentieth-century thinkers on nationalism, such as Raymond Aron and Ernest Gellner, and argues for the continued importance of studying Renan. Alongside his essay, Sand presents two classic lectures by Renan: the first, the renowned "What Is a Nation?", argues that nations are not based upon race, religion, and language; in the second he uses historical evidence to show that the Jews cannot be considered a "pure ethnos." On the Nation and the Jewish People is an important contribution to the understanding of nationalism, bringing back into play the work of a profoundly misunderstood thinker.
This set of essays is concerned with the explanation of large scale social change. Concentration is on the social stagnation characteristic of agrarian circumstances, the conditions for exit from that world, and the varied social orders that inhabit, sometimes precariously, the modern world community. The distinguished contributors from archaeology, anthropology, sociology, economic history and philosophy, have all been stimulated by the work of Ernest Gellner, and the essays are in dialogue with his view of our social condition.
The main aim of this thoughtful and thought-provoking book is to characterize and explain the difference between pre-scientific systems of belief within which science could, and did, emerge and develop. Using the armoury of both philosophy and anthropology, Ernest Gellner attacks his task with his customary sharp wit and polemical gusto." - Times Literary Supplement.
Gellner's political philosophy in these volumes combines the down-to-earth realism of political sociology with a rational treatment of the normative issues of traditional political thought. In these essays Gellner strives to understand the religions of nationalism, communism and democracy, returning again and again to the basic values of the liberal: social tolerance, rational criticism, human decency and justice.
This volume focuses on key conceptual issues in the social sciences, such as Winch's idea of a social science, structuralism, Malinowski and Evans-Pritchard, and the concept of kinship. In particular it deals with such problems as the relationship of nature and culture, the relevance of concepts drawn from within a given society to its understanding, and the relation of theory to time.
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