Ernest André Gellner was a philosopher and
social anthropologistSocial Anthropology is one of the four or five branches of anthropology that studies how contemporary human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular person: customs,...
, described by
The Daily Telegraph when he died as one of the world's most vigorous intellectuals and by
The Independent as a "one-man crusade for critical rationalism."
His first book,
Words and Things (1958)—famously, and uniquely for a philosopher—prompted a leader in
The Times and a month-long correspondence on its letters page over his attack on
linguistic philosophyLinguistic philosophy describes the view that philosophical problems are problems which may be solved either by reforming language, or by understanding more about the language we presently use. The former position is that of ideal language philosophy, the latter the position of ordinary language...
. As the Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the
London School of EconomicsThe London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
for 22 years, the
William Wyse Professor of Social AnthropologyThe William Wyse Professorship of Social Anthropology is a professorship in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge. It was founded on 18 June 1932 and endowed partly with the support of Trinity College from money bequeathed to them by William Wyse, formerly Fellow and Honorary Fellow of...
at the
University of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
for eight, and finally as head of the new Centre for the Study of Nationalism in Prague, Gellner fought all his life—in his writing, his teaching, and through his political activism—against what he saw as closed systems of thought, particularly communism, psychoanalysis, relativism, and the dictatorship of the free market. Among other issues in social thought, the modernization of society and nationalism were two of his central themes, his multicultural perspective allowing him to work within the subject-matter of three separate civilizations—the Western, Islamic, and Russian.
John Davies writes that sociologist
David GlassDavid Glass was an eminent English sociologist. One of the few sociologists elected to the Royal Society.He is also one of the very few people to be elected both FBA and FRS....
once said he wasn't sure whether the next revolution would come from the right or the left, but he was quite sure that, wherever it came from, the first person to be shot would be Ernest Gellner.
Background
Gellner was born in Paris to Anna, née Fantl, and Rudolf, a lawyer, an urban intellectual German-speaking Jewish couple from
BohemiaBohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
(which since 1918 was part of the newly established
CzechoslovakiaCzechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
).
Julius GellnerJulius Gellner , was one of the most famous German-speaking theatre directors of the 20's of the 20th century. Between 1924 and 1933 he was superintendent and vice-Director of the Munich theater "Münchner Kammerspiele im Schauspielhaus"...
was his uncle. He was brought up in
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
, attending a
CzechCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
primary school before entering the English-language grammar school. This was
KafkaFranz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
's tricultural Prague, he told John Davis of Oxford University:
anti-SemiticAntisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
but stunningly beautiful, a city he later spent years longing for.
In 1939, when Gellner was 13 years old, the rise of
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
in
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
persuaded his family to leave Czechoslovakia and move to
St AlbansSt Albans is a city in southern Hertfordshire, England, around north of central London, which forms the main urban area of the City and District of St Albans. It is a historic market town, and is now a sought-after dormitory town within the London commuter belt...
, just north of
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where Gellner attended St Albans Grammar School. At the age of 17, he won a scholarship to
Balliol College, OxfordBalliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....
as a result of what he called "Portuguese colonial policy," which involved "[keeping] the natives peaceful by getting able ones from below into Balliol."
At Balliol, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), specializing in philosophy. He interrupted his studies after one year to serve with the 1st Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade, which took part in the siege of
Dunkirk, then returned to Prague to attend university there for half a term.
During this period, Prague lost its strong hold over him: foreseeing the communist takeover, he decided to return to England. One of his recollections of the city in 1945 was a communist poster saying: "Everyone with a clean shield into the Party", ostensibly meaning that those whose records were good during the occupation were welcome. In reality, Gellner said, it meant exactly the opposite:
He returned to Balliol College in 1945 to finish his degree, winning the
John LockeJohn Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
prize and taking
first class honoursThe British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading scheme for undergraduate degrees in the United Kingdom...
in 1947. That same year, he began his academic career at the
University of EdinburghThe University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
as an assistant to Professor
John MacmurrayJohn Macmurray MC was a Scottish philosopher. His thought moved beyond the modern tradition begun by Descartes and continued in Britain by Locke, Berkeley and Hume. He made contributions in the fields of political science, religion, and philosophy of education in a long career of writing,...
in the Department of Moral Philosophy. He moved to the London School of Economics in 1949, joining the sociology department under
Morris GinsbergMorris Ginsberg was a UK sociologist. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1942 to 1943. Ginsberg helped draft the UNESCO 1950 statement titled The Race Question...
. Ginsberg admired philosophy, and believed that philosophy and sociology were very close to each other.
Leonard T. Hobhouse had preceded Ginsberg as Martin White Professor of Sociology at the LSE. Hobhouse's
Mind in Evolution (1901) had proposed that society should be regarded as an organism, a product of evolution, with the individual as its basic unit, the subtext being that society would improve over time as it evolved, a
teleologicalA teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...
view Gellner firmly opposed.
Gellner's critique of linguistic philosophy in
Words and Things (1959) focused on J.L. Austin and the later work of
Ludwig WittgensteinLudwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He was professor in philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1939 until 1947...
, criticizing them for failing to question their own methods. The book brought Gellner critical acclaim. He obtained his Ph. D. in 1961 with a thesis on "Organization and the Role of a
BerberBerbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
ZawiyaA zaouia or zawiya is an Islamic religious school or monastery. The term is Maghrebi and West African, roughly corresponding to the Eastern term madrassa...
," and became Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method just one year later.
Thought and Change was published in 1965, and in
State and Society in Soviet Thought (1988), he examined whether Marxist regimes could be liberalized.
He was elected to the
British AcademyThe British Academy is the United Kingdom's national body for the humanities and the social sciences. Its purpose is to inspire, recognise and support excellence in the humanities and social sciences, throughout the UK and internationally, and to champion their role and value.It receives an annual...
in 1974. He moved to Cambridge in 1984 to head the Department of Anthropology, holding the
William Wyse chairThe William Wyse Professorship of Social Anthropology is a professorship in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge. It was founded on 18 June 1932 and endowed partly with the support of Trinity College from money bequeathed to them by William Wyse, formerly Fellow and Honorary Fellow of...
and becoming a fellow of
King's CollegeKing's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
, which provided him with a relaxed atmosphere where he enjoyed drinking beer and playing
chessChess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
with the students. Described by the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as "brilliant, forceful, irreverent, mischievous, sometimes perverse, with a biting wit and love of irony," he was famously popular with his students, willing to spend many extra hours a day tutoring them, and was regarded as a superb public speaker and gifted teacher.
His
Plough, Sword and Book (1988) investigated the philosophy of history, and
Conditions of Liberty (1994) sought to explain the collapse of
socialismSocialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. In 1993, he returned to Prague, now free of communism, and to the new
Central European UniversityFor other uses, see European University Central European University is a graduate-level, English-language university offering degrees in the social sciences, humanities, law, public policy, business management, environmental science, and mathematics...
, where he became head of the Center for the Study of Nationalism, a program funded by
George SorosGeorge Soros is a Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, philosopher, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros supports progressive-liberal causes...
, the American billionaire philanthropist, to study the rise of
nationalismNationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
in the post-communist countries of eastern and central
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. On November 5, 1995, after returning from a conference in Budapest, he suffered a heart attack and died at his flat in Prague, one month short of his 70th birthday.
Gellner was not without his critics. His own daughter, Sarah Gellner, revealed that one of her father's favourite jokes was, "Rape, rape, rape, all summer long", and that, "If there was one thing Dad disliked more than feminists, it was homosexual men."
Words and Things
With the publication in 1959 of
Words and Things, his first book, Gellner achieved fame and even notoriety among his fellow philosophers, as well as outside the discipline, for his fierce attack on
ordinary language philosophyOrdinary language philosophy is a philosophical school that approaches traditional philosophical problems as rooted in misunderstandings philosophers develop by distorting or forgetting what words actually mean in everyday use....
(or "linguistic philosophy", Gellner's preferred phrase). Ordinary language philosophy, in one form or another, was the dominant approach at
OxbridgeOxbridge is a portmanteau of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in England, and the term is now used to refer to them collectively, often with implications of perceived superior social status...
at the time (although the philosophers themselves denied they were part of any unified school). He first encountered the strong ideological hold of linguistic philosophy while at Balliol:
Words and Things is fiercely critical of the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, J. L. Austin,
Gilbert RyleGilbert Ryle , was a British philosopher, a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers that shared Wittgenstein's approach to philosophical problems, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase "the ghost in the...
,
Antony FlewAntony Garrard Newton Flew was a British philosopher. Belonging to the analytic and evidentialist schools of thought, he was notable for his works on the philosophy of religion....
, Peter Strawson and many others. Ryle refused to have the book reviewed in the philosophical journal
MindMind is a British journal, currently published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind Association, which deals with philosophy in the analytic tradition...
(which he edited), and
Bertrand RussellBertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
(who had written an approving foreword) protested in a letter to
The TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
. A response from Ryle and a lengthy correspondence ensued.
The move to anthropology
It was in the 60s that Gellner discovered his great love of
social anthropologySocial Anthropology is one of the four or five branches of anthropology that studies how contemporary human beings behave in social groups. Practitioners of social anthropology investigate, often through long-term, intensive field studies , the social organization of a particular person: customs,...
. Chris Hann, Director,
Max Planck Institute for Social AnthropologyThe Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology is located in Halle , Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It was founded in 1999, and moved into new buildings 2001...
writes that, following the hard-nosed empiricism of Bronisław Malinowski, Gellner made major contributions to the subject over the next 40 years, ranging from "conceptual critiques in the analysis of kinship to frameworks for understanding political order outside the state in tribal Morocco (
Saints of the Atlas, 1969); from sympathetic exposition of the works of Soviet Marxist anthropologists to elegant syntheses of the Durkheimian and Weberian traditions in western social theory; and from grand elaboration of 'the structure of human history' to path-breaking analyses of ethnicity and nationalism (
Thought and ChangeThought and Change is early work by Ernest Gellner. In this book Gellner outlines his views on what is "modernity". He looks at the processes of social change and historical transformation and perhaps most forcefully the power nationalism...
, 1964;
Nations and Nationalism, 1983)".
Nationalism
In 1983, Gellner published
Nations and Nationalism. For Gellner, "
nationalismNationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
is primarily a political principle that holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent". Nationalism only appeared and, Gellner argues, became a sociological necessity in the modern world. In previous times ("the agro-literate" stage of history) rulers had little incentive to impose cultural homogeneity on the ruled. But in modern society, work becomes technical. One must operate a machine, and as such one must learn. There is a need for impersonal, context-free communication and a high degree of cultural standardisation.
Furthermore,
industrial societyIn sociology, industrial society refers to a society driven by the use of technology to enable mass production, supporting a large population with a high capacity for division of labour. Such a structure developed in the west in the period of time following the Industrial Revolution, and replaced...
is underlined by the fact that there is perpetual growth - employment types vary and new skills must be learned. Thus, generic employment training precedes specialised job training. On a territorial level, there is competition for the overlapping
catchment areasIn human geography, a catchment area is the area and population from which a city or individual service attracts visitors or customers. For example, a school catchment area is the geographic area from which students are eligible to attend a local school...
(e.g.
Alsace-LorraineThe Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east...
). To maintain its grip on resources, and its survival and progress, the state and culture must for these reasons be congruent. Nationalism therefore is a necessity.
Criticisms of Gellner's theory:
- It is too functionalist
Structural functionalism is a broad perspective in sociology and anthropology which sets out to interpret society as a structure with interrelated parts. Functionalism addresses society as a whole in terms of the function of its constituent elements; namely norms, customs, traditions and institutions...
. Critics charge that Gellner explains the phenomenon with reference to the eventual historical outcome—industrial society could not 'function' without nationalism. (Tambini 1996)
- It misreads the relationship between nationalism and industrialization. (Smith 1998)
- It accounts poorly for national movements of ancient Rome, Greece, etc. claiming an alum
Alum is both a specific chemical compound and a class of chemical compounds. The specific compound is the hydrated potassium aluminium sulfate with the formula KAl2.12H2O. The wider class of compounds known as alums have the related empirical formula, AB2.12H2O.-Chemical properties:Alums are...
type argument; insisting that nationalisms is tied in 'modernity', and can not exist without a clearly defined modern industrialization. (Smith 1995)
- It fails to account for nationalism in non-industrial society and resurgences of nationalism in post-industrial societies
If a nation becomes "post-industrial" it passes through, or dodges, a phase of society predominated by a manufacturing-based economy and moves on to a structure of society based on the provision of information, innovation, finance, and services.-Characteristics:...
. (Smith 1998)
- It cannot explain the passions generated by nationalism. Why should anyone fight and die for his country? (Connor 1993)
- It fails to take into account the role of war and the military in fostering both cultural homogenization and nationalism, ignoring in particular the relationship between militarism and compulsory education. (Conversi 2007)
Books
- Words and Things, A Critical Account of Linguistic Philosophy and a Study in Ideology, London: Gollancz; Boston: Beacon (1959). Also see correspondence in The Times, 10 November to 23 November 1959.
- Thought and Change
Thought and Change is early work by Ernest Gellner. In this book Gellner outlines his views on what is "modernity". He looks at the processes of social change and historical transformation and perhaps most forcefully the power nationalism...
(1964)
- Saints of the Atlas (1969)
- Contemporary Thought and Politics (1974)
- The Devil in Modern Philosophy (1974)
- Legitimation of Belief (1974)
- Spectacles and Predicaments (1979)
- Soviet and Western Anthropology (1980) (editor)
- Muslim Society (1981)
- Nations and Nationalism (1983)
- Relativism and the Social Sciences (1985)
- The Psychoanalytic Movement (1985)
- The Concept of Kinship and Other Essays (1986)
- Culture, Identity and Politics (1987)
- State and Society in Soviet Thought (1988)
- Plough, Sword and Book (1988)
- Postmodernism, Reason and Religion (1992)
- Conditions of Liberty (1994)
- Anthropology and Politics: Revolutions in the Sacred Grove (1995)
- Nationalism (1997)
- Language and Solitude: Wittgenstein, Malinowski and the Habsburg Dilemma (1998)
External links
- Gellner resource page (at the London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
)
- Ethics and Logic, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society LV (1954–1955), 157-178.
- Catalogue of the Gellner papers at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
.
- Gellner video materials, at Dspace at Cambridge repository (MP4 files).
- Special Issue of the journal Social Evolution & History
Social Evolution & History is a peer-reviewed academic journal focused on the development of human societies in the past, present and future. In addition to original research articles, Social Evolution & History includes critical notes and a book review section. It is published in English twice a...
"The Intellectual Legacy of Ernest Gellner" (guest editor Peter Skalnik)