Ernest gellner

Ernest Gellner (Paris, December 9, 1925-Prague, November 5, 1995) was a British philosopher and social anthropologist of Czech origin.

Trajectory as a sociologist

His first book, Words and Things (1959) contained a frontal attack on Oxford's linguistic philosophy, a variant of the analytical philosophy inspired by Wittgenstein. Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics and Political Science from 1962 to 1984, and then Professor of Social Anthropology (William Wyse President) at the University of Cambridge until 1992, and finally Director of the new Center for the Study of Nationalism in Prague, Gellner fought all his life, with his teaching, through his interventions and publications, against what he called closed systems of thought, especially communism, psychoanalysis, postmodern relativism. The modernization of society, nationalism and Islam were the central themes of his sociological research.

Gellner has championed the Enlightenment tradition and liberal pluralism, in opposition to totalitarian ideologies, earning a well-deserved reputation as an enemy of the intellectual idols of the century XX, especially Marx, Freud and Wittgenstein. Gellner has defended the role of reason as a guide for philosophy and the human sciences, and has criticized relativist currents of contemporary thought, such as Lévi-Strauss's structuralism, Clifford Geertz's interpretive anthropology, and postmodernism. Gellner was influenced by Karl Popper, Raymond Aron, Elias Canetti, and Max Weber. According to Perry Anderson, among all the sociologists following Weber's current, Gellner is the one who has remained closest to the intellectual problems that are fundamental to Weber.

On the occasion of his death, he was described by the Daily Telegraph as one of the world's leading intellectuals, and by The Independent as a militant supporter of critical rationalism.

Ernest Gellner is one of the most influential thinkers in the social sciences. He is the author of one of the few original theories on nationalism expounded in Thought and Change, arguing that nationalism is an inevitable product of modernization, which needs literate cultures to create homogeneous societies of citizens. In the later Nations and Nationalism, Gellner explored the material basis of the transition to literary cultures in industrial society.

As a philosopher he stood out in his elaboration of the concept of rationality of current society, in Reason and Culture, where he highlights the great portion of irrationality that current capitalism possesses. In addition, in The Plow, the Sword and the Book, he divided human history into three great periods (hunter-gatherer society; agrarian society; and industrial society), separated by the two great revolutions of the History: the Neolithic Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. In this way he will assign a type of mentality to each type of society, although his analysis will become more complex by introducing the factors of production, cognition and coercion that in many different ways determine each type of society.

Biography

Gellner was born in Paris to Anna Fantl and Rudolf Gellner, a German-speaking lawyer and intellectual. Both parents were Jews of Bohemian origin. In 1918 the Czech Republic had been formed with Moravia and Slovakia as a consequence of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the First World War. Julius Gellner was his uncle.

Ernest Gellner was born in Paris in 1925 with Czechoslovak citizenship. Ernest's father, Rudolf Gellner, worked as a journalist before becoming a small businessman. Like many German-speaking Bohemians, Rudolf had to learn the Czech language as a result of the creation of Czechoslovakia (1918). Rudolf had fought in the First World War. He also lived in Siberia. When Ernest was born, Rudolf was studying in Paris, but soon after, the family moved to Prague. Gellner spent his early years in Prague, attending a Czech primary school and later enrolling in a secondary school where he taught himself in English. It was Kafka's Prague, a city of three cultures, Czechoslovak, German and Jewish, as Gellner told John Davis of Oxford University: anti-Semitism was widespread, but it was a city of extraordinary beauty, which always inspired Gellner feelings of nostalgia and affection.

In 1939, with the arrival of the Nazis in Czechoslovakia, his family was forced to leave the country and go to the United Kingdom. This decision had been prepared for a long time, because of the danger of the evolution of events. One of Rudolf's sisters already lived in England. On March 10, 1939, Adolf Hitler ordered the entry of the German army into Prague, a consequence of the Munich Agreement. That same year, 13-year-old Ernest Gellner travels across Germany by train with his mother and his sister to the UK. Adult men were not allowed to travel, his father crossed into Poland illegally. Twice he was rejected, but the third attempt is successful. With the help of old Russian friends from the World War I era, Rudolf Gellner obtained the transit visas in Warsaw that saved his life. He then moved to Sweden before coming to England, reuniting with his family in London. Rudolf Gellner's brother, Otto, was less lucky and died in the Holocaust.

Ernest and his family first lived in Highgate, North London. They then moved to St. Albans, on the north fringes of London, where he attended St. Albans Grammar School. Gellner comments regarding the World War II period: 'Prague is an impressively beautiful city, and during the first period of my exile, which was during the war, I used to dream of it constantly, in the literal sense: It was a strong longing".

At the age of 17, he was awarded a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford. At Balliol, Gellner studied philosophy, politics and economics, with a specialization in philosophy. He interrupted his studies after a year to enlist in the Czechoslovak 1st Armored Brigade, which took part in the siege of Dunkirk, and then returned to Prague to attend university for a semester.

During this period, Prague lost its strong hold on him: foreseeing a communist takeover, he decided to return to the UK. One of his memorabilia from the city in 1945 was a communist manifesto in which was written: "Anyone with a clean record is in the Party," which apparently meant that those who had behaved well during the German occupation were welcome. In fact, according to Gellner, it meant just the opposite:

"If your record is absolutely disgusting we clean it up for you; with us you can be safe; What we like above all is that the more committed to the past you are, the more we will have the ability to have authority over you. So all the bastards, all the authoritarian personalities, rushed into the party, which immediately bought this type of character. And this became very clear to me, and it cured me of the emotional grip that Prague had previously had on me, as I could predict a Stalinist dictatorship was coming and it came true in 1948. I couldn't predict the exact date, but its coming it was absolutely obvious, for various reasons... I wanted nothing to do with this situation and I left as quickly as possible"

Gellner returned to Balliol College to graduate in 1945, winning the John Locke Prize in 1947. In the same year he began his academic career at the University of Edinburgh as an assistant to Professor John Macmurray in the Department of Moral Philosophy. He transferred to the London School of Economics in 1949, to the Department of Sociology, headed by Morris Ginsberg. Ginsberg admired philosophy, and believed that philosophy and sociology were neighboring disciplines to each other.

Leonard T. Hobhouse had preceded Ginsberg as LSE Professor of Sociology. In his book Evolution (1901) he suggested that society should be considered as an organism, a product of evolution, with the individual as the basic unit, with the understanding that society can improve over time. of time, a teleological view strongly opposed by Gellner.

"Ginsberg... was completely unoriginal and lacked vision. He simply reproduces the kind of evolutionary view that had already been formulated by Hobhouse and which incidentally was an extrapolation from his own personal journey in life, which began in Poland and ended with a comfortable chair at the LSE. If he had evolved, he had an idea of a great chain in which the lowest form of life was the Polish peasant, and anti-Semitic, the next stage was the little Polish nobleman, a little better. And after his arrival in England, first at London College, run by Dawes Hicks, who was quite rational (but not that rational, as he still had some anti-Semitic biases, it seems) and finally to the LSE with Hobhouse, who was so rational that rationality came out of his ears. So Ginsberg extrapolates all of this, and in his vision of all humanity he moves towards a greater rationality.& # 34;

The critique of Gellner's philosophy of language, carried out in the book Words and Things (1959) focused on J. L. Austin and on the second phase of Ludwig Wittgenstein's thought, that they were blamed for the failure of their own method. The book led Gellner to success. He obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy in 1961 with a thesis titled "Organization and roles in a Berber Zaouia"; and he became Professor of Philosophy, Logic, and Scientific Method the following year. Thought and Change was published in 1965, and in the volume State and Society in Soviet Thought (1988), he examined the possibility of liberalization of the regimes that were Inspired by Marxism.

Gellner was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1974. He moved to Cambridge in 1984 to serve as Chairman of the Department of Anthropology, taking over from William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology and becoming a Fellow of King's College, which provided him with a calm atmosphere where he could be in the company of the students, drink beer and play chess. Described by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biographies as "brilliant, energetic, irreverent, mischievous, sometimes opinionated, with a sarcastic sense of humor and irony," He was very popular with his students, as he agreed to spend many extra hours tutoring him, and was considered an excellent speaker and a very talented teacher. His book The Plow, the Sword and the Book (1988) examined the philosophy of history and in his work Conditions of Freedom (1994) he tries to explain the collapse of communism. In 1993 he returned to Prague, liberated from communism, to the new Central European University, where he became Director of the Center for the Study of Nationalism, a program founded by George Soros, the American billionaire philanthropist, to study the rise of nationalism in Central and Eastern Post-Communist Europe.

On November 5, 1995, having just returned from a conference in Budapest, he suffered a heart attack and died in his apartment in Prague, about a month short of his seventieth birthday.

Words and things

Gellner first encountered the philosophy of language while a student at Balliol.

With the publication in 1959 of Words and Things, his first book, Gellner gained fame and notoriety in the English philosophical sphere, and even beyond the discipline, with his harsh attack on the "philosophy of ordinary language" or "linguistic philosophy". Ordinary language philosophy, in one form or another, was the dominant one at Oxford in that period.

Gellner first collided with the hegemony of the philosophy of language when he was at the Balliol:

"At that time orthodoxy, better described as philosophy of language, inspired by Wittgenstein, was crystallizing and seemed completely wrong to me. Wittgenstein's fundamental idea was that there was no general solution to problems, except for the community tradition. Only communities count. It is not expressed in these terms, but it is something similar to this. And this doesn't make sense in a world where communities are not stable and clearly not isolated from each other. However, Wittgenstein managed to sell this idea, which was enthusiastically embraced as an indisputable revelation. It is very difficult nowadays to understand the atmosphere of the time, which considered it as a revelation and could not be doubted. But it was pretty obvious to me that it wasn't correct. It was obvious to me when I began to study it, although at first, due to the environment in which I lived, because the people I considered more intelligent considered it as true, I had doubts that I was wrong, that I had misunderstood it, and that the others were right. And so I gave myself further investigation and eventually came to the conclusion that I had it right, and that it was rubbish, as it really was."[

Words and Things is a strong critic of the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein, JL Austin, Gilbert Ryle, Antony Flew, Peter Strawson and many others. Ryle refused to comment on the book in Mind magazine (which he edited), and Bertrand Russell (who had written a favorable introduction to Gellner's book) protested in a letter to The Times. The result was the Ryle response and a lengthy correspondence.

Philosophical Ideas

(Main works: Words and things, The legitimation of belief, The plow, the sword and the book)

Gellner's books are a good starting point for the study of philosophy. Gellner systematized philosophy like few other writers, combining sociology, anthropology, and history. This is a rare case of a multidisciplinary scientist, cosmopolitan and with a real sense of humor.

Gellner refers to philosophy with the following phrase:

"Every baby that comes into the world is necessarily a little positivist or a little Hegelian".

Gellner is clearly on the side of rationalist philosophy. On the positivist side, as he calls it, which has a different meaning from the one given to it by Auguste Comte, who, as Gellner says, "combines the two positions."

His heroes are David Hume, René Descartes, Emmanuel Kant, Bertrand Russell, Karl Popper. The villains of him Hegel, Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Heidegger.

Gellner describes himself as an "Enlightenment fundamentalist," an ironic counterpoint to Islamic fundamentalism, a sprawling modern movement.

Describes Enlightenment civil society as one that postulates the separation between the political and socioeconomic spheres. He also indicates that civil society is not at all natural, but rather an almost miraculous exception. The normal throughout history are societies governed by order or security. Enlightenment civil society has created the adaptable man brought about by the industrial revolution, and it also creates the conditions that make democracy possible. Not the other way around.

Interest in anthropology

It was in the 1960s that Gellner discovered his passion for social anthropology. Chris Hann, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology writes that, following Bronisław Malinowski's empiricism, Gellner has made important contributions to the discipline, ranging from 'critically related conceptual analyzes of the general framework to understanding how it was possible a political order in a society without a State, as in a Moroccan tribe (Santos del Atlas, 1969); from the exposition of the works of Soviet anthropologists to the elegant synthesis of the Durkheimian and Weberian traditions of Western social theory, and a grand elaboration of a "structure of human history" to the analysis of nationalism (Thought and Change, 1964; Nations and Nationalism, 1983)".

Gellner thus comments on his position regarding the anthropological currents of his time: "And the paradox of history is that I had escaped from philosophy to anthropology, partly to escape from the philosophy of language, and I now see that what I was running from was now dominant in anthropology: the hermeneutic turn, as I have called it, partly influenced by Wittgenstein, has recently been very influential in anthropology. And I think it is also wrong in anthropology as well as in philosophy. The irony is that it seems to be chasing me. "(Davis, 1991)

Gellner in Anthropology and Politics appreciates the definitive replacement of the rite by the social contract, or of the Gemeinschaft by the Gesellschaft. Gellner says that among us the "absence of rites has become the most potent rite and the absence of recorded images has become the most general fetish." Gellner has been criticized from an anthropological point of view for his tendency to make a universal pattern of what would only be one of the conceivable human experiences: that of the world in which the values of liberalism triumph.

Nationalism

In 1983, Gellner published Nations and Nationalism. For Gellner, nationalism is basically a political principle that maintains that political unity and national unity must be congruent'. Gellner argues that nationalism only appeared and became a sociological necessity in the modern world. In earlier times (the 'agroliterate' phase of history), rulers had little incentive to impose cultural homogeneity on those they ruled over. But in modern society work becomes technical. Man must operate a machine and must learn. There is a need for impersonal communication, free of context and with a high degree of cultural standardization.

In addition, industrial society needs continuous and unlimited growth in which employment rates change and new skills must be continually learned. Therefore, basic education, general education is more important than specialized work. To maintain their control over resources, their survival, and their progress, the state and the national culture must reciprocate. Nationalism is revealed as a necessity of modern times.

Gellner declares that “nationalism, although it is presented as the awakening of an ancient, hidden and dormant force, in reality it is not. It is the consequence of a new form of social organization based on developed cultures deeply internalized and dependent on education, each one protected by its respective state. It takes advantage of some of the pre-existing cultures, usually transforming them in the process, but you can't do it with all of them, because there are too many of them.”.

Nations are not historically inescapable, nor are nation states the final destination of ethnic and cultural groups. Thus he rejects the myth of the nationalists. Nationalism is not the awakening of an existing natural community. It is the crystallization of new cultural units due to the conditions that industrial society imposes.

Nationalism is based on the pair will and culture to be founded. Gellner indicates that the will has an essential role in the adherence of individuals, and the cultural element is also very relevant, but he adds a third, essential element: the State. The will constitutes a fundamental factor in the formation of groups, but it has also operated in favor of all types of groupings. Gellner says in this regard “in other words, even when the will is the basis of a nation (paraphrasing an idealist definition of the state), it is at the same time of so many other things that it does not allow us to define the concept of nation from this way.”

On the other hand, the cultural richness and variety of cultures is so great that it does not correspond to the limits of existing nations. There are more cultures than nations. What happens is that industrialism contributes to the existence of standardized, homogeneous, and centralized developed cultures, which penetrate entire populations, cultures are unified by a well-defined education, they constitute a unit with which man voluntarily identifies. Gellner says: “It is in these conditions, and only in them, when nations can be defined according to will and culture, and, in reality, to the convergence of both with political units. Under these conditions, man wants to be politically united to those, and only to those, who share his culture (...) The fusion of will, culture, and state becomes the norm, and a norm that is not easy or frequent to see broken” .

Nationalism imposes a developed culture on a society in which until then a part of the population identifies with diverse cultural groups. The imposition of this general, homogeneous and standardized culture is done by displacing the previous cultural axes. Thus, nationalism engenders the nation.

His biographer John A. Hall has the following to say about his position: "Thinkers of Jewish descent experienced the tension between cosmopolitanism and ethnonationalism in different ways, and their ambivalence in many cases intensified with the creation of the State of Israel. The uniqueness of Gellner's thought stems from his acceptance of this tension, admitting the weaknesses of each position, while still recognizing both the power of universalism and the importance of nationalism. That is why Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose thinking disgusted Gellner from the start, became the great 'beast noire' in the book he was writing at the time of his death. The Austrian philosopher had moved from a full endorsement of universalism to an uncritical acceptance of a völkisch relativism, with which, for Gellner, he was dead wrong both times. The particularity of Gellner's intellectual achievements is further illustrated by his comparisons with Popper, the contemporary thinker who most influenced him. The immediate contrast concerns nationalism: Gellner took this protean force much more seriously, mainly out of empathy with his supporters and because he tried to understand his emotional appeal. A childhood in interwar Prague, rather than Vienna, helps explain this, but there were other fundamental differences on the table. Gellner did not believe that nationalism could simply be usurped by cosmopolitan ideals. For one thing, good ideas are unlikely to have that much power on their own. On the other hand, Gellner differs from Karl Popper and other liberals in his belief that Enlightenment values did not fully take hold, that universalism was not justified as such in purely philosophical terms."

A leading observer of the breakup of the Soviet Union, he notes that he has discovered four models of nationalist development. The first, and also the softest is that of Belarus. "It is a nationalism similar to the Polish one, of low intensity, confined to non-violent intellectual circles. The second model is the Caucasian. If there were about 120 ethnic groups in the Soviet Union, half are in the Caucasus. There is a nationalism of tension that produces strong transplants of populations, not sponsored by the power of the State, but by the fear of minorities. For example the Armenians of Azerbaijan. Estonia is the third nationalist model in the Soviet Union. A country that, before the 19th century, had no name, no identity, no State, not even a ruling aristocracy. However, its evolution in the last century gives it an identity that produces a strong national conscience. The fourth model is that of Central Asia, without ethnic tensions, without great nationalist hatreds".

Criticism of Gellner's theory

• It's too functionalist. According to its critics, Gellner explains the phenomenon from the final historical result - industrial society could not 'function' without nationalism (Tambini 1996).
• It does not adequately interpret the relationship between nationalism and industrialization (Smith 1998).
• It does not take into account national movements in ancient Rome, Greece etc. through an argument of type an alum; insisting that nationalism is linked to 'modernity', and cannot exist without a clearly defined modern industrialization. (Smith 1995)
• It does not take into account nationalism in non-industrial societies and the resurgence of nationalism in post-industrial societies (Smith 1998).
• It does not explain the passions generated by nationalism Why does an individual fight and die for his country? (Connor 1993)
• It does not take into account the role of war and armies in cultural homogenization and nationalism, especially omitting the relationship between militarism and compulsory education (Conversi 2007).

Work

Books

• Words and Things, A Critical Account of Linguistic Philosophy and a Study in Ideology, London: Gollancz; Boston: Beacon (1959).
• Thought and Change (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)