Ernest Gellner was a multilingual polymath who set the agenda in the study of nationalism and the sociology of Islam for an entire generation of academics and students. This definitive biography follows his trajectory from his early years in Prague, Paris and England to international success as a philosopher and public intellectual. Known both for his highly integrated philosophy of modernity and for combining a respect for nationalism with an appreciation for science, Gellner was passionate in his defence of reason (...) against every for of relativism. (shrink)

John C. Hall; III—Quantity of Pleasure, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 67, Issue 1, 1 June 1967, Pages 35–52, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotel.

History, more than other subjects, is confronted with the need to understand the nature of social time. Braudel, representing the objectivist approach, argued that there exists a universal objective world-time permeated by diverse tempi and rhythms. Althusser criticized this view by stating that each level within society has its own set of temporal relations. However, Althusser's argument requires not the rejection, but the further understanding of subjectivity and intersubjectivity. In order for his concepts to have meaning, they must be based (...) on the meaningful intersubjective relationships of the participants. There is a gap between the philosophical concept of subjective meaning and historical practice. Four phenomenological ideal types of time&endash;synchronic, diachronic, specific, and eternal&endash;can be used to replace objective history with a "history" of times. (shrink)

One way to recast the problem of cultural explanation in historical inquiry is to distinguish two conceptualizations involving culture: cultural meanings as contents of signification that inform meaningful courses of action in historically unfolding circumstances; and cultural structures as institutionalized patterns of social life that may be elaborated in more than one concrete construction of meaning. This distinction helps to suggest how explanation can operate in accounting for cultural processes of meaning-formation, as well as in other ways that transcend specific (...) meanings, yet are nonetheless cultural. Examples of historical explanation involving each construct are offered, and their potential examined. (shrink)

Contents: John A. HALL and Ian JARVIE: Preface. John A. HALL and Ian JARVIE: The Life and Times of Ernest Gellner. PART 1 INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND. Ji_i MUSIL: The Prague Roots of Ernest Gellner's Thinking. Chris HANN: Gellner on Malinowski: Words and Things in Central Europe. Tamara DRAGADZE: Ernest Gellner in the Soviet East. PART 2 NATIONS AND NATIONALISM. Brendan O'LEARY: On the Nature of Nationalism: An Appraisal of Ernest Gellner's Writings on Nationalism. Kenneth MINOGUE: Ernest Gellner and the Dangers of (...) Theorising Nationalism. Anthony D. SMITH: History and Modernity: Reflection on the Theory of Nationalism. Michael MANN: The Emergence of Modern European Nationalism. Nicholas STARGARDT: Gellner's Nationalism: The Spirit of Modernisation? PART 3 PATTERNS OF DEVELOPMENT. Peter BURKE: Reflections on the History of Encyclopaedias. Alan MACFARLANE: Ernest Gellner and the Escape to Modernity. Ronald DORE: Sovereign Individuals. Shmuel EISENSTADT: Japan: Non-Axial Modernity. Marc FERRO: l'Indépendance Telescopée: De la Décolonisation a l'Impérialisme Multinational. PART 4 ISLAM. Abdellah HAMMOUDI: Segmentarity, Social Stratification, Political Power and Sainthood: Reflections on Gellner's Theses. Henry MUNSON, Jr.: Rethinking Gellner's Segmentary Analysis of Morocco's Ait cAtta. Jean BAECHLER: Sur le charisme. Charles LINDHOLM: Despotism and Democracy: State and Society in the Premodern Middle East. Henry MUNSON, Jr.: Muslim and Jew in Morocco: Reflections on the Distinction between Belief and Behavior. Talal ASAD: The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam. PART 5 SCIENCE AND DISENCHANTMENT. Perry ANDERSON: Science, Politics, Enchantment. Ralph SCHROEDER: From the Big Divide to the Rubber Cage: Gellner's Conception of Science and Technology. John DAVIS: Irrationality in Social Life. PART 6 RELATIVISM AND UNIVERSALS. John SKORUPSKI: The Post-Modern Hume: Ernest Gellner's 'Enlightenment Fundamentalism'. John WETTERSTEN: Ernest Gellner: A Wittgensteinian Rationalist. Ian JARVIE: Gellner's Positivism. Raymond BOUDON: Relativising Relativism: When Sociology Refutes the Sociology of Science. Rod AYA: The Devil in Social Anthropology; or, the Empiricist Exorcist; or, the Case Against Cultural Relativism. PART 7 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. William MCNEILL: A Swan Song for British Liberalism? Andrus PARK: Gellner and the Long Trends of History. Eero LOONE: Marx, Gellner, Power. Rosaire LANGLOIS: Coercion, Cognition and Production: Gellner's Challenge to Historical Materialism and Postmodernism. Ernest GELLNER: Reply to Critics. Ian JARVIE: Complete Bibliography of Gellner's Work. Name index. Subject index. (shrink)

This article questions the traditional accounts that see nationalism and imperialism as being mutually opposed phenomena. The author engages critically with the influential theories of Ernest Gellner and Andreas Wimmer and argues that the rise of nation-states owes more to the political actions of imperial rulers and less to the behavior of nationalist movements. The essay specifies three mechanisms inside nationalizing empires that matter for nationalism: elite actions, the politicization of minorities and the feelings of those who are politically excluded. (...) In so doing it expands the category of those considered to be nationalist actors. The general idea is that nationalism has a great deal to do with the way empires behave. (shrink)

Liberalism in Dark Times claims to have two aims, to reconstruct a particular form of liberalism that developed in the interwar years and to save it from neglect because it can serve us well in con...

Americans seem to fear that their society is breaking apart, but how accurate is this portrayal and how justified is the fear? Introducing a balanced viewpoint into this intense debate, John Hall and Charles Lindholm demonstrate that such alarm is unfounded. Here they explore the institutional structures of American society, emphasizing its ability to accommodate difference and defuse conflict. The culture, too, comes under scrutiny: influenced by Calvinistic beliefs, Americans place faith in the individual but demand high moral commitment to (...) the community. Broad in scope and ambition, this short book draws a realistic portrait of a society that is among the most powerful and stable in the world, yet is perennially shaken by self-doubt. (shrink)

This philosophical study examines the way in which we think, argue, feel and act about sex. By extension, the author also relates this to the problems of morality and sexual behaviour in society.

Nationalism is often singled out as the powerful force that brought about the collapse of the last great land empires of the 19th and early 20th centuries. We offer a different picture: nationalism was weak before 1914, with war being caused by the fears of the great powers rather than pressures from below; crucially war was less an opportunity for pre-existing nationalists to seize than a maelstrom that created new identities.

John C. Hall; III—Quantity of Pleasure, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 67, Issue 1, 1 June 1967, Pages 35–52, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotel.

Popper's view of the enemies of the open society is held to rest upon psycholo gism, a view of the very great dangers of misguided intellectuals, and a cyclical view of historical process. While there is something to these claims, they are treated here skeptically. But the purpose of the article is less to attack than to reconstruct. To that end, key elements of a sociology appropriate to an open society are offered.

From unemployment to Brexit to climate change, capitalism is in trouble and ill-prepared to cope with the challenges of the coming decades. How did we get here? While contemporary economists and policymakers tend to ignore the political and social dimensions of capitalism, some of the great economists of the past - Adam Smith, Friedrich List, John Maynard Keynes, Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Polanyi and Albert Hirschman - did not make the same mistake. Leveraging their insights, sociologists John L. Campbell and John (...) A. Hall trace the historical development of capitalism as a social, political, and economic system throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. They draw comparisons across eras and around the globe to show that there is no inevitable logic of capitalism. Rather, capitalism's performance depends on the strength of nation-states, the social cohesion of capitalist societies, and the stability of the international system - three things that are in short supply today. (shrink)

E.N. 1. 6 may be divided into three approximately equal paragraphs. The first of these contains four arguments against Academic positions associated with the phrase ‘Idea of the Good’. All these arguments also occur, together with others, in the Eudemian Ethics. The second paragraph consists of the consideration and rejection of an objection to the whole or a part of A, and is new to E.N. The third, also new to E.N., consists of the putting forward and dismissal of two (...) alternative answers to the question ;—answers different, presumably, to that or those rejected in A. My concern is with B. This paragraph is linked with A by the words, ‘a controversy can just be seen in what has been said’. These words, referring back to arguments that appear also in E.E., suggest to me that the objection Aristotle is about to discuss is one that had actually been brought against those arguments, after they had been delivered in their Eudemian or some other earlier form, by an opponent who might have belonged to the Academy, but might equally well have belonged to the Lyceum itself. For ease of exposition, I shall in what follows assume this to be the case, and shall refer to the author of the objection as the Objector. This assumption is not, however, essential to the main argument of this article. (shrink)

E.N. 1. 6 may be divided into three approximately equal paragraphs. The first of these contains four arguments against Academic positions associated with the phrase ‘Idea of the Good’. All these arguments also occur, together with others, in the Eudemian Ethics. The second paragraph consists of the consideration and rejection of an objection to the whole or a part of A, and is new to E.N. The third , also new to E.N., consists of the putting forward and dismissal of (...) two alternative answers to the question ;—answers different, presumably, to that or those rejected in A. My concern is with B. This paragraph is linked with A by the words , ‘a controversy can just be seen in what has been said’. These words, referring back to arguments that appear also in E.E., suggest to me that the objection Aristotle is about to discuss is one that had actually been brought against those arguments, after they had been delivered in their Eudemian or some other earlier form, by an opponent who might have belonged to the Academy, but might equally well have belonged to the Lyceum itself. For ease of exposition, I shall in what follows assume this to be the case, and shall refer to the author of the objection as the Objector. This assumption is not, however, essential to the main argument of this article. (shrink)

Many voices now proclaim that we live in a global age. Doubts are cast on this view in this paper, particularly insofar as it suggests that the nation-state has lost its functional salience for modernity. A first argument suggests, by means of varied figures and analytic consideration, that the world economy is far from globalized. A second argument adds to this an insistence of national diversity within capitalism. None of this is to suggest that nothing has changed. To the contrary, (...) the internationalization of the world economy is now embedded more firmly than it was in the past - as the result of a stable geopolitical settlement. (shrink)

Many voices now proclaim that we live in a global age. Doubts are cast on this view in this paper, particularly insofar as it suggests that the nation-state has lost its functional salience for modernity. A first argument suggests, by means of varied figures and analytic consideration, that the world economy is far from globalized. A second argument adds to this an insistence of national diversity within capitalism. None of this is to suggest that nothing has changed. To the contrary, (...) the internationalization of the world economy is now embedded more firmly than it was in the past - as the result of a stable geopolitical settlement. (shrink)

The two pillars of Ian C. Jarvie’s thought have been Karl Popper and Ernest Gellner. Gellner went against Popper’s anti-historicism by seeking to give rationalism social groundings. What had once seemed convincing no longer impresses nearly as much. Gellner’s measure of optimism has been replaced by social tendencies that suggest generalized anxiety.

(Philosophers in perspective)Bibliography: p. 158-162.