This volume is based upon the sixth series of lectures delivered at Yale University on the Foundation established by the late Dwight H. Terry of Plymouth, Connecticut, through his gift of an endowment fund for the delivery and subsequent publication of "Lectures on Religion in the Light of Science and Philosophy." The deed of gift declares that "the object of this Foundation is not the promotion of scientific investigation and discovery, but rather the assimilation and interpretation of that which has (...) been or shall be hereafter discovered, and its application to human welfare, especially by the building of the truths of science and philosophy into the structure of a broadened and purified religion. (shrink)

Noted psychologist and philosopher develops his own brand of pragmatism, based on theories of C. S. Peirce. Emphasis on "radical empiricism," versus the transcendental and rationalist tradition. One of the most important books in American philosophy. Note.

Ernest Gellner’s many writings on the Soviet socialist project sought to come to terms with one of the key sociological and ideological arcs of the 20th century: the rise and fall of a utopian experiment, one that for some served as a kind of proof of principle, whose modern intellectual origins were more than 170 years old at the time of its demise. Gellner loved Russia and spent much time there. And he engaged with its 20th century very deeply, (...) although I think from a very distinctive position outside of the Soviet experience. His analyses of the socialist bloc included attention to Soviet Marxism as a developmental ideology, as a secular religion that sacralized the everyday, leaving no room for a certain kind of civil society; and he offered the outlines of an account of its failure – from its revolutionary heroism through the cynicism of its stagnation to the possibilities and constraints of so-called post-socialist space. Along the way, Gellner’s insistent critiques of Soviet Marxism – of both its theoretical and actually-existing varieties – were powerful, sometimes polemical, and latterly self-critical. So what can we now make of Gellner’s rich analyses of the utopia that failed? This paper offers relative departures from pieces of Gellner’s intellectual trail, in the hope that at least part of the significance of the 20th century lies within the lessons that we draw from the utopia that failed. (shrink)