Ernest Gellner

Concepts and Society

1 . This paper is concerned with the application of Functionalism to the interpretation of concepts and beliefs.

The psychoanalytic movement

The psychoanalytic movement , The psychoanalytic movement , کتابخانه دیجیتال و فن آوری اطلاعات دانشگاه امام صادق(ع)

Reason and culture : the historic role of rationality and rationalism

1. Reason and Culture: The Legacy of Descartes 2. The Roots of Compulsion: The Legacy of Durkheim 3. The Confrontations of Reason: The Heirs of Descartes 4. The Mundane Enemies of Reason: From Hegel to Freud 5. Ailments of Reason: The Descent from Popper 6. Counter Currents: Some Consequences of Wittgenstein 7. Rationality as a way of life: Reason and the Emergence of Modern Society 8. Prometheus Perplexed: Rationality and Subjectivity 9. Recapitulation.

Cause and Meaning in the Social Sciences

Volume I: Cause and Meaning in the Social Sciences Volume II: Contemporary Thought and Politics Volume III: The Devil in Modern Philosophy

Anthropology and Politics: Revolutions in the Sacred Grove.

Preface. 1. The Politics of Anthropology. 2. Origins of Society. 3. Culture, Constraint and Community. 4. Freuds Social Contract. 5. Past and Present. 6. James Frazer and Cambridge. 7. Pluralism and the Neolithic. 8. The Highway to Growth. 9. A Marxist Might-have-been. 10. War and Violence. 11. Tribe and State in the Middle East. 12. Maghreb as Mirror for Man. 13. Lawrence of Moravia. 14. Anthropology and Europe. 15. The Coming Fin de Millenaire. 16. The Uniqueness of Truth. Acknowledgments. Index.

Ethnomethodology: The Re-Enchantment Industry or The Californian Way of Subjectivity

he at any rate could prove his sanity, by producing his own certificate of discharge from a mental hospital. And so it is not merely with one’s sanity, but also with one’s inner and private life. Do you have an inner life ? You protest you do, and a rich one to boot. Ah, but can you prove it ? Of course you cannot. Anything you say in vindication of your own inner life is highly suspect, being partial and biased

Scale and Nation

logically contingent. Their existence was not necessary. On the whole, the units which composed them could survive as well, or nearly as well, or better, if the totality remained fragmented. (If the Wittfogel thesis is correct, then some of the major river valleys, dependent on irrigation systems, may be an exception to this.) By and large, it is the empires which require explanation, whilst their break-up, or the persistence of fragmentation, do not. Selfsufhciency, local autonomy and fragmentation appear more natural and inherent in the available social equipment than their contrary. The situation is now changed. It is the large and effective units which

State and society in Soviet thought

1. The Soviet and the Savage 2. How did Mankind Acquire its Essence? 3. The Asiatic Trauma 4. Feudalism in Africa 5. The Nomadism Debate 6. Modern Ethnicity 7. One Highway or Many? 8. Explanation and Materialism.

Nature and Society in Social Anthropology

This article is concerned to argue that the social sciences and notably social anthropology, must necessarily be concerned with the physical environment of the societies investigated (which includes the biological nature of its members), and not only with the social reality which is at the centre of their concern. This is argued with special reference to fields such as kinship and politics, and to social relationships such as paternity or feuding. The article is concerned to refute arguments put forward in support of the logical autonomy of social studies, particularly in the sphere of kinship, in earlier articles by Barnes and Needham.

Islam and Marxism: some comparisons

The anthropologist Ernest Gellner writes that the Marxist world of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and that of Islam are mirror-images of one another in two key respects. In Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union the Marxistfaith has collapsed and people are yearning for the return of pluralistic civil society in preference to strong, centralized states. But there has been no loss offaith in the Muslim world, and though civil society has been eroded in Islamic societies there is little callfor its return. Gellner offers an explanation of how these parallelisms came about.