Ernest Gellner - The Devil in Modern Philosophy (Selected Philosophical Themes)

Part five Psychologists and others 16 The ascent of life 17 Mans picture of his world 18 On Freud and Reich 19 A genetic psychologists confessions 20 Eysenck: seeing emperors naked 21 On Chomsky

Sources Bibliography of Ernest Gellner Index of names Index of subjects

Prefac e

Ernest Gellner became a philosopher at a bad time: the dominant stream of philosophy in this countryOxford philosophy or linguistic philosophy was boring. Not only was it boringindeed it made a virtue of being boring it was pointless. Not only was it pointlessindeed it made a virtue of being pointlessit was self-serving. It even made a virtue of being self-serving. Anyone interested in Gellner and his philosophical ideas has to take these as premisses. Although Gellner has long since become a professionally qualified and published anthropologist; although he teaches in a sociology department and doubtless thinks of himself as something of a sociologist (perhaps an amateur but no dilettante); he remains above all a philosopher. The problems which preoccupy him, the things he has to say, are directly philosophical.

Coming of age at a time when philosophy was supposed to naturally have no problems, or at worst to have had them and to be engaged in making them go away (dissolve); at a time when philosophers were not supposed to be so vulgar as to have something to say about these problems (as opposed to something to do ); at such a time a genuine philosopher had to break out to breathe. This aspect of Gellners career, which brought him his original fame (for some, notoriety for others), the struggle for the freedom to philosophize, is hardly touched upon in this volume. We have rigorously excluded papers that were precursors of, or spin-offs from, his devastating act of breaking out, Words and Things (1959). Doubtless, when Ph.D. theses are written about the dispute over Oxford linguistic philosophy in Britain in the 1950s, these papers will be anthologizedby others. Our purpose, in collecting papers spread over twenty years of philosophical reflection, is to show how Gellners break-out was not just that. It led him to conclude that philosophical movements and fashions could not be adequately explained solely by philosophical means. This in turn led him into explorations of English intellectual culture, with a critical detachment and insight all the more remarkable because in this case the anthropologist is a member of the tribe.

Gellners systematic philosophy, if he has one, is also not expounded here. Again, the books Thought and Change (1965) and The Legitimation of Belief (1974) speak for themselves. What is to be found here are chapters on specific philosophical problems, and others on specific people with interesting philosophical ideas (not all of them philosophers). Despite wide differences on many matters, on one very profound point about philosophy Popper and Gellner are at one against Oxford linguistic philosophy: for both of them, philosophy is not a detached and free-floating activity for specialists; it cannot be separated out from peoples common-or-garden beliefs and day-to-day lives. Everyone has, however implicit, attitudes towards the basic philosophical quests of man, regarding his place in nature and society, regarding the meaning of life and of history. Philosophy is being critical about these questions, and proposing new solutions to them. Gellner is a philosopher who tries to contribute to this ambitious and magnificent tradition. And, in that tradition, each formulation, each statement, each view, is just another approximation, another speech in the continuing dialogue. Appropriately enough, the volume ends with the authors homage to another ambitious thinker, Noam Chomsky, in whom he senses a similar quest and to whom he looks hopefully for further enlightenment.

I.C.J.

J.A.

Acknowledgment s

The editors met Ernest Gellner in the 1950s at the London School of Economics when they were students, whom he treated as colleagues. Their appreciation of his work has grown since then, and they were glad to receive permission to edit his work. The editors wish to thank the publishers and editors of the different papers here republished. They take joint and equal responsibility for the selection, arrangement, and preface. Most of the technical work in preparing the volume for the press and seeing it through to publication was done by Jarvie, who wishes to thank his research assistant, Mr Michael Burchak. Agassi takes the blame for the flamboyant subject index.

York University, Toronto I.C.J.

Boston University and Tel Aviv University J.A.

Part on e Philosophy in genera l

Chapter The devil in modern philosoph y

Modern philosophy, from Descartes onwards and including the present generation of philosophers, can be defined as belief in the devil. What gives post-Cartesian philosophy unity is the daemon. Descartes invented him, but all the others believe in him.