Böcker av Ernest Gellner

Gellner's political philosophy in these volumes combines the down-to-earth realism of political sociology with a rational treatment of the normative issues of traditional political thought.

This collection of essays is concerned with philosophy, politics and society. The essays deal not only with classical theories concerning the problems of the implied nature of society in general, the cognitive predicament and nationalism, the nature of the liberalisation process and the future of the welfare and consumer state, but also with various recent discussions.

Includes essays which gather Gellner's thinking on the connection between philosophy and life. This book approaches the topic from various directions such as philosophy of morals, history of ideas, a discussion of individuals including Noam Chomsky, and discussions on the setting of philosophy in the culture of England and America.

Of all the great world religions, Islam appears to have the most powerful political appeal in the twentieth century. It sustains some severely traditional and conservative regimes, but it is also capable of generating intense revolutionary ardour and of blending with extreme social radicalism. As an agent of political mobilisation, it seems to be overtaking Marxism, arid surpassing all other religions. The present book seeks the roots of this situation in the past. The traditional Muslim society of the arid zone has, in the past, displayed remarkable stability and homogeneity, despite great political fragmentation, and the absence of a centralised religious hierarchy. The book explores the mechanisms which have contributed to this result - a civilisation in which (in the main) weak states co-existed with a strong culture, which had a powerful hold over the populations under its sway. A literate Great Tradition, in the keeping of urban scholars, lived side by side with a more emotive, ecstatic folk tradition, ill tile keeping of holy lineages, religious brotherhoods and freelance saints. One tradition was sustained by the urban trading class and periodically swept the rest of the society in waves of revivalist enthusiasm; the other was based on the multiple functions it performed in rural tribal society and amongst the urban poor. The two traditions were intertwined, yet remained in latent tension which from time to time came to tile surface. The book traces the manner in which the impact of the modern world, acting through colonialism arid industrialisation upset the once stable balance, and helped the erstwhile urban Great Tradition to become the pervasive arid dominant one, culminating in the zealous arid radical Islam which is so prominent now. The argument is both formulated in the abstract and illustrated by a series of case studies and examinations of specific aspects, and critical examinations of rival interpretations.

These essays deal with the problem of relativism and, in particular, cultural relativism. If our society knows better than other societies, how do we know that it knows better? The claim to cognitive superiority is often restricted to the sciences - raising the second theme of the volume: the difference between human and natural sciences.

These essays explore the relationship between culture and politics in the modern world. They are all inspired by a cluster of linked preoccupations with the nature of the emerging social order. The volume will interest a wide range of readers in the social sciences and philosophy.

First published in 1959, this classic challenge to the prevailing philosophical orthodoxy of the day, remains the most devastating attack on a conventional wisdom in philosophy to this day.

This shrewd and penetrating book, written by one of the world's most respected social thinkers, delves to the heart of the controversy between Islam and the West.