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Ernest Gellner

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Ernest Gellner

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Czech anthropologist, philosopher and sociologist

OverviewAI-generated

Ernest André Gellner was a male philosopher, anthropologist, professor, and sociologist. He was a citizen of the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Born on December 9, 1925, he died in Prague on November 5, 1995. He was of Czech ethnic background and participated in World War II. Gellner was educated at Balliol College and worked in Cambridge.

He held positions at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of Edinburgh, and Central European University. His professional interests included nationalism, and he was associated with the movement of critical rationalism. His fields of work encompassed political philosophy, philosophy of science, social anthropology, and sociology. He spoke English and authored works such as *Transition to modernity*, *Populism*, and *Arabs and Berbers: from tribe to nation in North Africa*.

Gellner was a member of the British Academy, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. He received the award of Fellow of the British Academy. His works are recognized in the American Academy Arts Sciences collection.

Synthesized by Vinony from 27 facts across 3 sources: Wikidata, Open Library, Vinony collections. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Born
9 Dec 1925
Died
5 Nov 1995
Works
44

Top works

  • לאומים ולאומיות
  • Transition to modernity
  • Populism
  • Arabs and Berbers: from tribe to nation in North Africa
  • Language and solitude

via Open Library + Wikidata

Key facts

Born
( 1925-12-09 ) 9 December 1925, Paris , France
Died
5 November 1995 (1995-11-05) (aged 69), Prague , Czech Republic
Alma mater
Balliol College, Oxford
Era
20th-century philosophy
Region
Western philosophy
School
Critical rationalism
Institutions
University of Edinburgh , London School of Economics , King's College, Cambridge , Central European University
Main interests
Political philosophy , philosophy of science , anthropology , nationalism
Notable ideas
Gellner's theory of nationalism , Criticism of ordinary language philosophy

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of
human
Given name
Ernst
Gender
male
Place of birth
Montrouge
Place of death
Prague
Occupation
essayist
Languages spoken
English language
Academic degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Field of work
sociology
Conflict
World War II
Image
Ernest Gellner 2.jpg
Work location
Cambridge
Show 9 more facts
Commons category
Ernest Gellner
date of birth
1925-12-09
date of death
1995-11-05
interested in
nationalism
ethnic group
Czechs
name in native language
Ernest Gellner
birth name
Ernest André Gellner
Sources (6)

via Wikidata · CC0

~17 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Ernest André Gellner (9 December 1925 – 5 November 1995) was a French-born British-Czech philosopher and social anthropologist. Central themes in his social thought included modernisation theory and nationalism, the latter of which he developed into a leading theory (Gellner's theory of nationalism). His multicultural perspective allowed him to engage with the Western world, the Muslim world, and Russian civilization.

His first book, Words and Things (1959), sparked a leading article in The Times, which then published a month-long correspondence on his analytical critique of linguistic philosophy. Gellner served for 22 years as Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics, eight years as the William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, and later headed the new Centre for the Study of Nationalism in Prague.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Ernest Gellner” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.