
Image by BarbeeAnne on Pixabay · Pixabay License
Ernest Gellner
Sign in to saveCzech 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
- Citizenship
- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
- Place of birth
- Montrouge
- Place of death
- Prague
- Occupation
- essayist
- Employer
- Central European University
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Academic degree
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Field of work
- sociology
- Movement
- critical rationalism
- 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
- member of
- American Philosophical Society
- interested in
- nationalism
- ethnic group
- Czechs
- P8168
- FK Pobeda
- 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.