Language and Solitude
Wittgenstein, Malinowski and the Habsburg Dilemma

Ernest Gellner's final book, first published in 1998, is a synoptic interpretation of the thought of Wittgenstein and Malinowski.

Ernest Gellner (Author), David Gellner (Edited by), Steven Lukes (Foreword by)

9780521639972, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 October 1998

230 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.33 kg

'The theme of this book - the tension between philosophies of individualism and holism - is both timely and very important. No-one else I know could approach it with the depth and width of Ernest Gellner, taking on philosophy, anthropology and history with such confidence and ability. The book is full of his characteristic wit, insight, lucidity and clarity of vision … This is a provocative, deeply felt and important work [which] continues the tradition of his major onslaught on some of the closed systems of our century.' Alan MacFarlane

Ernest Gellner (1925–95) has been described as 'one of the last great central European polymath intellectuals'. His last book, first published in 1998, throws light on two leading thinkers of their time. Wittgenstein, arguably the most influential and the most cited philosopher of the twentieth century, is famous for having propounded two radically different philosophical positions. Malinowski, the founder of modern British social anthropology, is usually credited with being the inventor of ethnographic fieldwork, a fundamental research method throughout the social sciences. In a highly original way, Gellner shows how the thought of both men grew from a common background of assumptions - widely shared in the Habsburg Empire of their youth - about human nature, society, and language. Tying together themes which preoccupied him throughout his working life, Gellner epitomizes his belief that philosophy - far from 'leaving everything as it is' - is about important historical, social and personal issues.

Preface David Gellner
Foreword Steven Lukes
Part I. The Habsburg Predicament: 1. Swing alone or swing together
2. The rivals
3. Genesis of the individualist vision
4. The metaphysics of romanticism
5. Romanticism and the basis of nationalism
6. Individualism and holism in society
7. Crisis in Kakania
8. Pariah liberalism
9. Recapitulation
Part II. Wittgenstein: 10. The loneliness of the long-distance empiricist
11. The poem to solitude, or: confessions of a rranscendental ego who is also a Viennese Jew
12. The ego and language
13. The world as solitary vice
14. The mystical
15. The central proposition of the Tractatus: world without culture
16. Wittgenstein mark 2
17. Tertium non datur
18. Joint escape
19. Janik and Toulmin: a critique
20. The case of the disappearing self
21. Pariah communalism
22. Iron cage Kafka style
Part III. Malinowski: 23. The birth of modern social anthropology
24. The Malinowskian revolution
25. How did Malinowski get there?
26. Whither anthropology? or: wither Bronislaw Malinowski?
27. The difference between Krakow and Vienna
28. Malinowski's achievement and politics
29. Malinowski's theory of language
30. Malinowski's later mistake
31. The (un)originality of Malinowski and Wittgenstein
Part IV. Influences: 32. The impact and diffusion of Wittgenstein's ideas
33. The first wave of Wittgenstein's influence
34. A belated convergence of philosophy and anthropology
Part V. Conclusions: 35. The truth of the matter
36. Our present condition
General bibliography
I. Jarvie, Bibliography of Ernest Gellner's writings on Wittgenstein, Malinowski, and nationalism.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC]