From social science to scientific society. Ernest Gellner's ‘third option’ between atomism and organicism

Abstract

Language and solitude. Wittgenstein, Malinowski and the Habsburg dilemma . By Ernest Gellner. Edited by David Gellner. Foreword by Steven Lukes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1998. Hb.: £35. ISBN 0521 630029. Pb.: £12.95. ISBN 0521 639972. Nietzsche (1994: no. 25) described ‘a knowledge of the conditions of culture’ as ‘the enormous task of the great minds of the next century’. It was necessary to ‘surpass all previous knowledge’ in this way in order for humankind to ‘carry onward the banner of the Enlightenment’ and establish a form of government ‘embracing the whole earth’. If humankind was to avoid destroying itself, then it had to set itself the ‘ecumenical goal’ of a world morality which was based on ‘a scientific standard’. Although he would not have liked me for saying so, Gellner is relatively dismissive of Nietzsche as a peddler of ideas concerning ‘the pathogenic origins or consequences of universalism and aggression-denying conscience’ which paved the way towards extreme and racist nationalism (1998: 25). it has been Ernest Gellner who has recently and most vigorously taken up the Nietzschean challenge in anthropology, combining knowledge of culture, government, morality and science. Gellner has endeavoured to come to terms with culture while appreciating science as a universal form of knowledge and also the need for equally universal forms of polity and morality.