Gellner's Structural-Functional-Culturalism

Abstract

Enlightenment traditions celebrating the individual and knowledge that is universally valid are only one stream in the social philosophy of Ernest Gellner. As a philosopher, he vehemently rejected Wittgensteinian relativism. As a social an- thropologist, he prioritised the study of 'structure' and 'function', rather than cul- tural 'costume'. Yet his theory of nationalism relies on a concept of culture, which I suggest derives ultimately from the Herderian countercurrent to enlightenment uni- versalism. This notion of culture has a surprising affinity with the world view of Clifford Geertz. The paper argues that such holistic notions of 'a culture' are uncon- vincing anthropologically, increasingly unrealistic sociologically, and anti-liberal politically.