Ernest Gellner
Ernest André Gellner (9 December 1925 – 5 November 1995) was a French-born British-Czech philosopher and social anthropologist described by ''The Daily Telegraph'', when he died, as one of the world's most vigorous intellectuals, and by ''The Independent'' as a "one-man crusader for critical rationalism". His first book, ''Words and Things'' (1959), prompted a leader in ''The Times'' and a month-long correspondence on its letters page over his attack on linguistic philosophy. As the Professor of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at the London School of Economics for 22 years, the William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge for eight years, and head of the new Centre for the Study of Nationalism in Prague, Gellner fought all his life—in his writing, teaching and political activism—against what he saw as closed systems of thought. Among other issues in social thought, modernisation theory and nationalism were two of his central them ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Western Philosophy
Western philosophy refers to the Philosophy, philosophical thought, traditions and works of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratics. The word ''philosophy'' itself originated from the Ancient Greek (φιλοσοφία), literally, "the love of wisdom" , "to love" and σοφία ''Sophia (wisdom), sophía'', "wisdom". History Ancient The scope of ancient Western philosophy included the problems of philosophy as they are understood today; but it also included many other disciplines, such as pure mathematics and natural sciences such as physics, astronomy, and biology (Aristotle, for example, wrote on all of these topics). Pre-Socratics The pre-Socratic philosophers were interested in cosmology (the nature and origin of the universe), while rejecting unargued fables in place for argued theory, i.e., dogma superseded reason, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Social Anthropology
Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In the United States, social anthropology is commonly subsumed within cultural anthropology or sociocultural anthropology. Comparison with cultural anthropology The term ''cultural'' anthropology is generally applied to ethnographic works that are holistic in spirit, are oriented to the ways in which culture affects individual experience, or aim to provide a rounded view of the knowledge, customs, and institutions of people. ''Social'' anthropology is a term applied to ethnographic works that attempt to isolate a particular system of social relations such as those that comprise domestic life, economy, law, politics, or religion, give analytical priority to the organizational bases of social life, and attend to cultural phenomena as somewhat s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Muslim World
The terms Islamic world and Muslim world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs, politics, and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. In a modern geopolitical sense, these terms refer to countries in which Islam is widespread, although there are no agreed criteria for inclusion. The term Muslim-majority countries is an alternative often used for the latter sense. The history of the Muslim world spans about 1,400 years and includes a variety of socio-political developments, as well as advances in the arts, science, medicine, philosophy, law, economics and technology during the Islamic Golden Age. Muslims look for guidance to the Quran and believe in the prophetic mission of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, but disagreements on other matters have led to the appearance of different religious schools of thought and sects within Islam. The Islamic conquests, wh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Western World
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also constitute the West. The Western world likewise is called the Occident () in contrast to the Eastern world known as the Orient (). Definitions of the "Western world" vary according to context and perspectives; the West is an evolving concept made up of cultural, political, and economic synergy among diverse groups of people, and not a rigid region with fixed borders and members. Some historians contend that a linear development of the West can be traced from Greco-Roman world, Ancient Greece and Rome, while others argue that such a projection constructs a false genealogy. A geographical concept of the West started to take shape in the 4th century CE when Constantine the Great, Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor, divided the Roman Em ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Civilisation
A civilization (also spelled civilisation in British English) is any complex society characterized by the development of the state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond signed or spoken languages (namely, writing systems). Civilizations are organized around densely-populated settlements, divided into more or less rigid hierarchical social classes of division of labour, often with a ruling elite and a subordinate urban and rural populations, which engage in intensive agriculture, mining, small-scale manufacture and trade. Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over the rest of nature, including over other human beings. Civilizations are characterized by elaborate agriculture, architecture, infrastructure, technological advancement, currency, taxation, regulation, and specialization of labour. Historically, a civilization has often been understood as a larger and "more advanced" culture, in implied contrast ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Multicultural
Multiculturalism is the coexistence of multiple cultures. The word is used in sociology, in political philosophy, and colloquially. In sociology and everyday usage, it is usually a synonym for ''ethnic'' or cultural pluralism in which various ethnic and cultural groups exist in a single society. It can describe a mixed ethnic community area where multiple cultural traditions exist or a single country. Groups associated with an indigenous, aboriginal or autochthonous ethnic group and settler-descended ethnic groups are often the focus. In reference to sociology, multiculturalism is the end-state of either a natural or artificial process (for example: legally controlled immigration) and occurs on either a large national scale or on a smaller scale within a nation's communities. On a smaller scale, this can occur artificially when a jurisdiction is established or expanded by amalgamating areas with two or more different cultures (e.g. French Canada and English Canada). On a lar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Modernisation Theory
Modernization theory or modernisation theory holds that as societies become more economically modernized, wealthier and more educated, their political institutions become increasingly liberal democratic and rationalist. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s, most influentially articulated by Seymour Lipset, drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Talcott Parsons. Modernization theory was a dominant paradigm in the social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s, and saw a resurgence after 1991, when Francis Fukuyama wrote about the end of the Cold War as confirmation of modernization theory.Francis Fukuyama, ''The End of History and the Last Man ''. New York: The Free Press, 1992, pp. 68-69, 133-134. The theory is the subject of much debate among scholars. Critics have highlighted cases where industrialization did not prompt stable democratization, such as Japan, Germany, and the Soviet Union, as well as cases of democratic ba ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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University Of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, world's third-oldest university in continuous operation. The university's founding followed the arrival of scholars who left the University of Oxford for Cambridge after a dispute with local townspeople. The two ancient university, ancient English universities, although sometimes described as rivals, share many common features and are often jointly referred to as Oxbridge. In 1231, 22 years after its founding, the university was recognised with a royal charter, granted by Henry III of England, King Henry III. The University of Cambridge includes colleges of the University of Cambridge, 31 semi-autonomous constituent colleges and List of institutions of the University of Cambridge#Schools, Faculties, and Departments, over 150 academic departm ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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William Wyse Professor Of Social Anthropology
The William Wyse Professorship of Social Anthropology is a professorship in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge. It was founded on 18 June 1932 and endowed partly with the support of Trinity College from money bequeathed to them by William Wyse, formerly Fellow and Honorary Fellow of Trinity. The professorship is assigned to the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology. List of William Wyse Professors of Social Anthropology * 1932–1937 – Thomas Callan Hodson * 1937–1950 – John Henry Hutton * 1950–1973 – Meyer Fortes * 1973–1984 – Jack Goody * 1984–1992 – Ernest André Gellner * 1993–2008 – Marilyn Strathern Dame Ann Marilyn Strathern, Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, DBE, Fellow of the British Academy, FBA (née Evans; born 6 March 1941) is a Great Britain, British anthropology, anthropologist, who has worked lar ... * 2008–2014 – Henrietta Moore * 2016–2024 – James Laidlaw * From Septemb ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Linguistic Philosophy
__NOTOC__ Linguistic philosophy is the view that many or all philosophical problems can be solved (or dissolved) by paying closer attention to language, either by reforming language or by better understanding our everyday language. The former position is that of ideal language philosophy, one prominent example being logical atomism. The latter is the view defended in ordinary language philosophy.Rorty 1967. See also * * Formal semantics (natural language) * Linguistic turn * Philosophical language A philosophical language is any constructed language that is constructed from first principles, sometimes following a classification. It is considered a type of engineered language. Philosophical languages were popular in Early Modern times, partl ... Notes References * Rorty, Richard, 1967. ''Introduction: Metaphilosophical difficulties of linguistic philosophy''. In Richard Rorty (ed.). ''The Linguistic Turn: Recent Essays in Philosophical Method''. The University of Chicago ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Times
''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (founded in 1821), are published by Times Media, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, in turn wholly owned by News Corp. ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'' were founded independently and have had common ownership only since 1966. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. ''The Times'' was the first newspaper to bear that name, inspiring numerous other papers around the world. In countries where these other titles are popular, the newspaper is often referred to as or , although the newspaper is of national scope and distribution. ''The Times'' had an average daily circulation of 365,880 in March 2020; in the same period, ''The Sunday Times'' had an average weekly circulation of 647,622. The two ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Leading Article
An editorial, or leading article (UK) or leader (UK), is an article or any other written document, often unsigned, written by the senior editorial people or publisher of a newspaper or magazine, that expresses the publication's opinion about a particular topic or issue. Australian and major United States newspapers, such as ''The New York Times'' and ''The Boston Globe'', often classify editorials under the heading "opinion". Examples Illustrated editorials may appear in the form of editorial cartoons. Typically, a newspaper's editorial board evaluates which issues are important for their readership to know the newspaper's opinion on. Editorials are typically published on a dedicated page, called the editorial page, which often features letters to the editor from members of the public; the page opposite this page is called the op-ed page and frequently contains opinion pieces (hence the name think pieces) by writers not directly affiliated with the publication. However, a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |