Language and Solitude: Wittgenstein, Malinowski and the Habsburg Dilemma [Hardcover]

Ernest Gellner (Author), David Gellner (Editor), Steven Lukes (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 28, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0521630029 | ISBN-13: 978-0521630023

Ernest Gellner (1925-1995) has been described as "one of the last great central European polymath intellectuals." In this, his last book, he throws new light on two key figures of the twentieth century: the philosopher Wittgenstein, and Malinowski, founder of modern British social anthropology. Gellner shows how the thought of both men grew from a common background of assumptions about human nature, society, and language. He ties together themes that preoccupied him, epitomizing his belief that philosophy--far from "leaving everything as it is"--is about important historical, social and personal issues.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In this book, Wittgenstein and Malinowski meet at the intersection of their ideas about language and the intellectual climate of the (late) Habsburg era, by which both were influenced. The book is primarily a highly negative appraisal of Wittgenstein's work?both the earlier and later phases?contrasted with a positive appraisal of Malinowski's. The anthropologist, in this account, is seen to have been "far more original" and, ultimately, more important than the philosopher. This view would, of course, be anathema to many contemporary philosophers?and not only because Wittgenstein has provided them with a lucrative cottage industry. Be that as it may, Gellner's grasp of both men's work and of history and politics, together with a marvelously fluid and engaging prose style, make this a book most academic libraries will want for their philosophy, anthropology, and intellectual history collections. (Gellner, after a distinguished career in philosophy and anthropology, died in 1995.)?Leon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Mgt. Lib., Washington, DC
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Review

"The theme of this book - the tension between philosophies of individualism and holism - is both timely and very important. No on 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

"Language and Solitude is at once a synoptic interpretation of the thought of Wittgenstein, and Malinowski; a comparative assessment of their world-views - their accounts of knowledge, language, a culture; a brilliant sociological sketch of the common socio-political and intellectual background which they shared; a view of their influence upon their respective disciplines; and a passionate and polemical argument with them and some of their successors, in which Gellner once more and for the last time eloquently and succinctly expresses his own world view." Steven Lukes

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 228 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (October 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521630029
• ISBN-13: 978-0521630023
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #755,674 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Selective explanations, May 27, 2003

By 

John R. Sumser "John" (Turlock, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Language and Solitude: Wittgenstein, Malinowski and the Habsburg Dilemma (Paperback)

This is a tremendously intelligent and well-written book. The depth and breadth of Gellner's knowledge are truly impressive. That said, I think the book is wrong-headed in at least two major ways.

Most importantly Gellner assumes that the historical-cultural situation of a society is perfectly reflected in the intellectual and psychological make-up of its citizens. He maintains this belief in spite of evidence to the contrary (e.g., that Wittgenstein never talked about culture or politics, that he was amazingly poorly read in the relevant texts, or that the Tractatus is a seamless extension of the Cartesian empirical tradition). Gellner seems to believe in an osmosis theory of learning, given the lack of evidence that people actually knew or believed things, and so he constantly falls back on ideas "being in the air" or things that "surely everyone knew."

This is some sort of Historical Distance Fallacy. Surely no one (no academic) would think it possible to reduce the social, cultural, political issues of present day America to a definitive description only a few pages long and then assume that this description was also a description of the mind of some randomly-chosen individual. (And if this is not applicable to randomly-chosen individuals, then Gellner needs to make some additional arguments as to why it applies to any specific person.)

The second weakness is that I believe Gellner completely misinterprets Wittgenstein's later work (i.e., the position he takes in Philosophical Investigations). Gellner claims that Wittgenstein replaced the logical atomism of the Tractatus with a cultural determinist/relativist position based in a romantic view of the peasantry. He believes in spite of his admission that Wittgenstein never talked about such things.

It seems to me that the view in the Tractatus was, as Gellner describes, one in which words limited what the world was. In the empiricist tradition, basically you can't get beyond the words to the world "itself." My view of the transition is that Wittgenstein shifted from this view (that words both created and limited reality) to the idea that language was something that people used as they interacted with the world. This is a shift from "given that we know we have language, what can we say about the world?" to "given that we live in the world, what can we say about language?" This is why Wittgenstein seems so obsessed with tools and workmen and it ties in to the story told about the conversation he overheard on the train in which a "meaningless" remark was understood and used in conversation.

Gellner seems to think that the Philosophical Investigations doesn't allow for error or critique, but I think that all it excludes is philosophical critique of the sort that philosophers love to engage in which allows them to claim that engineers or botanists or carpenters "don't know anything."