Language and Solitude: Wittgenstein, Malinowski and the Habsburg Dilemma

Ernest Gellner (1925-1995) has been described as `one of the last great Central European polymath intellectuals. His last book throws new light on two of the most written-about thinkers of their time, Wittgenstein and Malinowski. Wittgenstein, arguably the most in¯uential and the most cited philosopher of the twentieth century, is famous for having propounded two radically different philosophical positions. Malinowski was the founder of modern British social anthropology and is usually credited with being the inventor of ethnographic fieldwork, a fundamental research method throughout the social sciences. This book shows, in a highly original way, how the thought of both men, and both of Wittgenstein's two philosophies, grew from a common background of assumptions - widely shared in the  Habsburg Empire of their youth - about human nature, society and language. It is also a swingeing critique of Wittgenstein, and implicitly therefore of conventional philosophy as well, for failing to be aware of these assumptions. Tying together themes which preoccupied him throughout his working life, Gellner's final word epitomises his belief that philosophy - far from leaving everything as it is' - is about important historical, social and personal issues.

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