Relativism and the Social Sciences

Ernest Gellner

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This volume of essays deals with the problem of relativism, in particular cultural relativism. If our society knows better than other societies, how do we know that it knows better? There is a profound irony in the fact that this self-doubt has become most acute in the one civilisation that has persuaded the rest of the world to emulate it. The claim to cognitive superiority is often restricted, of course, to the limited sphere of natural science and technology; and that immediately raises the second main theme of this volume - the differences between the human and natural sciences. These essays reach towards a new style and mode of enquiry - a mixture of philosophy, history and anthropology - that promises to prove more revealing and fruitful.

Book Details

Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publish Date: Feb 26th, 1987
Pages: 212
Language: English
Edition: undefined - undefined
Dimensions: 8.42in - 5.38in - 0.49in - 0.57lb
EAN: 9780521337984
Categories: • Methodology• Methodology• Political

Praise for this book

'... one of the pleasures of reading Gellner is just that he always finds a more apt phrase, a sharper comment, a better example than most of us could make up for ourselves.' New Society

'Gellner writes with a razor. His first essay on positivism and hegelianism ... is simply brilliant.' The Times Higher Education Supplement