Words and things

9 Dec 1925 – 5 Nov 1995

Ernest Gellner (9 December 1925 – 5 November 1995) was a 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 S…