Malinowski o el desquite polaco: una aproximación de Ernest Gellner

Abstract

I analyze two texts by Ernest Gellner in which he interprets a figure of Mali-nowski, his life and the functionalist theory. In the first article, “Zeno of Cracow or Revolution at Nemi or the Polish Revenge. A Drama in Three Acts”, Gellner compares Malinowski and his functionalist theory to Zeno from Elea and his philosophy of being as an Immovable One. In the second text, Language and Solitude. Wittgenstein, Malinowski and the Habsburg DilemmaI, he approaches Malinowski taking as a frame of reference the discrepancies between him and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Each one of them results the inverted image of the other. Although they both were inhabitants of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, they reflected the contradictions of their time, especially the opposition of the cosmopolitan and the nationalist visions of the man and the world.