Immanuel Kant's Anthropology and Ernest Gellner's Critique of the Modern Social Sciences.

This article examines the significant influence of Immanuel Kant's philosophical anthropology on Ernest Gellner's social theory, focusing on how Kant’s effort to preserve human agency amid mechanistic explanations of nature shaped Gellner’s critique of the social sciences. Key Kantian concepts such as the "exception," disenchantment, and mechanical dehumanization are traced through Gellner’s work, who historicized Kant’s universal claims and introduced the notion of the "Rubber Cage" to describe modern society’s tension between scientific rationality and the human need for meaning. Gellner expanded Kant’s insights by emphasizing the historically specific nature of modernity’s epistemic and moral dilemmas, highlighting the social sciences’ potential to dehumanize by reducing individuals to impersonal data. The Kantian-Gellnerian framework remains relevant for contemporary social sciences, underscoring the ongoing challenge of balancing rigorous scientific inquiry with the preservation of human dignity and agency.