Ian Jarvie
Ian Charles Jarvie (born 8 July 1937) is a philosopher trained in England, long resident in Canada. Jarvie studied at the London School of Economics under Karl Popper. He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada and managing editor of the journal Philosophy of the Social Sciences.
The philosophy of social science and the movie industry are two of his main topics of research. He is a professor at York University in Toronto.
Jarvie's philosophical temperament is influenced by his former teacher, Karl Popper. Other influences include: David Hume, Bertrand Russell, and Ernest Gellner. Further, Jarvie's philosophical method owes a debt to training in social anthropology. In this vein, he has published anthropological work on the cargo cults of the South Pacific and has contributed anthropological studies on the media. His adherence to functionalism in the study of the social differs from that of Durkheim and his followers in his holding that knowledge and ideas must be presented as causal variables. Further, Jarvie contends, it must be the case that a functionalist framework with an active role for explanatory ideas requires a conception of rationality towards ideas. Politically, Jarvie is a liberal.
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