When Ernest Gellner was his early thirties, he took it upon himself to challenge the prevailing philosophical orthodoxy of the day, Linguistic Philosophy. Finding a powerful ally in Bertrand Russell, who provided the foreword for this book, Gellner embarked on the project that was to put him on the intellectual map.

The first determined attempt to state the premises and operational rules of the movement, Words and Things remains philosophy's most devastating attack on a conventional wisdom to this day.