Education
Jarvie studied at the London School of Economics under Karl Popper.
Jarvie studied at the London School of Economics under Karl Popper.
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. Other influences include: David Hume, Bertrand Russell, and Ernest Gellner.
Further, Jarvie"s philosophical method owes a debt to training in social anthropology.
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. Index to Online Publications.
He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada and managing editor of the journal Philosophy of the Social Sciences.