Showing previous and next pager links regardless of the page one is in Drupal hides the previous link  of a pager if you are the first page,and the next link if you are on the last page. Is there way I can keep the links from disappearing, just in a disabled state? Can I do this without using php?
Probably not, to do this you would have to use theme_views_mini_pager().

Reference: http://drupalcontrib.org/api/drupal/contributions%21views%21theme%21theme.inc/function/theme_views_mini_pager/7

Example:

if (empty($li_previous)) {
   $li_previous = "&amp;nbsp;";
}


That is whats doing it...