I’ve read a little Geertz, and I think part of what he means is that a culture is people doing stuff, not a body of knowledge or a bunch of patterns which can be abstracted away from the people engaging in a culture..
It’s the “not” that I have problems with. First, knowledge is abstract, by definition, so to say “not a body of knowledge which can be abstracted...” is the same as to say “not a body of knowledge”. Next, the thing that he says culture is, must be completely implicit in the body of knowledge or the bunch of patterns, or else it would have an independent existence from the members of the culture, and be literally the soul of an ethnic group, made out of invisible culture-stuff, much like the consciousness-stuff that John Searle says our minds our made of.
They are different perspectives on the same information. Likewise the behaviorists have a different perspective which also accounts for all of the same information.
He doesn’t even notice this. He doesn’t seem to make any attempt to understand anyone else’s perspectives. He just says they’re obviously wrong, using so many words and digressions that the reader assumes, coming to the end of a long paragraph, that there must have been an argument in there somewhere. It’s the same style of argument George Steiner uses.
I wonder if he’s unable to understand anyone else’s perspectives because of his perspective. He says that anthropology is about trying to understand someone else’s perspective, but that cannot consist of understanding what they’re thinking (what he calls the cognitivist fallacy).
I’ve read very little of the book so far! It’s just… so very unpromising. So much fail in so few pages.
He doesn’t even notice this. He doesn’t seem to make any attempt to understand anyone else’s perspectives. He just says they’re obviously wrong, using so many words and digressions that the reader assumes, coming to the end of a long paragraph, that there must have been an argument in there somewhere. It’s the same style of argument George Steiner uses.
This is a common behavior among hedgehogs. I tend to just ignore it and figure out where this person’s model works, and where it’s overreaching.
else it would have an independent existence from the members of the culture, and be literally the soul of an ethnic group, made out of invisible culture-stuff, much like the consciousness-stuff that John Searle says our minds our made of.
As I understood Geertz, he wasn’t talking about invisible culture-stuff, he was talking about tacit culture stuff. The tacit understanding is how people in a culture can make changes which are likely to be satisfactory to other members of the culture, and how members of a culture identify what fits.
If my theory is correct, it gets really complicated as a culture changes over long periods of time and as a result of contact with other cultures.
I’ve read a little Geertz, and I think part of what he means is that a culture is people doing stuff, not a body of knowledge or a bunch of patterns which can be abstracted away from the people engaging in a culture..
It’s the “not” that I have problems with. First, knowledge is abstract, by definition, so to say “not a body of knowledge which can be abstracted...” is the same as to say “not a body of knowledge”. Next, the thing that he says culture is, must be completely implicit in the body of knowledge or the bunch of patterns, or else it would have an independent existence from the members of the culture, and be literally the soul of an ethnic group, made out of invisible culture-stuff, much like the consciousness-stuff that John Searle says our minds our made of.
They are different perspectives on the same information. Likewise the behaviorists have a different perspective which also accounts for all of the same information.
He doesn’t even notice this. He doesn’t seem to make any attempt to understand anyone else’s perspectives. He just says they’re obviously wrong, using so many words and digressions that the reader assumes, coming to the end of a long paragraph, that there must have been an argument in there somewhere. It’s the same style of argument George Steiner uses.
I wonder if he’s unable to understand anyone else’s perspectives because of his perspective. He says that anthropology is about trying to understand someone else’s perspective, but that cannot consist of understanding what they’re thinking (what he calls the cognitivist fallacy).
I’ve read very little of the book so far! It’s just… so very unpromising. So much fail in so few pages.
This is a common behavior among hedgehogs. I tend to just ignore it and figure out where this person’s model works, and where it’s overreaching.
As I understood Geertz, he wasn’t talking about invisible culture-stuff, he was talking about tacit culture stuff. The tacit understanding is how people in a culture can make changes which are likely to be satisfactory to other members of the culture, and how members of a culture identify what fits.
If my theory is correct, it gets really complicated as a culture changes over long periods of time and as a result of contact with other cultures.