On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 1:23 PM, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jeff and Alan,
>
> Isn't it pretty clear that Geertz holds that non-human species don't
> have culture, that humans are the only species with culture and
> meaning ? I'm not talking about your arguments here, but rather
> Geertz's position.
>
> Charles
>
>
>
> Jeffrey Fisher
> thanks, alan. yes, i've seen that page before, mainly in trying to
> think about how to present geertz to students (which i do in religion
> classes fairlyregularly).
> everything you're saying here makes perfectly good sense to me, i'm
> happy to say, and i hope i gave no impression that it wouldn't. what
> i'm thinking about is whether we can say with geertz that there is a
> difference of degree (of complexity, as you say) rather than a
> difference in kind (duality) -- a distinction as opposed to a
> dichotomy, as putnam would say -- between human and animal "culture."
> that is, that many if not all animals have at least some rudimentary
> form of culture if we understand culture as geertz does, but that the
> webs of complexity become, well, webbier, or more complex, for humans
> than for animals, because of the complexity of the symbols and symbol
> systems. and then we have not given definitions of either culture or
> humanity that render one exclusively the terrain of the other.
>
> fwiw, i've always thought his definition of religion, despite its
> drawbacks, actually constitutes a really helpful model of religious
> change, or, that is to say, of the ways religions change. students
> find it disturbing in no small part because it makes such sense, i
> think.
>
> i mainly hope i am not speaking nonsense and making all cultural
> anthropologists everywhere wish i would leave it alone. :)
>
> j
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