On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Jeffrey Fisher <jeff.jfisher at gmail.com>wrote:
> yeah, i haven't seen anything where he talks about animals, but i think you
> are probably right. i was wondering what alan would say, and thinking that i
> was probably pushing geertz out of geertz range on it. and yet . . .
>
>
> 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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