I think the term "symbolic thinking" is a little (OK, a lot) muddy. Thinking is a mental process; symbolic thinking is, presumably, a mental process that involves use of symbols, as in the interior monologue when I "talk" through a problem with myself or think through something using imagined pictures. But Geertz, at least as described by Jeffrey, seems to say that symbols don't tell us anything about mental processes. So what is he talking about?
(This is of course unknowable, but I doubt seriously that animals do not employ imagination in their cognition.)
--- On Wed, 8/12/09, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
> From: c b <cb31450 at gmail.com>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in
> To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2009, 2:41 PM
> In general , "champions of symbolic
> anthropology" like Geertz are
> thoroughly in the camp of thinkers who hold culture or
> symbolic
> thinking to be an exclusively human capacity.
>
> Charles.
>