CLIFFORD GEERTZ Anthropology and Religion: Part Two

Background

• • • • • • Born in San Francisco in 1926 B.A. in 1950 in philosophy from Antioch College Entered Harvard As second year Graduate student, traveled to island of Java in Indonesia, spending two years Finished Ph.D. in 1956 Travels to Bali (again, Indonesia) and works as ethnographer

Major Works

• • • • • • • The Religion of Java (1960) Agricultural Involution (1963), Islam Observed (1968), The Interpretation of Cultures (1973) Kinship in Bali (with Hildred Geertz, 1975) Local Knowledge (1983) Works and Lives (1988)

American Interpretivism

• “Believing, with Max Weber, that man [sic] is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself [sic] has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretative one in search of meaning. It is explication I am after, construing social expressions on their surface enigmatical.” – Geertz (1994; p. 214)

1.

2.

Three Claims of American Interpretivism

“Social phenomenon--social practices, institutions, behaviors—are intrinsically meaningful actors give them.

and that their meanings are construed by the meanings that social “Social phenomenon can be understood only by unraveling the meanings that constitute them, a process that involves understanding the social phenomenon for the actor’s point of view.

3.

Three Claims of American Interpretivism

“Causal explanations, inductive generalizations, and predications have little or no importance in the social sciences.” • From Martin M. & McIntyre L.C. , Introduction to Part Three in Interpretation and Meaning (1994), p. 159.

Interpretative Anthropology

• • • Religion should be approached from the standpoint of interpretative anthropology – rejects structuralism – focuses on meaning and symbolism as it relates to the native’s perspective – allows for many meanings of a symbol – there is no one “key-to-the-universe” theory Reflects the ideas of Boas, Kroeber and Lowie But also influnced by Talcott Parsons and Max Weber

Interpretative Anthropology

• • Culture is not simply a set of symbols that fit into a structured analysis but rather a series of complex “webs” Culture is, however, an

objective

for Geertz: real, permanent and observable.

system

Our Working Definition "[Culture is] an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life." • -- Clifford Geertz , “Religion as a Cultural System", 1966.

Interpretative Anthropology

• Viewed “culture” as different from “society” – Society would only examine micro-dimensions such as kinship systems, clan structures or legal systems – Culture, according to Geertz, was the interconnected patterns of ideas that manifest within a collectivity of persons.

• So, how would the anthropologist observe such interconnection?

Thick Description

• • Description on two critical levels: – Describe what happens – Describe the intention behind the action Relies upon Phenomenonlogy’s distinction between – Consciousness (awareness) – Intentionality (awareness directed at objects in the world; ”consciousness of”)

Thick Description

• • • English Philosopher Gilbert Ryle provides an example: – One subject demonstrates an involuntary twitch of the right eye – A second subject “winks” at the observer Which behavior “means” something?

Thick descriptions look for the meaning and significance behind an action.

Thick Description

• An exercise: – Make a list of specific actions related to “Christmas” (Thin Description) – Describe the significance or intentions behind these actions (Thick Description) – How do you know the significance or intentions of these actions? – Meaning must be social/shared rather than private/subjective

Thick Description

• • • But cultures are more than mere expressions of meaning systems (not always so rational) Cultures offer conflicting patterns of interaction The best an anthropologist can do, therefore, is carefully guess—based on thick descriptions of reality—the meanings behind actions and the interactions of symbols.

Interpretative Anthropology

• • • • Get away from an approach concerned with limit, specify, focus and containment The position of the ethnographer is not to discover universal theory Move from generalizations of a culture as a whole Move toward possible ”anticipations” of general ideas within a particular culture

Interpretative Anthropology

• • • Instead, the ethnographer should be “microscopic” : looking at tiny sections or fragments of a culture and examining them with the precision of a chemist One must reject the idea of “coherence” suggested by Weber and Eliade, for instance, as nothing more than ”bad science” Any culture can be observed in this manner.

A New Approach to Religion

• • • “Religion as a Cultural System” (1975), Geertz’s groundbreaking essay Begins by redefining “culture” – A pattern of meaning, carried through symbols, by which a particular people pass along knowledge of life and express their attitudes toward it.

So, how would religion function as a cultural system (one among many)?

Geertz’s Definition of Religion

• • • • • “A religion is a system of symbols which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long lasting moods and motivations in men [sic] by formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.” (p. 90)

“A religion is a system of symbols”

• • • Symbols formulate a “basic congruence” between a particular style of life and a specific metaphysic. In other words, symbols are theoretically abstractable from the referent objects/represented realities. Symbols synthesize a people’s ideas of order.

ethos

– the aesthetic style, tone, and quality of life, their worldview, and their most comprehensive Symbols convey ideas in a public form

“A religion is a system of symbols ”

• • Symbolic structures have an intrinsically double aspect: – a model

of

“reality” – a model

for

“reality” “they both express the world’s climate and shape it.”

“which acts to establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men”

• • Religious symbols are intended to induce in the practitioner a certain distinctive set of dispositions [or feelings] which lead to a chronic [long lasting] character to the flow of activity [behaviors both engaged and avoided] and the quality of life [joy, content, emptiness, etc.].

His psychological categories of mood and disposition (based on the work of Oxford philosopher Gilbert Ryle) remain rather undeveloped in this essay.

“formulating conceptions of a general order of existence”

• • • Representation of transcendent truths; religion tries of offer ultimate expressions of truth.

Mitigates chaos due to the limit in our analytic capacities, limits in the power of own endurance and the limits in our moral insight Humanity generally prefers any explanation— no matter how inconsistent or simple minded—to none at all.

“formulating conceptions of a general order of existence”

• Religion accounts for things that cannot otherwise be

readily explained

, providing answers and strategies for action while lowering ambiguities.

“clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality”

• Religious perspective differs from other perspectives that people employ to construe their world: – Common sense - a form of naïve realism – Science - a mode of understanding based on disinterested observation and formal concepts – Aesthetic perspective - a kind of suspension of naïve realism and practical interest in favor of sensory contemplation.

“clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality”

• • A religious perspective “moves beyond the realities of everyday life” to correct and complete them “Rather than detachment, its watchword is commitment; rather than analysis, encounter.” • Through ritual the world as lived and the world as imagined are fused through the agency of symbolic forms.

“clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality”

• In this manner, religious doctrine comes across as being a true way to understand the actual realities of life • Religion appeals to authority figures (both symbolic or real) to add to the ostensible “truth” of religion • Rituals reinforce that the religions conceptions are true and sound.

Comparison of Evans-Pritchard’s and Geertz’s interpretive styles

• •

Evans-Pritchard

Alien cultures are like foreign languages, to be ‘translated’ into familiar terms Therefore, ethnography is a matter of placing oneself (the ethnographer) both into the head of the native and into the head of the reader • •

Geertz

Culture is embodied in the symbols through which people communicate Therefore ethnography requires an understanding of the actor’s point of view, not that of a supposedly impartial observer