Geertz, Weber, and PoMo

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I find it surprising that beliefn the importance of the concept of
understanding, or meaning, makes Geertz posodern. What Geertz
achieved--and he is useful to this extent-was a retrieval of scientific
anthropology from crass haviorism. He achieved this by reintroducing
some basic Weberian notions into a discipline which appeared to have
forgotten them. He was also influenced by such thinkers as Ryle,
Ricouer and Nortrop Frye, but they come in only as supports for his more
basic argument that an explanatory science of human behavior cannot do
without reference to meaning. He has been criticizied for simplifying
xDor misreading these three, but such criticisms miss the point.

--

R.C. Alvarado                           rca2t@Virginia.EDU

Department of Anthropology              rca2t@Virginia.BITNET

University of Virginia                  uunet!virginia!rca2t

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