Summary of -CLIFFORD GEERTZ: AN INTERFACING OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES

Clifford Geertz is most important theorists in the anthropology of religion. He has approached the subject-matter of religion from the perspective of seeking to come to an analytical understanding of the nature of culture, as a historically transmitted pattern of meanings, embodied in a complex of symbol-systems. ( Religion-nature of culture –pattern of meaning – symbol.

Ø  Defining anthropology as a science of meaning-analysis, nurtures the study of culture as a meaning-system.

Ø   Religion, too, is a cultural system and necessarily conveys meaning.

Ø  Both culture and religion are meaning-systems and, we can conclude, both anthropology and theology attempt to analyze systematically these meaning-systems.

Ø  The interfacing of the disciplines of anthropology and theology is made possible by the utilization of the category of "meaning" as a hermeneutical key to the understanding of both religion and culture as meaning-systems.

The view of man as a symbolizing, conceptualizing, meaning-seeking animal opens a whole new approach to the analysis of religion.

Religion is

• a system of symbols which act to
• establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting models and motivations in men by
• formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and
• clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factu-ality that
• the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic.

Yinger's definition of Religion: System of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people struggles with ultimate problems of human life.

Ø  Geertz suggests that a fundamental characteristic of religion is the address to the "problem of meaning"—meaning suggesting purpose and direction to life and meaninglessness suggesting chaos and pointless existence.

Ø  Three points where chaos—lacks not just interpretation but interpretability—threatens to break in upon man,

·                  at the limits of his analytic capacities,

·                  at the limits of his powers of endurance,

·                  at the limits of his moral insight. 

Religion needs to cope with:

·         Bafflement,

·         Suffering

·         a sense of ethical paradox

are all radical challenges with which any religion, however 'primitive,' which hopes to persist must attempt somehow to cope. We can say that religion constitutes an experientially motivated address to the problem of impending chaos in the existential experience of humankind.

• Beyond, behind, or under religion's capacity to cope with bafflement, suffering, and inextricable ethical paradox lies the "essence of meaning" .
• The Problem of Meaning, is a matter of affirming, or at least recognizing, the inescapabil-ity of ignorance, pain, and injustice on the human plane while simultaneously denying that these irrationalities are characteristic of the world as a whole.
• The existence of bafflement, pain and moral paradox—of the Problem of Meaning—is one of the things that drive men toward belief in gods, devils, spirits, totemic principles, or the spiritual efficacy of cannibalism, but it is not the basis upon which those beliefs rest, but rather their most important field of application.

 This "drive toward belief" is conveyed through cultural symbols and this suggest, man's quest for meaning, for an existential meaning which challenges chaos and which pursues order.

Meaning as Hermeneutics

• Culture and religion are both symbol-systems which express humankind's quest for meaning. Therefore, any serious convergence of cultural and religious expressions necessarily centers around the ex-perience of meaning, an experience which is multidimensional and expressed through symbols.
•  Meanings can only be 'stored in symbols and are not synonymous with the symbols themselves.

Positivists attempt to equate "meanings" with symbols themselves, while functionalists attempt to equate the social "functions" of meaning-symbols with meanings themselves.

^·          Whereas culture and religion are convergent expressions of meaning, anthropology and theology are disciplines addressed to the systematics of meaning, and as noted above, the analysis of meaning will inevitably involve an analysis of the symbol as meaning-bearer.

Religion as studied by anthropologists involves,  a two-step operation, according to Geertz:

Ø  First, an analysis of the system of meanings, embodied in the symbols which make up the religion proper

^Ø    Second, the relating of these systems to social-structural and psychological processes.

What is anthropology?

Anthropology is an interpretive science engaged in the search for meaning through a systematic analysis of culture, i.e., the study of human meanings embodied in symbols.

What is Culture?

The culture concept, points to 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.

Ø  If culture, is the expression of meaning, and anthropology is the analysis of culture, we can say that the fundamental task of anthropology is the systematics of meaning. And this systematic analysis, necessitates an analysis of the sociocul-tural structures and processes, which constitute the framework of meaning.

Ø   This systems analysis approach implies interpretation, or more correctly, hermeneutics.

Ø  If culture is the experience and expression of meaning then the function of the concept of meaning necessarily is interpretational, or hermeneutical.

In other words, culture is meaning and meaning is hermeneutics.  An essential quality of the anthropology is its desire for universal application.  

 Anthropology's sensitivity to the human experience exemplified in a substantially built up collection of cross-cultural studies plays a vital role in establishing the discipline's capacity to interpret meaning-systems.  

We are confronted with three alternative responses to this anthropological approach to the analysis of culture and religion...

1. to be impressed with the dynamics of cultural diversity while vigorously pursuing the analysis of various culture forms and contents yet foregoing any philosophical speculation as to the implications of such an impression,
2. to be so impressed with cultural diversity that one concludes that life has no "ground" and the only absolute is "relativity," or
3. to be informed by cultural diversity as form-and-content expressions of meaning which are understood to be reflections of meaning-reality.

 The discipline of anthropology, when strictly adhering to its definition as a science for the systematic analysis of sociocultural phenomena, is bound to the first option—observation, description, understanding, and interpretation.

The vocation of anthropology is to : To look at the symbolic dimensions of social action—art, religion, ideology, science, law, morality, common sense—is not to turn away from the existential dilemmas of life for some empyrean realm of de-emotionalized forms; it is to plunge into the midst of them. The essential vocation of interpretative anthropology is not to answer our deepest questions, but to make available to us answers that others, with various experiences at various circumstances.

Within religious community, suggests Geertz, sacred symbols function to synthesize that community's "worldview" (structure of reality— metaphysics) and its "ethos" (style of life—values). The drive to make sense out of experience, to give it form and order is evidently as real and as pressing as any  other biological needs. This making "sense out of experience" is what we are calling here the systematics of meaning.  

Ø  As we have seen, religion and culture are integrative expressions of meaning. Nevertheless, there is admittedly more to meaning than just its experientially-based expressions.

Ø  In our investigation of the possibilities of interfacing anthropology and theology, Geertz's definition of anthropology as an "interpretive science" has given rise to a characterization of anthropology as the systematic analysis of culture-as-meaning. It can also be said that, in an attempt to understand religion-as-meaning, the human tendency for order gives rise to an intellectual interest in the systematic analysis of religion-as-meaning.

Geertz says anthropology does not seek to understand the "basis of belief" but rather beliefs manifestations. The task of analyzing and systematizing the "basis of belief" resides squarely in the lap of theologians and philosophers. Human experience finds expression though the meaning-systems of culture and religion.

We have defined religion and culture in terms of the category of experience. An anthropological method is concentrated upon experiential meaning is the key to understanding both culture and religion. From this we can argue that both religion and culture are meaning and meaning is hermeneutics.