Long Sunday

Geertz and interpretation

I first read Clifford Geertz's "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture," itself published in 1973, in an interpretation seminar in the 90s. I benefitted a lot from this rereading, and here are a few points from it that struck me.

Copernican revolution

There are certain cognitive errors which are, so to speak, errors of perspective. That is, the way something looks from a certain place is said to be a direct property of the object itself. ‘How it appears from a certain place’ is, nonetheless, also of interest in its own right and belongs to what is sometimes called ‘the reality of the appearance’. That something does appear this way to us is not just an accident, but necessary within our particular situation. The appearance is a symptom of - and an implicit commentary on - the world to which it appears.

Anyways, all this is just padding, and a brief interlude from trying to puzzle out the essence of Para-costivism. In fact, I merely wanted to relay to you the following Wittgenstein anecdote.

W. and his companion are on a stroll through Cambridge.

‘I’ve always wondered why’, says W., ‘for so long people thought that the Sun revolved around the Earth.’

‘Why?’ said his surprised interlocutor, ‘well, I suppose it just looks that way’

‘Hmm’, retorted W. ‘and what would it look like if the Earth revolved around the Sun?’.

Wittgenstein's pictures

A___ always wanted a picture of Wittgenstein on her wall. Not that she’d read much of his writings. But that craggy face seemed to incarnate, to be the concentrated expression of everything ‘philosophical’. Philosophy was about terrible solitude, asceticism, a certain otherworldyness. All these were present in his features. That wide stare could cut through layers of error, was coldly unconcerned with everyday preoccupations, and could search into the soul of things. Its true, Wittgenstein’s head is seductively iconic, but it’s a quick misleading seduction, allowing familiar preconceptions a sensible anchorage.

Wittgenstein himself is both fond and chary of pictures.