Today I’m not going to talk about an expert in my field exactly (He’s an anthropologist and I’m studying sociology now), but he’s an expert in the social sciences field in general. He is called Clifford Geertz. Well, sincerely I don’t know him very well, because I just have read some texts that he wrote last week.
Clifford James Geertz was born in San Francisco, in 1926. When he was young, he made services in the Us Navy in the Second World War. After that, he studied first in Antioch College where he graduated from studying Philosophy and then he graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard University. After that he became professor in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he turned into emeritus professor. He worked there until he died.
His theories were based on a symbolic idea of culture. He defined culture as a “system of concepts expressed in symbolic forms, through which people communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge on their attitude to life”.
He thought that we can’t apply or develop any kind of law or rule without having the experience of the relationship with the people we want to investigate. We must interpret the behavior of people attending to their ideas of what life is. In his theory, he denies an idea of “human nature”, opposing to it the concept of culture. The theory must adapt to the people we are investigating, and it has no sense if it doesn’t express the sense of social action gived by the actors. He compares the anthropological investigation with the interpretation of a book.
I like him because I think that a fundamental matter on social investigation is that we can understand the sense of the social actions, and I think that if we comprehend the reasons that people put on his actions, we can achieve that.
Clifford James Geertz was born in San Francisco, in 1926. When he was young, he made services in the Us Navy in the Second World War. After that, he studied first in Antioch College where he graduated from studying Philosophy and then he graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy at Harvard University. After that he became professor in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he turned into emeritus professor. He worked there until he died.
His theories were based on a symbolic idea of culture. He defined culture as a “system of concepts expressed in symbolic forms, through which people communicate, perpetuate and develop their knowledge on their attitude to life”.
He thought that we can’t apply or develop any kind of law or rule without having the experience of the relationship with the people we want to investigate. We must interpret the behavior of people attending to their ideas of what life is. In his theory, he denies an idea of “human nature”, opposing to it the concept of culture. The theory must adapt to the people we are investigating, and it has no sense if it doesn’t express the sense of social action gived by the actors. He compares the anthropological investigation with the interpretation of a book.
I like him because I think that a fundamental matter on social investigation is that we can understand the sense of the social actions, and I think that if we comprehend the reasons that people put on his actions, we can achieve that.
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