The document discusses hermeneutics and its role in understanding culture as a symbolic construct through various interpretations. It emphasizes the significance of symbols in conveying meaning, the importance of context, and the relationship between the individual and communal understanding in cultural practices. Notable scholars like Clifford Geertz and Wilhelm Dilthey are referenced to highlight the interpretive processes involved in cultural analysis.

1. “There is an Indian story -- at least I heard it
as an Indian story -- about an Englishman
who, having been told that the world rested on
a platform which rested on the back of an
elephant which rested in turn on the back of a
turtle, asked (perhaps he was an
ethnographer; it is the way they behave), what
did the turtle rest on? Another turtle. And that
turtle?
‘Ah, Sahib, after that it is turtles all the way
down.’”
— Clifford Geertz, in The Interpretation of Cultures.
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2. FOAR701: Research paradigms (2016)
Hermeneutics: overview
2
Greg Downey
Department of Anthropology
Faculty of Arts
Macquarie University
greg.downey@mq.edu.au
Twitter: @gregdowney1

3. ‘social or cultural
constructivism’*
* more on this in the week on interactionism…
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4. Hermeneutics culture as symbolic construct
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5. hermeneutics
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6. Culture as ‘text’ But NOT an integrated whole.
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7. “Meaningfulness
fundamentally grows out of a
relation of part to whole that is
grounded in the nature of
living experience.”
— Wilhelm Dilthey.
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8. The hermeneutic circle
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Part
Whole
Interpretation
Contextualisation
8

9. “Meaning is not subjective; it is
not projection of thought or
thinking onto the object; it is a
perception of a real relationship
within a nexus prior to the
subject-object separation in
thought.”
— Wilhelm Dilthey.
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10. Contextualisation*
* key difference to psychodynamics & structuralism…
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11. “Man is an animal suspended in webs
of significance he himself has spun.”
— Clifford Geertz
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12. ‘Great Cat Massacre’
The starting point is the gap
between contemporaries’
experience (hilarity) & modern
response (revulsion).
Robert Darnton: noticing the gap in
understanding is first step in
interpretation.
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13. ‘Great Cat
Massacre’
• The shifting conditions of
journeymen: hereditary
masters, cheap ‘for hire’ labour,
volatile employment (1 year =
ancien).
• Concentration of printing
industry & emergence of class
divide (pre-industrial).
• Carnivalesque Faire le chat as
folk festival, featuring cat
torture & burning.
• Symbolic significance of cat:
sex, cuckoldry, witchcraft.
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14. Darnton on the cat massacre
• The workers’ activities (hunt, trial,
executions) were symbolic
theatre.
• The meanings were not even
available to the bourgeois.
• Merged popular expressive
forms: charivari, witch burning,
defensive maiming, mock
sabbath, fête of Saint John the
Baptist…
• Popular act scrutinised like
literary work.
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15. Clifford Geertz, hermeneutical
analysis of the Balinese
cockfight.
Symbolic anthropology
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16. Clifford Geertz and ‘symbolic anthropology’
• Symbols are not merely mental but
public and shared.
• Transmit meaning by links to other
symbols (model is language).
• Key to approach the ‘native’s point
of view’ (‘emic’ perspective, v. etic).
Symbols are gateway to worldview.
• Explicitly rejects functionalism
(unlike some symbolic research).
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17. Deep Play: Notes on
Geertz
Cock as polysemous symbol:
masculinity, sexuality, animality,
status, demonic, group identity.
Cockfight is a cultural form through
which the Balinese reflect on
themselves.
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18. Geertz on the Balinese cockfight
• Emphasises that, although a
‘status bloodbath,’ no one’s status
can really change (except
addicts’).
• Behaviour in fight shows what is
at stake (esp. gambling).
Geertz’s modelling here is almost
rational choice.
• ‘Deep play’: stakes too high to be
rational.
• High stakes are an imposition of
meaning on life.
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20. Geertz on interpreting the Balinese cockfight
‘… the Balinese peasants
themselves are quite aware of all
this and can, at least to an
ethnographer, do state most of it in
approximately the same terms as I
have. Fighting cocks, almost every
Balinese I have ever discussed the
subject with has said, is like playing
with fire only not getting burned.’
— Clifford Geertz, in ‘Deep Play’ (2005: 77)
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21. Geertz on interpreting the Balinese cockfight
‘An image, fiction, a model, a
metaphor, the cockfight is a means
of expression; its function is neither
to assuage social passions nor to
heighten them (though, in its play-
with-fire way, it does a bit of both),
but, in a medium of feathers, blood,
crowds, and money, to display
them.’
— Clifford Geertz, in ‘Deep Play’ (2005: 79)
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22. Geertz on interpreting the Balinese cockfight
‘Its function, if you want to call it
that, is interpretive: it is a Balinese
reading of Balinese experience; a
story they tell themselves about
themselves.’
— Clifford Geertz, in ‘Deep Play’ (2005: 79)
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23. Symbols as polysemous
• Multiple significances.
• Incompleteness: necessity of
interpretation.
• Victor Turner: exegetical,
operational & positional
meanings stretching from
normative to sensory.
• Myth & ritual crucial to
understanding.
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24. Dominant or ‘axiomatic’ symbols (V. Turner)
• Combine three properties:
• Condensation of multiple
meanings and referrants,
• Unification of disparate
significata, and
• Polarisation of meaning.
(Freudian symbolic theory still
influential within hermeneutics.)
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25. Rapid overview
symptom is private symbols are
public
interpretation
requires
uncovering past
trauma
interpretation
requires following
links in play
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26. Rapid overview
subject is
unconscious
subject can
volunteer
interpretation
significance is
ultimately
idiosyncratic &
specific
symbol is
polysemic &
shared
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27. “The culture of people is an ensemble
of texts, themselves ensembles, which
the anthropologist strains to read over
the shoulders of those to whom they
properly belong. There are enormous
difficulties in such an enterprise,
methodological pitfalls to make a
Freudian quake, and some moral
perplexities as well….”
— Clifford Geertz, in ‘Deep Play’ (2005: 86).
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28. goal?
empathy based on situating
activity or expression in
context.

29. “… But to regard such forms as
‘saying something of something,’
and saying it to somebody, is at
least to open up the possibility of an
analysis which attends to their
substance rather than to reductive
formulas professing to account for
them.”
— Clifford Geertz, in ‘Deep Play’ (2005: 86).
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30. ‘Thick Description’
From philosopher Gilbert Ryle,
developed by Geertz.
Description requires an
understanding of the context in
which a practice, act or symbol is
meaningful.
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32. Philosophical roots: the
‘hermeneutic turn’
Very brief review…
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33. Martin Heidegger
• In Sein und Zeit (1927),
Heidegger rejects Cartesian
attempt to build solid foundation
for knowledge in
consciousness.
• The subject is Dasein, ‘being
there’: determined by world.
• Our relationship to the world is
through ‘understanding’ in
immediate, practical sense (no
objective knowledge).
• Hermeneutic circle: experience
of all meaning from projection.
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34. Interpretation is not
“the acquiring of
information about what
is understood; it is
rather the working-out
of possibilities
projected in
understanding.”
— Martin Heidegger, in Being and
Nothingness (1962 trans.).
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35. Hans-Georg
Gadamer
Bildung or ‘education in culture’
Fusion of Horizons: the hermeneutic
circle is really the coming together of
two interpretive ‘horizons.’
True understanding changes reader.
No ‘objectivity,’ only openness to
world.
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36. “Being that can be
understood is language..”
— Hans-Georg Gadamer, in Truth
and Method (1960).
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37. Key components of hermeneutic paradigm
• The act of interpretation is both methodological and ontological.
• Interpretive method eclectic and often relies on individual insight (as well
as drawing fairly promiscuously from other paradigms).
• Symbolic or interpretive analysis invariably draws in context (contrasts with
structuralism and cognitive approaches).
• Goal is understanding not explanation (empathy v. causation).
• The use of misunderstanding, incomprehensibility and even shock as a
tool for exposing one’s own symbolic ‘prejudices.’
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38. Core of hermeneutic theory
• Epistemology: Cultural and symbolic resources are public, although
interpretations are individual acts so they can be peculiar.
Knowing is not a challenge, but reaching the bottom of knowing –
objectivity – impossible as meaning always changing (inc. due to
inquiry).
• Ontology: In its most extreme form, hermeneutic claim that the method
mirrors the nature of being itself (Dasein). ‘To be’ is ‘to interpret.’
• Methodology: Interpretive approach based on the hermeneutic circle
and ‘thick description.’
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39. “Cultural analysis is intrinsically
incomplete. And, worse than that, the
more deeply it goes the less complete it
is.”
— Clifford Geertz
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40. Strengths of hermeneutic paradigm
• Radically relativist (in some forms, e.g. Gadamer) so it builds a
moral mission for understanding as bridging human divides.
• Grapples with cultural variation better than any other
perspective we’ve had to this point. (Doesn’t pathologise
difference or suffer from ethnocentrism.)
• Also highlights competing voices and interpretations.
• Takes seriously subjects’ own capacity to know their worlds
(not a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’).
• Puts an emphasis on the quality of writing and exposition
(clearly seen in Geertz’s article).
Rather than aping natural sciences & striving for false
‘objectivity.’
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41. Prominent strains of hermeneutic thought
• Modern philosophical hermeneutics: Wilhelm Dilthey, Friedrich
Schleiermacher
• Symbolic anthropology & sociology: Clifford Geertz, Victor Turner (mixed
with structural functionalism), Mary Douglas, David Schneider (anthropology);
Peter Berger, Thomas Luckmann, Jeffrey Alexander (sociology).
• Ontological hermeneutics: Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul
Ricoeur, Richard Rorty, John McDowell, Karl-Otto Apel.
• Marxist hermeneutics: Walter Benjamin, Fredric Jameson.
• Poststructuralism: As you’ll see, hermeneutics exerts a strong influence over a
number of poststructuralist thinkers. (Postmodern focus on ‘positioning’ of the
interpreter is consistent with hermeneutic thought.)
• Strong streams in law, Ancient History, literature, history, religious studies,
political philosophy, social studies of science, even architecture.
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42. Criticism of hermeneutic approach
• Ultimately, makes analysis a descriptive exercise; does not
lend itself to general theoretical or predictive formulations.
• Unfalsifiable interpretive exercise (similar to psychoanalysis).
Are all potential interpretations really in play?
• Seems to rely heavily on individual insightfulness of the
analyst rather than offering systematic tool.
Even Geertz says: ‘guessing at meanings’ and then
assessing guesses.
• How is ‘context’ ever delimited in any meaningful way?
• Been criticised as anti-materialist and ignoring inequality by
other perspectives (Marxist, post-structuralist, scientific).
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43. Criticism of hermeneutic approach
• Creates unbridgeable gap between humanity and
science, places social sciences on an ‘arts’
foundation.
• What happens when your subjects insist something is
‘meaningless’ or offer an interpretation you suspect is,
well, wrong? (resolving the emic/etic conflict)
• Odd when treating culture as ‘text’ undermines actual
ability to evaluate and critique texts (because they
can only be understood or evaluated in context).
• Problem of the relationship between language and the
non-linguistic (action, for example).
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44. Thanks for your
attention!
Bibliography online at iLearn
Photos public domain at Pixabay
or as indicated.
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45. Additional readings (philosophy)
Bruns, Gerald. 1992. Hermeneutics. Ancient and Modern. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Dilthey, Wilhelm. 1989. Introduction to the Human Sciences. Eds. Rudolf A. Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi.
Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1976. Philosophical Hermeneutics. Trans. David E. Linge. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1994. Truth and Method. Trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New
York: Continuum.
Habermas, Jürgen. “The Hermeneutic Claim to Universality.” Trans. Joseph Bleicher. Ormiston and Schrift,
245-272.
Heidegger, Martin. 1962. Being and Time. Trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson. San Francisco:
Harper.
Ricoeur, Paul. 1981. Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action and Interpretation.
Trans. John B. Thompson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rorty, Richard. 1991. Essays on Heidegger and Others. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich. 1998. Hermeneutics and Criticism. Ed. and trans. Andrew Bowie. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Vico, Giambattista. 1984. The New Science of Giambattista Vico. Trans. Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max
Harold Fisch. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
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46. Additional readings (anthro, soc, STS)
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2003. “The Strong Program in Cultural Sociology: Elements of a Structural Hermeneutics (with Philip Smith),”
in The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Basso, Keith. 1976. ”’Wise Words’ of the Western Apache: Metaphor and Semantic Theory,” in Meaning in Anthropology, ed. Keith
Basso and Henry Selby (Albuquerque,N.M.), pp. 93-122.
Berger, P.L. and Luckmann, T., 1991. The social construction of reality: A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. (No. 10). Penguin
UK.
Boland, R. J. (1991). Information system use as a hermeneutic process. In H. E. Nissen, H. K. Klein, & R. Hirschheim, (Eds.).
Information systems research: contemporary approaches and emergent traditions (pp. 439-458). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science
Publishers B.V., North Holland
Danforth, Loring M. 1982. The Death Rituals of Rural Greece. Princeton,N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Daniel, E. Valentine. 1984. Fluid Signs: Being a Person the Tamil Way. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of California Press.
Dolgin, Janet L., David S. Kemnitzer, and David M. Schneider, eds. 1977. Symbolic Anthropology: A Reader in the Study of
Symbols and Meanings. New York.
Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: An analysis of the concepts of pollution and taboo. London: Rutledge and Kegan Paul.
____. 1970. Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. New York: Pantheon Books.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.
____. (1983). Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretive anthropology. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Turner, Victor. 1967. The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Rheingold, H. 1993. The virtual community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Sherratt, Yvonne. 2006. Continental philosophy of social science: hermeneutics, genealogy, critical theory. Cambridge and New
York: Cambridge University Press.
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