(Continuing my series of notes on Clifford Geertz’s Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, Basic Books, New York, 1983; earlier notes appear here and here.) Geertz’s Local Knowledge: Fact and Law in Comparative Perspective (first presented as the Storrs Lectures for 1981 at Yale Law School; an online version is available) should be essential reading for philosophers of law.Continue reading “Geertz on Comparative Anthropology and the Law-Fact Distinction”
Category Archives: Philosophy
The Physics-Philosophy ‘Kerfuffle’
The ongoing spat between physicists and philosophers–sparked by David Albert’s negative review of Lawrence Krauss’ A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing–is the latest instance of a simmering conflict that seems to recur between the academic practitioners of discipline ‘X’ and philosophers who specialize in ‘philosophy of X.’ One kind of complaint madeContinue reading “The Physics-Philosophy ‘Kerfuffle’”
The Human-Computer Chess Championship: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
Should chess grandmasters play with a computer as an aid during a championship game? (Or, should the current world chess championship become the Advanced Chess World Championship?) Hartosh Singh Bal (‘Chessmate’, International Herald Tribune, June 5 2012) offers some arguments for this claim, but fails to consider a possible unintended consequence and leaves an interestingContinue reading “The Human-Computer Chess Championship: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?”
The Mountaineering Make-Over
A few days ago, as my nephew, an aspiring mountaineer who has been on expeditions to Kamet, Trishul, (both in the Garhwal Himalayas) and Stok Kangri (a trekking peak in Ladakh), chatted with me on Facebook, he said (roughly), You know, for me it’s no longer that away from the hustle-bustle, out to find myselfContinue reading “The Mountaineering Make-Over”
Teaching Descartes: It Ain’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be
In ‘Five Parables’ (from Historical Ontology, Harvard University Press, 2002), Ian Hacking writes, I had been giving a course introducing undergraduates to the philosophers who were contemporaries of the green family and August der Stark. My hero had been Leibniz, and as usual my audience gave me pained looks. But after the last meeting, some studentsContinue reading “Teaching Descartes: It Ain’t All It’s Cracked Up To Be”
Geertz, the ‘Anthropological Understanding,’ and Persons
(As promised in an earlier post on Clifford Geertz, I will be posting a few reactions here to his essays in Local Knowledge.) In ‘”From The Native’s Point of View”: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding’, (from Local Knowledge: Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, Basic Books, New York, 1983, pp 59), Clifford Geertz writes, The concept of person is…an excellentContinue reading “Geertz, the ‘Anthropological Understanding,’ and Persons”
Man as Matter: On Seeing A Headless Corpse
Some thirty or so years ago, I saw a human body without a head. I was then on summer vacation, visiting family in Central India, and one day, plans were announced to attend a wedding taking place in a neighboring small town. My aunt and cousins would leave by the morning local train; my uncle, myContinue reading “Man as Matter: On Seeing A Headless Corpse”
The Autumn as Inducer of Childhood Remembrances
In ‘The Innocent,’ one of the twenty-one short stories in Graham Greene‘s Twenty-One Stories (Penguin, 1970), the narrator of the tale notes, On an autumn evening, one remembers more of childhood than at any other time of year… Our hero is correct. Or at least, this rings true to me. Why might that be? Our story-tellerContinue reading “The Autumn as Inducer of Childhood Remembrances”
Geertz, Trilling and Fussell on the Transformation of the Moral Imagination
In ‘Found in Translation: Social History of Moral Imagination’, (from Local Knowledge: Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, Basic Books, New York, 1983, pp 44-45), Clifford Geertz writes, Whatever use the imagination productions of other peoples–predecessors, ancestors, or distant cousins–can have for our moral lives, then, it cannot be to simplify them. The image of the past (orContinue reading “Geertz, Trilling and Fussell on the Transformation of the Moral Imagination”
A Friendly Amendent to Nina Strohminger’s McGinn Review
Nina Strohminger–a post-doctoral fellow at the Kenan Institute for Ethics–recently wrote a scathing review of Colin McGinn‘s book The Meaning of Disgust. Thanks to Strohminger’s flamboyant cuffing of McGinn around the ears, her review earned her some well-deserved ‘net fame. I have not read the book so I cannot comment on it but the review doesContinue reading “A Friendly Amendent to Nina Strohminger’s McGinn Review”
Samir Chopra 