The Interpretive Approach of Cross-Cultural Studies and a New Style of Culture Description : Beyond Clifford Geertz's Theory of Cultural Hermeneutics

イブンカ ケンキュウ ノ カイシャクガクテキ アプローチ ト ブンカ キジュツ ノ コンゴ ノ カダイ クリフォード ギアツ ノ ブンカ カイシャクガク オ テガカリニ

オオサカ ダイガク ニンゲン カガクブ シャカイガク ニンゲンガク ジンルイガク ケンキュウシツ

英語

文化解釈学

解釈学的循環

表象

オリエンタリズム

ピーター・ウィソチ

Clifford Geertz

cultural hermeneutics

hermeneutic circle

representation

Orientalism

Peter Winch

In this essay I roughly define the interpretive approach of cross-cultural studies as cultural hermeneutics, Today many social scientists are skeptical about the customary ways of representation of social realities, and various types of new experimental efforts are being made toward representing social realities. One of the trends of such efforts is hermeneutic approach, the ends of which is to understand the relations between symbols and their meanings. Geertz calls this trend 'the interpretive turn.' Going with the tide of the interpretive turn, cultural hermeneutics have been tackling the epistemological problems of representation and have succeeded in giving more sophisticated descriptions than ever (in the first section). In the second, I discuss Clifford Geertz's theory of interpretive anthropology, and make clear the hermeneutical festure of his theory by focusing on 'the hermeneutic circle' in the interpretation of cultures. Third, I supplement Geertz's theory with Peter Winch's concept of 'limiting notions'. In the section 4, 1 consider the validity of cultural hermeneutics as a science. The last section, I grope for a new style of culture description: a multiple and variable description of culture.

英語