Culture. A Philosophical Perspective

Culture. A Philosophical Perspective

1. Introduction

As the title Culture. A Philosophical Perspective suggests, the intention of this

essay is philosophical. Its main purpose is to grant a clear insight into the con-

ceptual problems inherent to the study of culture. In addition, it also wants to

provide the reader with the necessary conceptual tools to be able to critically

assess the concepts, visions, views and arguments put forward in everyday con-

versations about, and in discourses on culture and on the relations between

cultures.

Thinking about culture, we are faced with the seemingly insolvable problem

of how to approach “culture” in the absence of a consensual definition of this

notion. An excellent starting point for trying to get a handle on this concep-

tual issue is provided by the linguistic-model-based approaches originated by

Lévi-Strauss and Geertz. The main reason being that both of them graduated

in philosophy, before turning to anthropology. It was only after graduating that

Lévi-Strauss and Geertz became interested in the study of culture. Although

their positions differ greatly, in their reflection on anthropology, both theoreti-

cians reached a level of abstraction characteristic of philosophy. It is certainly no

accident that, independently from each other, they developed an anthropological

approach based on a linguistic model. As philosophers, they were first and fore-

most interested in man, and the social life of man, in general. And if there is one

feature which all men have in common, surely it is the use of language.

It is because of the combination of philosophical competence and anthropolog-

ical skills, their ability in conceptual analysis, and the level of abstraction of

their reflections on anthropology, that the work by these two historical figures

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8 C u LTu r E . A Ph i L OSOPh iC AL PEr SPEC T ivE

still appeals to us today. Yet, there is another, more important, genuinely philo-

sophical reason not only why the study of Lévi-Strauss and Geertz is currently

of interest, but why they should be studied in contrast to each other. Taken

together, their thinking yields a philosophical return in the form of a clear view

on the complex issue of culture. Taken together, we are able to use the dialectical

force which is released through their contrast, to extricate their theories from

their contextual, historical confinement. Only in contrast with each other do the

opposing views supported by Geertz and by Lévi-Strauss transcend the world of

historical fact, eventually revealing their lasting philosophical importance. Only

through contrast can their thoughts become a real driving, motivating force of

philosophical reflection.

Therefore, in this essay, we will use the thinking about culture by Geertz and by

Lévi-Strauss dialectically, to unlock the fundamental conceptual intricacies our

peacefully-living-together-with-other-people is infested with. Instead of putting

forward a particular solution to the problem of “culture”, this essay wants to

stimulate philosophical reflection, in order to move forward in the direction of a

globalized world where everyone feels at home.


2 . Why dO W E N EEd A P h i LO SO P h iCAL P ErSP EC T ivE? 9

2. Why do we need a Philosophical Perspective?

To begin with, we mark the contours of this essay on culture and the relation-

ship between cultures by means of two sets of questions: 1. Why should one

read this? What is the relevance of an essay on culture?; and 2. Why do we need

a philosophical perspective? What does it mean to say that the approach to

some subject is philosophical? In what way does the philosophical approach dif-

fer from other approaches such as the scientific approach or the common-sense

approach? Why do we prefer the philosophical approach to other ways of treat-

ing the same subject?

2.1 Why should we read this?

Basically, there are two reasons why readers should be interested in an essay on

culture and the relationship between cultures. In the first place, because culture

is a subject of general public concern. And secondly, because we do not know

the exact meaning of the term “culture”. Yet, a clear understanding of “culture”

is an absolute necessity if we ever want to find an answer to the question why a

certain kind of differences, which we refer to as “cultural,” obstruct the shaping

of a globalized world. Just think of the disastrous war raging over North Africa

and the Middle East, with offshoots all over Europe and in South East Asia.

Looking at it from a distance, it is as if the world were a place where everyone is

at war with everyone else; as if the reverse of Hobbes’ thought experiment had

come true, civil society had fallen apart and man had returned to the state of

nature.

2.1.1 Culture, a matter of general public concern

“They have a different culture,” no doubt is one of the most often heard conclu-

sions regarding the many foreigners who come to live in our cities and villages

for all kinds of reasons, whether they are personal, economic or political. In

addition to the many people who come voluntarily, who come to another coun-

try of their own accord, each year there are millions of people who are forced

into exile. These people are not just migrants. They are refugees, asylum seekers



or internally displaced persons. Every

year, the United Nations High Com-

missioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

publishes the Global Trends Report on

the state of forced displacement. Year

after year, worldwide, the number of

people leaving their home countries

because their life is threatened is on

the increase.

To give you an idea of the urgency of

the situation, since late 2012, more

than 45.2 million people have been in situations of displacement. By the end of

2013, there were an estimated 51.2 million persons worldwide who were consid-

ered forcibly displaced. In 2014, global forced displacement has seen accelerated

growth, once again reaching unprecedented levels.1 This year saw the highest

displacement on record. At the end of 2014, 59.5 million individuals were forci-

bly displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, generalized violence, or human

rights violations. This is 8.3 million persons more than the year before and high-

est annual increase in a single year. In 2015, on average 34,000 people per day

were displaced, which brings the total of forcibly displaced people to the truly

alarming number of 65.3 million. You need little math to understand that today,

every few seconds, some person is forcibly displaced.

As long as a foreigner’s stay in a country is only temporary, the difference

between cultures does never really becomes an issue. It is only when foreigners

begin to settle that cultural differences become a threat to the social cohesion of

some community, and to the peaceful life of its members. However, today, the

influx of forcibly displaced persons has reached such levels, that sooner or later,

everyone will be confronted with the issue of how to deal with people coming

from other parts of the world; people with a different language, with a different

1. The 2014 UNHCR Global Trends report is published on the website of the United Nations. It contains 56 pages of information. Please check it out http://unhcr.org/556725e69.html

Fleeing the country. Forced into exile



mental attitude and different habits; differences, which we characterize in gen-

eral with the attribute “cultural”. In short, right now, the problem of culture is

a matter that is bound to engage just about everybody’s attention at some point.

2.1.2 There is no consensual definition of “culture”

Since 1871, the year when the term “culture” first was established in English in

its modern technical and anthropological sense, numerous definitions of culture

have been given, none of which are consensual. As early as 1952, the famous

American anthropologists Alfred Louis Kroeber (1867-1960) and Clyde Kluck-

hohn (1905-1960) in their book Culture. A Critical Review of Concepts and

Definitions listed no less than one hundred sixty-four definitions of culture.2

Since then, the ongoing outpouring of books and papers on this topic have

blurred our understanding even more. This should not worry us, if we could

dispense with a definition. However, as long as there is no consensus among the

experts on the meaning of “culture”, we will be unable to resolve the issue of the

so-called cultural differences.

2. Alfred Weber (1868-1958), German economist, pioneer of the modern analytical approach to sociology. He defined culture as “the endowment of a finite segment of the meaningless infinity of events in the world with meaning and significance from the standpoint of human beings.” Weber insisted that although culture was a matter of ideas, often implicit, beliefs and values were just as real as material forces. Weber’s definition of culture had a major impact on the development of American anthropology, and thus also on Clifford Geertz’s view (1926-2006). According to Adam Kuper, Geertz’s view is a special blend of Alfred Weber, Franz Boas, and American Pragmatism. See Kuper, A., (2000). Culture. The Anthropological Account [1999]. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press. XV, 299 p., p.35. (American pragmatism originated with the American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914)). In Boas, F. (1963) The Mind of Primitive Man [1911 –1938 revised edition]. Foreword by Melville J. Herskovits. New York: The Free Press, 245 p. In this seminal book Boas set out to refute the then prevalent ideology of scientific racism. He introduced “cultural relativism” as a method, which Geertz endorsed.



F O O D F O R T H O U G H T

Is culture a mind dependent something or is it something external to the mind? Is the

human mind essentially cultural? Could men exist without culture? Is culture something

to be described, interpreted or even perhaps explained, or should it be treated instead as

a source of explanation itself? What about the other dimensions of life, the political, the

economic and social dimension, are they part of culture? Or is culture part of them? Or is

culture something completely different? How does culture function?

Hence, it is imperative to determine the conceptual place of “culture”. And that

is where philosophy comes in. Indeed, conceptual issues are the problems philos-

ophers deal with. Metaphorically speaking, a case presented before a philosoph-

ical court is a conceptual matter that must be clarified. The fact that culture is a

subject of public concern and the fact that the search for a definition of culture

is a conceptual issue justify a philosophical essay on this subject.

Starting point of our reflection on culture is the definition of the concept of

culture put forward by the American philosopher and cultural anthropologist

Clifford Geertz (1926-2006). The first reason for this choice is the fact that he

trained as a philosopher and cultural anthropologist, and is well-grounded in

both areas of study. Also important is the

fact that Geertz based his approach on a

linguistic model, for it is our contention

that cultural anthropology should con-

cern itself with language in the broadest

possible sense of the term, because of the

essential role of communication in social

life. And as we all know, the exchange of

thoughts, messages, or information, as

by speech, signals, signs, or behavior is

always subject to norms. Hence the ques-

tion whether it might not be the case that

the empirical variety of cultures is brought

about by the differences between the

norms underlying the use of language. The strangeness of the Cultural Other



The theory which Geertz articulated in the introductory essay to his 1973 The

Interpretation of Cultures points in the right direction, precisely because of its

analysis of culture in terms of systems of symbols as extrinsic sources of infor-

mation. To our mind, his definition of culture in terms of “patterns of meanings

embodied in symbols which are historically transmitted,” “a system of inherited

conceptions expressed in symbols by means of which men communicate, per-

petuate and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life,” seems a

serious candidate for consensus (Geertz: 1973, 5). Consistent with this descrip-

tion, Geertz construes “culture” in linguistic terms, as some kind of linguistic

tool with its own grammar, its own rules, its own “ought to do” norms.3 In his

view, culture is a means of conveying information essential to human life, which

is inherently social. The view on culture he championed has come to be known

as “interpretive” or “symbolic anthropology”. We will examine it in more detail

in the following sections.

By the way, one of the main problems, if not the biggest problem concerning cul-

ture – whatever its definition – is the fact that we are not conscious of our own

culture, because of its transparency. Indeed, to have a culture or to be part of

a culture is analogous to looking through a window. We see things happening,

but we do not pay attention to the substance we are looking through. To call

attention to the structure and substance of the invisible screen which separates

us from the others is one of the principal aims of this essay. Other problems

revolve around epistemological issues, such as the question whether culture must

be understood as something to be described, interpreted or perhaps explained,

or instead as a source of explanation? Is culture a gloss or a template? Must we

construe “culture” in terms of a model of reality or a model for reality, or both

at the same time? Still another problem is the question whether or not a science

3. According to the eminent American philosopher Wilfrid Stalker Sellars (1912-1989) nor-mativity is the key operator in linguistic functioning which is an intrinsically social activity. To my mind, the same holds true for the functioning of culture. Sellars also broached the idea that there are invariances of function across languages. See Sellars, W.S. (2007) In the Space of Reasons. Ed. By Kevin Sharp and Robert Brandom. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press, xv, 491 p. A few contemporary linguists among whom Anna Wierzbicka go in search of a framework of empirically established universal concepts within which cultural representations could be identified from a native speaker’s point of view. See Wierzbicka, A. (1996) Semantics: Primes and Universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press, XII, 502 p.



of culture which describes, identifies and explains cultural phenomena on the

basis of lawful generalizations is “really” possible?

2.2 The need for a philosophical perspective

As we have pointed out in the previous section, in order to be able to deter-

mine the conceptual place of “culture”, we need a philosophical approach. The

search for a clear definition, that is where philosophy comes in. Indeed, concep-

tual issues are the problems philosophers grapple with. However, that does not

answer the question about the difference between the philosophical perspective

and other views on the same subject. Why should we prefer the philosophi-

cal approach to other approaches? What is so special about philosophy? To the

question “What, the, is philosophy?” the American philosopher Edwin Arthur

Burtt (1892-1989), in his introduction to the Anthology of English Philosophy

gave the following answer:

Philosophy has something in common with the naïve reflections in which

unsophisticated people engage, and with the abstract and exact inquiries of

science; there are also important differences between philosophy and each

of these modes of thinking. But the similarities and dissimilarities naturally

vary greatly according as we pursue one or the other of these two lines of

comparison. An excellent way of apprehending what essentially distinguis-

hes philosophy is to embark briefly on such a comparative study (Burtt,

1967, ix).4

In what follows, in line with Burtt’s program, we will first compare philosophy

to the thinking of unsophisticated people who have no formal training in philos-

ophy, and then we will contrast philosophy with science.

4. Burtt, E. A. (1967 [1939]) “Introduction,” in The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill, Edited by Edwin A. Burtt. New York: The Modern Library. xxiii, 1041 p., ix-xxii



2.2.1 How does philosophical thinking differ from the thinking of people without any formal training in philosophy?

A first difference between philosophical thinking and ordinary thinking per-

tains to the special character of the questions which set philosophical thinking

in motion. Our ordinary thinking is focused on various matters, such as the

question “What will you have for dinner?” or the problem “Which course of

study is the most appropriate if you want to become a novelist?” In contrast

to this, philosophy is focused on one issue. Concisely put, one might describe

philosophy as the art of calling into question our thinking. According to this

description, it is the analysis and evaluation of the way we think, in other words,

it is the thinking about thinking which is at the core of the philosophical enter-

prise.

Another point of difference relates to the sense of responsibility regarding the

accuracy, the quality, the validity of their intellectual activity. Philosophers are

much more accountable for the way their thoughts are articulated and for the

validity of their arguments than common man.

Moreover, philosophers prove themselves to be exceptionally conceptually com-

petent. Their thinking is inherently inferential. They connect concepts with con-

cepts in order to construct a coherent and sound conceptual explanatory web.5

But, no doubt the crucial difference between unsophisticated thought and phil-

osophical thought is a difference in purpose. Whereas people without formal

training in philosophy use their thoughts generally in a practical way, in order

to ensure some practical result, the prime objective philosophers want to achieve

is to find out the truth. In the words of Wilfrid Sellars: “The aim of philosophy,

abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense

of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term” (Selllars:

1967, 7). Hence, the emphasis on the epistemic character of their intellectual

5. Sellars, W. S. (1967) “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man [1962],” in Science, Perception and Reality. Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing Company.337 p., p.7.6 See Burtt, Edwin A. Ibid., x-xi.



endeavour, which is precisely what distinguishes the way philosophers think

from the way common man uses his thoughts.

To illustrate this point, consider the following example6 From a philosophical

point of view, the simple question “Who made the world?” typical of children

and unsophisticated people wanting to satisfy their curiosity, is, in fact, a hope-

less question. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, because it is not at all clear

what is meant by the term “world”. If by “world” is meant the totality of all

beings coming into existence and all things happening as well as everything that

has ever been, then it is logically impossible to treat the world as the subject of

the question “Who made?”, because it is forever uncompleted. On the other

hand, if the term “world” refers to some part of this sum total, we do not know

which part it refers to. Usually by “world” is meant the physical part of our uni-

verse, which is the part that occupies space. However, sometimes it has a much

more limited meaning. Sometimes, we use it to refer to some specific part such

as countries or animals (the animal world) or some area of human activity (the

world of religion). At other times we extend its meaning to include past, present,

end even future entities and events, physical and nonphysical, bodies and souls,

and all kinds of imperceptible things like theories and the theoretical entities

such as the elementary particles postulated by current theoretical physics. But,

besides being logically impossible, the unsophisticated question “Who made the

world?” raises difficulties also because of the beliefs implied by it; beliefs which

are highly contestable, such as the belief that the world was made by some x,

and that x is a person. Philosophers do not accept conclusions that are wholly

conjectural. Even when the meaning of the word “world” were to be restricted

to “the world of matter” or to the “present order of events”, the way the question

is framed would still imply some contestable answers. This example gives a good

idea of the sense of intellectual responsibility that typifies philosophical activity.

Philosophers are completely answerable for their thoughts, for their claims and

conclusions. Their thinking must be sound. They are trained to discriminate

between questions that are pertinent, which have a logical precise relevance to

the matter at hand, and those that are not relevant. They have learned to dis-

criminate between ways of formulating queries that prejudge the answer in an

improper manner and ways that are impartial or unbiased. Philosophers see it as

their duty to clarify unsophisticated – vague and, therefore, endless – discussion



by unravelling its perplexities, and by showing how the complexities concerning

some issue should be approached.

2.2.2 The difference between philosophy and science

First, what do science and philosophy have in common? What science and phi-

losophy have in common is the thoroughness of their research and the accounta-

bility for their conclusions. Indeed, both ways of obtaining knowledge are based

on the principle of reliable repeatability, that is to say, if one reproduced the

investigation, the final conclusion should be the same.6

The difference between them stems from a difference in objectives. As already

stated above, the main objective of philosophy is to gain insight, to uncover the

true reasons for our reasoning about some state of affairs. In contrast to this,

the key objective of science is to get things under control. In the words of the

French philosopher René Descartes, who in his Discours de la méthode (Dis-

course on the Method) said with regard to the scientific method that it is devised

to overcome nature, to gain absolute control: “nous rendre comme maîtres et

possesseurs de la nature”.7

In the final analysis, philosophy is the search for truth while science is the search

for practical solutions. Whereas philosophical thinking is inherently theoretical,

scientific thinking is always a combination of theory and practice. To explain

the difference between the practical and theoretical mode of thinking, we turn

to Aristotle (384-322 BC), the founding father of Western philosophy. In Book

6. Wilfrid Sellars distinguishes between the “manifest image”, the space of reasons to which philosophy belongs, and the “scientific image”, the conceptual framework that science is developing in which everything that exists is an element in the spatiotemporal nexus (DeVries: 2005, 21). See DeVries, Willem A. (2005) Wilfrid Sellars. Chesham: Acumen, xiv, 338 p. “Now to ask ‘what are the basic objects of a (given) framework,’ is to ask not for a list, but a classification.” Sellars, W. S. (1967) “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man [1962],” in Science, Perception and Reality. Atascadero: Ridgeview Publishing Company.337 p., pp. 13-14.7. Descartes, R. (1970 [1637]) Discours de la méthode. Livre de Poche, Éditions Gallimard. 254 p., p.95.



I of his Nicomachean Ethics, his best known work on ethics, Aristotle analyses

the difference between theoretical and practical thinking.

The “Nicomachean Ethics” is the title given to Aristotle’s magnum opus on

ethics. It consists of ten books on separate scrolls, and is based on the notes

from his lectures on ethics he gave at the Lyceum, his school in Athens.8 The

title refers to his son, Nicomachos. Subject of Aristotle’s ethics is the ques-

tion concerning the best way of life. The answer to this question involves

an inquiry into the true nature of man, his relation to the people around,

and into the true understanding of concepts such as good, bad, wrong and

right.

To begin with, Aristotle contends that to distinguish

truth from falsity is the purpose of all thinking: of prac-

tical thinking as well as of theoretical thinking. How-

ever, in practical thinking (praktikê dianoia), truth and

falsity relate to action, whereas in theoretical thinking

(theôrêtikê dianoia), truth and falsity pertain to the

unchangeable, i.e. to what remains constant through

change (The Nichomachean Ethics: 1139a25-30).

So far so good, but what is truth? To this question, Aristotle responds that truth

is a theoretical attribute which can only be ascribed to a statement that affirms

or denies that a something is “so and so”, in other words, truth can only be

ascribed to a “proposition”. Consistent with this, the subject of a proposition in

itself, independent of what is affirmed or denied about it, is never true. Take, for

example the proposition “All men are mortal”. We might say that the proposi-

tion is true that “all men have the property of being transient, that is to say the

property of becoming gradually more and more fragile until death occurs”. But,

truth cannot be predicated on the subject of “men” considered in itself. In his

Metaphysics, Aristotle concludes “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is

8. Aristotle (2004) The Nichomachean Ethics. Transl. from the Greek by J.A.K. Thomson. Edited by Hugh Tredennick. London: Penguin Classics. 400 p.

Aristotle (384-322 BC)


3 . CONCLuS iO N 19

not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, or of what is not that it is

not, is true” (Metaphysics 1011b25)9. We leave it at that, because the intricacies

of truth are so many that they cannot be discussed at length in the context of

this essay.

Now, in the above account, it has become clear that philosophy is traditionally

defined as the search for truth – regardless of practical considerations, regardless

of the outcome, hence, its inherently theoretical nature. In contrast, the other

sciences all combine theory and practice, the theoretical and the experimental.

As we explained, the difference between philosophy and science is a difference

in raison d’être. Whereas the ultimate reason for science to exist is to gain prac-

tical control, the ultimate reason for philosophy to be around is to gain insight,

to gain knowledge. It is for practical reasons that scientists focus on empirical

facts, and it is for theoretical reasons that philosophers use thought to speculate

about areas of inquiry where no empirical facts are available.

3. Conclusion

With this, we have reached the end of the introductory section. In conclusion,

we sum up the main points. Firstly, there is no consensual definition of culture.

In search of what man has in common, philosophically trained anthropologists

like Clifford Geert and Lévi-Strauss conclude that if language is essential to the

social life of man, then the study of “cultural man”, whatever that means, can-

not be but grounded in the study of “language” – in the broadest possible sense

of this term.

Secondly, as the problem of definition is a conceptual issue, it can only be

resolved through philosophical reflection. The driving force of philosophical

reflection is contradiction. Without contrast, there is no philosophy. Therefore,

this essay contrasts the views supported by Geertz with the one supported by

9. Aristotle (1998) The Metaphysics. Transl. and Introduction by Hugh Lawson-Tancred. London: Penguin Classics. 528 p.



Lévi-Strauss. Each of these two scholars based their analysis of “culture” on a

linguistic model, yet they arrived at opposite conclusions. By contrasting the

positions held by Geertz and Lévi-Strauss, we will be able to articulate all the

intricacies concerning the concept of “culture”.


Culture. A Philosophical Perspective

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