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Old 02-14-2010, 08:07 PM   #15
Peter Goldsbury
 
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Re: Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation 17

Ellis,

A few comments based on your last post (#12).

1. I am not sure whether you read my comments on Turnbull’s work. I stated that, “Turnbull’s portrayal of the Ik raises a host of issues, especially those of objectivity and cultural divergence.”I did not state anything at all about Turnbull’s methodology and I am aware of the controversy his work raised (there were other issues, too, apart from the three you mention). The issues would apply to any anthropological analysis of a ‘culture’ and would thus include those made by Mead, Benedict, Hofstede, and also by Edgerton.

2. Your points about culture and class are well taken. However, I think they add to the problem of objectivity; they do not solve it. A description of a unique case based on phenomenological psychology is still a description of a unique case and is subject to the same problems of objectivity, bias and superficiality as a description of a unique case based on other types of psychology.

3. So, while I do not deny that Sokaku has had his voice stolen--and that you have given him a voice, I am suggesting that Takeda Sokichi was not even given much of a voice to begin with. In addition, if it is possible to talk of core experiences, in contrast to other experiences (or types of experience), the issue arises of why this particular experience (or this type of experience) is core—and others are not. That it is a core experience because you, or someone, has chosen to describe it as such is not an adequate answer, at least for me.

Best wishes,

PAG

Last edited by Peter Goldsbury : 02-14-2010 at 08:10 PM.

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