Borrow

Carry Meaning

Compress

Invite Interpretation

Need Interpretation To Exist

Outlive Their Purpose

Reflect

Reward Compression

Reward Context

stand in for something else

Transfer Information

Translate

Travel Well

symbol

wedding stuff

beard

Japan

longevity

old age

shrimp

trivia

island

Indonesia

infinity

WTF Origins

pound sign

code

ology (the study of)

laundry

is a 'tangible' and 'perceptible' thing that stands in for abstractions such as 'ideas, attitudes, judgments, longings, or beliefs.

First, according to Geertz, religion is 'a system of symbols.' Symbols are 'tangible' and 'perceptible' things that stand in for abstractions such as 'ideas, attitudes, judgments, longings, or beliefs.' Examples include everything from the written number '6' to the ross in Christianity.

is a dominant symbol when it can be characterized by having spatial and temporal centrality in a wide range of rites and a constancy of meaning from rite to rite.A symbol is an instrumental symbol when it can be characterized by serving as a mere device contributing to the efficacy of a particular rite.

Turner's distinction between symbols that are 'dominant' (because of their spatial and temporal centrality in a wide range of rites and their constancy of meaning from rite to rite) and symbols that are 'instrumental' (because each serves as a mere device contributing to the efficacy of a particular rite) is especially interesting because he implies that anthropologist should interpret only the dominant symbols as representations of deep social values...

is a human faculty that boils down to this: No ape can appreciate the difference between holy water and distilled water, nor might a chimpanzee appreciate the difference between sunday and tuesday or honor the sabbath and keep it holy.

Yet, on the other hand, White argued tirelessly that culture was a symbolic phenomenon, in that regard a distinctive human capacity and the means by which both persons and the objects of their existence were constituted. White was alone among American anthropologist of the interwar period to cite Saussure on the nature of human symboling. No ape could appreciate the difference between holy water and distilled water, he used to say (and I have been too fond of repeating)... nor could a chimpanzee appreciate the difference between Sunday and Tuesday or honor the Sabbath and keep it holy. (Sahlins 'infrastructuralism' 374)

is a relational entity in which meaning, understood as a . ..

A symbol, for Geertz, is therefore, 'a relational entity in which meaning, understood as a (ortner).

is a thing the value or meaning of which is bestowed upon it by those who use it. Human behavior is symbolic behavior.

as a thing the value or meaning of which is bestowed upon it by those who use it . . . . The meaning, or value, of a symbol is in no instance derived from or determined by properties intrinsic to its physical form.' (White 1949: 34).

is always more than we can understand at first sight while a sign is always less than the thing it points to. Therefore we stop at the sign but go on to the goal it indicates... but we remain with the symbol because it promises more than it reveals.

THE SYMBOL IS ALWAYS MORE THAN WE CAN UNDERSTAND AT FIRST SIGHT WHILE A SIGN IS ALWAYS LESS THAN THE THING IT POINTS TO. THEREFORE WE STOP AT THE SIGN BUT GO ON TO THE GOAL IT INDICATES... BUT WE REMAIN WITH THE SYMBOL BECAUSE IT PROMISES MORE THAN IT REVEALS. A sign is always less than the thing it points to, and a symbol is always more than we can understand at first sight. Therefore we stop at the sign but go on to the goal it indicates... but we remain with the symbol because it promises more than it reveals. Carl Jung

is any entity (words, gestures, an action, a practice, an object, a musical sound) in which meaning becomes, for a time, suspended between persons.

anything-- an action, a practice, an object, a pattern of sounds, a cremation ceremony, the gathering together of people to share a meal-- that is a vehicle of meaning.' The particular lives that people live are, for Geertz, 'symbols.' A symbol, for Geertz, is therefore, 'a relational entity in which meaning, understood as a public phenomenon, is suspended. It is suspended in the sense that the symbol is comprised of three elements: the representamen (the tangible side of the symbol), the object (that which the symbol refers to), and the interpretant (which is the relation between the representamen and the object.' What this means then is that meaning is not to be seen as something 'stored' in symbols as a free-floating phenomenon, but a matter of relations between persons, their natural environment, and their culture' (micheelsen 'i don't do systems')

is any expression of double meaning which provokes interpretation.

By symbols Ricoeur understood all expressions of double meaning wherein a primary meaning referred beyond itself to a second meaning which is never given immediately. This 'surplus meaning' provokes interpretation. The symbol gives rise to thought, as Ricoeur put it in what was to be become his most celebrated maxim. (Kearney in Riceouer 2006 : xi)

symbol, n.Trivia

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