----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 
I am curious as to whether the use of the term "thick history" as employed by Roy
Weintraub and others on this list has been at all influenced by the Geertz/Ryle
distinction between "thick versus thin description." One reason for defining clearly a
term like "thick history" is that it can have connotations with similar uses elsewhere in
the social sciences which can in fact have rather different meetings.
 
If I understand both David Colander and the anthropologist Clifford Geertz correctly,
Colander's use of the term "thick history" is really antithetical to Geertz' use of the
term "thick description."
 
Colander's thick history seems to be focusing on one specific tree as it were. While
Geertz' thick description is about adding meaning and context to a "thinly described" set
of facts.
 
Geertz borrowed the term Thick description from the philosopher Gilbert Ryle.  Ryle's
classic example of the difference between thin and thick description is that "thinly"
described phenomenon of a rapid movement
of the right eye lid could alternatively be "thickly" described as an involuntary twitch
or a conspiratorial wink.
 
No reason why different disciplines shouldn't use the terms "thick" and "thin" as they see
fit.
 
But I am curious as to whether the use of term "thick history" in HES has been influenced
even if remotely by the Geertz/Ryle notion of "thick description."
 
 
David Mitch 
 
 
------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ 
For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]