"it's turtles all they way down"

Beverly Flanigan flanigan at OHIO.EDU
Sat Nov 18 18:41:41 UTC 2006


I first read the turtle story in an article by Clifford Geertz, the
anthropologist ("From the Native's Point of View"?  I'll look it up
later).  He suggested it was an ancient Indonesian/Balinese? myth.  The
Hindu account would therefore seem plausible in terms of an
Asian-disseminated origin.

At 01:28 PM 11/18/2006, you wrote:
>On Sat, 18 Nov 2006, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>
>>Haj Ross (J.R. Ross) tells the turtles version (attributed to William
>>James)  at the beginning of his 1967 Ph.D. dissertation, Constraints
>>on Variables in Syntax.
>
>I haven't verified this, but I am told that it is the "rocks all the way
>down" version that James recounts in _The Will to Believe_.
>
>Fred Shapiro
>
>
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