Download or read book Can There be a Philosophy of Archaeology written by William Harvey Krieger and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2006 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can There Be a Philosophy of Archaeology? provides a historical and philosophical analysis of the rise and fall of the philosophical movement know as logical positivism, focusing on the effect of that movement on the budding science of archaeology. Significant problems resulted from the grafting of logical positivism onto what became known as processual, or new archaeology, and as a result of this failure, archaeologists distanced themselves from philosophers of science, believing that archaeology would be best served by a return to the dirt. By means of a thorough analysis of the real reasons for failures of logical empiricism and the new archaeology, as well as a series of archaeological case studies, Krieger shows the need for the resumption of dialogue and collaboration between the two groups. In an age where philosophers of science are just beginning to look beyond the standard examples of scientific practice, this book demonstrates that archaeological science can hold its own with other sciences and will be of interest to archaeologists and philosophers of science alike.
Download or read book Can There Be A Philosophy of Archaeology written by William Harvey Krieger and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2006-08-24 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can There Be a Philosophy of Archaeology? provides a historical and philosophical analysis of the rise and fall of the philosophical movement know as logical positivism, focusing on the effect of that movement on the budding science of archaeology. Significant problems resulted from the grafting of logical positivism onto what became known as processual, or new archaeology, and as a result of this failure, archaeologists distanced themselves from philosophers of science, believing that archaeology would be best served by a return to the dirt. By means of a thorough analysis of the real reasons for failures of logical empiricism and the new archaeology, as well as a series of archaeological case studies, Krieger shows the need for the resumption of dialogue and collaboration between the two groups. In an age where philosophers of science are just beginning to look beyond the standard examples of scientific practice, this book demonstrates that archaeological science can hold its own with other sciences and will be of interest to archaeologists and philosophers of science alike.
Download or read book Philosophy and Archaeology written by Merrilee H. Salmon and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2014-06-28 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophy and Archaeology
Download or read book Explorations in Archaeology and Philosophy written by Anton Killin and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-26 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores various themes at the intersection of archaeology and philosophy: inference and theory; interdisciplinary connections; cognition, language and normativity; and ethical issues. Showcasing this heterogeneity, its scope ranges from the method of analogical inference to the evolution of the human mind; from conceptual issues in assessing the health of past populations to the ethics of cultural heritage tourism. It probes the archaeological record for evidence of numeracy, curiosity and creativity, and social complexity. Its contributors comprise an interdisciplinary cluster of philosophers, archaeologists, anthropologists, and psychologists, from a variety of career stages, of whom many are leading experts in their fields. Chapter 3 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Download or read book Metaarchaeology written by Lester Embree and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An idea of the philosophy of archaeology can best be gained by showing what it is, what the issues are, who is working in the field, and how they proceed. Reading Lester Embree's Metaarchaeology provides the best possible introduction to the field, since in it several leading archaeologists show how accessible and interesting the current archeological literature is, and currently active philosophers of archaeology reveal something of the current state of discussion on the subject. Bibliographies have also been developed of the philosophy of archaeology as well as of selected parts of the component that can be called metaarchaeology. Finally, an historical introduction has been included to show the variety of metascientific as well as orientational standpoints that philosophers of archaeology have had recourse to for over two decades, followed by speculation about the future of the discipline within the philosophy of science.
Download or read book Thinking from Things written by Alison Wylie and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2002-11-13 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this long-awaited compendium of new and newly revised essays, Alison Wylie explores how archaeologists know what they know. Examining the history and methodology of Anglo-American archaeology, Wylie puts the tumultuous debates of the last thirty years in historical and philosophical perspective.
Download or read book Material Evidence written by Robert Chapman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do archaeologists make effective use of physical traces and material culture as repositories of evidence? Material Evidence takes a resolutely case-based approach to this question, exploring instances of exemplary practice, key challenges, instructive failures, and innovative developments in the use of archaeological data as evidence. The goal is to bring to the surface the wisdom of practice, teasing out norms of archaeological reasoning from evidence. Archaeologists make compelling use of an enormously diverse range of material evidence, from garbage dumps to monuments, from finely crafted artifacts rich with cultural significance to the detritus of everyday life and the inadvertent transformation of landscapes over the long term. Each contributor to Material Evidence identifies a particular type of evidence with which they grapple and considers, with reference to concrete examples, how archaeologists construct evidential claims, critically assess them, and bring them to bear on pivotal questions about the cultural past. Historians, cultural anthropologists, philosophers, and science studies scholars are increasingly interested in working with material things as objects of inquiry and as evidence – and they acknowledge on all sides just how challenging this is. One of the central messages of the book is that close analysis of archaeological best practice can yield constructive guidelines for practice that have much to offer archaeologists and those in related fields.
Download or read book The Ethics of Archaeology written by Chris Scarre and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-01-19 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question of ethics and their role in archaeology has stimulated one of the discipline's liveliest debates. In this collection of essays, first published in 2006, an international team of archaeologists, anthropologists and philosophers explore the ethical issues archaeology needs to address. Marrying the skills and expertise of practitioners from different disciplines, the collection produces interesting insights into many of the ethical dilemmas facing archaeology today. Topics discussed include relations with indigenous peoples; the professional standards and responsibilities of researchers; the role of ethical codes; the notion of value in archaeology; concepts of stewardship and custodianship; the meaning and moral implications of 'heritage'; the question of who 'owns' the past or the interpretation of it; the trade in antiquities; the repatriation of skeletal material; and treatment of the dead. This important collection is essential reading for all those working in the field of archaeology, be they scholar or practitioner.
Download or read book Foucault s Archaeology written by David Webb and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-30 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reveals the extent to which Foucault's approach to language in The Archaeology of Knowledge was influenced by the mathematical sciences, adopting a mode of thought indebted to thinkers in the scientific and epistemological traditions such as Cavailles and
Download or read book Archaeology and Intentionality written by Artur Ribeiro and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-03-30 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archaeology and Intentionality explores perhaps one of the most overlooked topics in archaeology, that of intentionality. In archaeology, most explanations of human behaviour rely on intentionality, and this book fills a surprising gap in the literature. By identifying the historical trajectory of the notion of intentionality, this book reframes our understanding of what it means to act intentionally and how archaeologists provide explanations concerning past (and present) societies. In general, this book presents a strong framework for archaeological research, one that fits to current archaeological practices and research around the world. This framework considers that past actors were not unconditional free agents, who could act however they wished, nor were they absolute prisoners of the economic, biological, and environmental circumstances in which they lived. From the standpoint of intentionality, it becomes clear that human agency is not about what you can or cannot do, but about what you should do, that is to say, actions are above all ethical. In a world wealth inequality runs rampant, where humans have damaged the environment beyond recognition, and where technology advances at an alarming rate, it is important that we recognize our intentions and the ethical responsibility that accompanies those intentions. The book highlights how archaeology is the perfect discipline to understand how and from where those intentions come. Addressing several problems in archaeological theory and connecting archaeology, philosophy, and social theory, this book is for students and researchers interested in archaeological theory and how it informs practice.
Download or read book An Archaeology of Disbelief written by Edward Jayne and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2017-12-22 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Archaeology of Disbelief traces the origin of secular philosophy to pre-Socratic Greek philosophers who proposed a physical universe without supernatural intervention. Some mentioned the Homeric gods, but others did not. Atomists and Sophists identified themselves as agnostics if not outright atheists, and in reaction Plato featured transcendent spiritual authority. However, Aristotle offered a physical cosmology justified by evidence from a variety of scientific fields. He also revisited many pre-Socratic assumptions by proposing that existence consists of mass in motion without temporal or spatial boundaries. In many ways his analysis anticipated Newton’s concept of gravity, Darwin’s concept of evolution, and Einstein’s concept of relativity. Aristotle’s follower Strato invented scientific experimentation. He also inspired the pursuit of science and advocated the rejection of all beliefs unconfirmed by science. Carneades in turn distorted Aristotelian logic to ridicule the god concept, and Lucretius proposed a grand secular cosmology in his epic De Rerum Natura. In the two dialogues, Academica and De Natura Deorum, Cicero provided a useful retrospective assessment of this entire movement. The Roman Empire and advent of Christianity effectively terminated Greek philosophy except for Platonism reinvented as stoicism. Widespread destruction of libraries eliminated most early secular texts, and the Inquisition played a major role in preventing secular inquiry. Aquinas later justified Aristotle in light of Christian doctrine, and secularism’s revival was postponed until the seventeenth century’s paradoxical reaction against his interpretation of Aristotle. Today it nevertheless remains possible to trace western civilization’s remarkable secular achievement to its initial breakthrough in ancient Greece. The purpose of this book is accordingly to trace the origin and development of its secular thought through close examination of texts that still exist today in light of Aristotle’s writings.
Download or read book Evidential Reasoning in Archaeology written by Robert Chapman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-10-06 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do archaeologists work with the data they identify as a record of the cultural past? How are these data collected and construed as evidence? What is the impact on archaeological practice of new techniques of data recovery and analysis, especially those imported from the sciences? To answer these questions, the authors identify close-to-the-ground principles of best practice based on an analysis of examples of evidential reasoning in archaeology that are widely regarded as successful, contested, or instructive failures. They look at how archaeologists put old evidence to work in pursuit of new interpretations, how they construct provisional foundations for inquiry as they go, and how they navigate the multidisciplinary ties that make archaeology a productive intellectual trading zone. This case-based approach is predicated on a conviction that archaeological practice is a repository of considerable methodological wisdom, embodied in tacit norms and skilled expertise – wisdom that is rarely made explicit except when contested, and is often obscured when questions about the status and reach of archaeological evidence figure in high-profile crisis debates.
Download or read book From Antiquarian to Archaeologist written by Tim Murray and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-04-16 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Brings together fourteen of Tim Murray’s papers on the history, philosophy, and sociology of archaeology published over two decades.” —Bulletin of the History of Archaeology This volume forms a collection of papers tracking the emergence of the history of archaeology from a subject of marginal status in the 1980s to the mainstream subject which it is today. Professor Timothy Murray’s essays have been widely cited and track over twenty years in the development of the subject. The papers are accompanied by a new introduction which surveys the development of the subject over the last twenty-five years as well as a reflection of what this means for the philosophy of archaeology and theoretical archaeology. This volume spans Tim’s successful career as an academic at the forefront of the study of the history of archaeology, both in Australia and internationally. During his career he has held posts in Britain and Europe as well as Australia. He has edited the Bulletin of the History of Archaeology since 2003.
Download or read book Epicurus and Democritean Ethics written by James Warren and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-05-23 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 2002 book explores the origins of the Epicurean philosophical system in the fifth and fourth centuries BC.
Download or read book Archaeology as Political Action written by Randall H. McGuire and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2008-04-03 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “It is rare to read an archaeological book that has the capacity to inspire, as this one has.”—Mark P. Leone, author of The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital “Archaeology as Political Action is a highly original work that will be important for archaeologists and others concerned with processes of social change in the world today and, more importantly, with making a difference.”—Thomas C. Patterson, coeditor of Foundations of Social Archaeology “This powerful statement by a leading archaeological thinker has profound implications for rigorous archaeological interpretation, community collaboration, and political intervention.”—Stephen W. Silliman, coeditor of Historical Archaeology
Download or read book What is Media Archaeology written by Jussi Parikka and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-23 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This cutting-edge text offers an introduction to the emerging field of media archaeology and analyses the innovative theoretical and artistic methodology used to excavate current media through its past. Written with a steampunk attitude, What is Media Archaeology? examines the theoretical challenges of studying digital culture and memory and opens up the sedimented layers of contemporary media culture. The author contextualizes media archaeology in relation to other key media studies debates including software studies, German media theory, imaginary media research, new materialism and digital humanities. What is Media Archaeology? advances an innovative theoretical position while also presenting an engaging and accessible overview for students of media, film and cultural studies. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the interdisciplinary ties between art, technology and media.
Download or read book Archaeology A Very Short Introduction written by Paul Bahn and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-08-30 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This entertaining Very Short Introduction reflects the enduring popularity of archaeology - a subject which appeals as a pastime, career, and academic discipline, encompasses the whole globe, and surveys 2.5 million years. From deserts to jungles, from deep caves to mountain tops, from pebble tools to satellite photographs, from excavation to abstract theory, archaeology interacts with nearly every other discipline in its attempts to reconstruct the past. In this new edition, Paul Bahn brings the text up to date, including information about new discoveries and interpretations in the field, and highlighting the impact of developments such as the potential use of DNA and stable isotopes in teeth, as well the effect technology and science are having on archaeological exploration. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
