
Contents
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Introduction Introduction
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Logical empiricism (‘neopositivism’) Logical empiricism (‘neopositivism’)
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Systems thinking and processualism Systems thinking and processualism
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Karl Popper and falsificationism Karl Popper and falsificationism
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‘Scientific realism’ ‘Scientific realism’
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The ‘new’ philosophy of science, social constructivism, feminism, and post-processualism The ‘new’ philosophy of science, social constructivism, feminism, and post-processualism
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The ‘new’ philosophy of science, as seen today The ‘new’ philosophy of science, as seen today
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Recent anti-realisms and challenges to realism Recent anti-realisms and challenges to realism
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Alison Wylie’s work Alison Wylie’s work
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The recent influence of biology and the cognitive sciences The recent influence of biology and the cognitive sciences
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Naturalism and anti-naturalism Naturalism and anti-naturalism
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Interpretive archaeology: phenomenology and hermeneutics Interpretive archaeology: phenomenology and hermeneutics
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Contemporary philosophy of science Contemporary philosophy of science
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Conclusion Conclusion
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Suggested reading Suggested reading
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References References
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Positivist and Post-Positivist Philosophy of Science
Get accessJohn Preston is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Reading. He is the author of: Feyerabend: Philosophy, Science and Society, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997), Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: A Reader’s Guide, (London: Continuum, 2008), and editor of the third volume of Paul Feyerabend’s Philosophical Papers, Knowledge, Science and Relativism: Philosophical Papers, Volume 3, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), and The Worst Enemy of Science?: Essays in Memory of Paul Feyerabend, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). He works mainly on late nineteenth and early twentieth-century philosophy of science, and has been the Secretary of the British Wittgenstein Society. He is currently writing a book about Ludwig Wittgenstein and certain late nineteenth-century philosopher-scientists who influenced him.
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Published:03 March 2014
Cite
Abstract
Interactions between archaeology and philosophy are traced, from the ‘New Archaeology’s’ use of ideas from logical empiricism, the subsequent loss of confidence in such ideas, the falsificationist alternative, the rise of ‘scientific realism’, and the influence of the ‘new’ philosophies of science of the 1960s on post-processual archaeology. Some recent ideas from philosophy of science are introduced, and that discipline’s recent trajectory, featuring debate between realists and anti-realists, as well as a return to ‘classic’ concerns about explanation, causation, and laws of nature, is described. Many interactions between philosophy of science and archaeology have been based on a misplaced quest for a single ‘off-the-peg’ methodology or other philosophical framework for archaeology. Historical conditions have fostered the damaging idea that archaeologists have to choose between ‘positivism’ and subjectivism. I conclude by suggesting what kinds of contemporary philosophical work might interest archaeologists, and argue that philosophers should recognize the distinctive heterogeneity of archaeology.
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