Archaeology is an inherently philosophical discipline; archaeologists grapple with philosophical issues in all aspects of practice, and routinely draw on philosophical sources to define the goals and standards of archaeological inquiry. Although not so well developed, there is also trade in the other direction; philosophers of science have variously commented upon, analyzed, and participated in the archaeological debates generated by this philosophical engagement. The most contentious of these debates have to do with questions of disciplinary identity, whether archaeology is a scientific or a humanistic undertaking; and with the epistemic and methodological challenges of working with an archaeological database. Intertwined with these issues is persistent debate about the goals appropriate to archaeology and the relationship between internal, disciplinary interests and the contextual, societal values and interests that animate both public and professional in the cultural past. The aim of this course is to selectively examine the philosophical underpinnings of archaeology as articulated in and through debates about these issues.

In the first few weeks of the course we consider historical antecedents to the New Archaeology and the formation of self-consciously scientific models of archaeological practice, focusing on the philosophical literature that informed these debates. We then turn to a selection of pivotal issues that have become the focus of internal debate about the viability of such models: explanation versus interpretation; evidential reasoning as understood in terms of hypothesis testing versus hermeneutic interpretation; the role of background knowledge and strategies of triangulation in model building and evaluation; relativist challenges and ideals of objectivity. These disciplinary debates will be considered in relation to several substantial shifts in philosophical thinking about the scientific practice that call into question many of the assumptions that frame debate between processual and post-processual models of archaeological practice.

Texts available through the University bookstore:

• Kuhn, T. S. (1970 [1962]) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (required)
• Thomas, Julian (ed.), Interpretive Archaeology: A Reader. Continuum International Publishing Group, London, 2001. (optional)
  
• Wylie, Alison, Thinking from Things: Essays in the Philosophy of Archaeology. Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 2002. (required)

Other assigned readings are available on-line, through the readings folder link.

Seminar requirements include in-class presentations and active particpiation (20%), three short reading responses (15%), and an analytic term paper on one of the topics discussed in the course of the quarter (65%). Details will be distributed in class.

I. Old Archaeology, New Archaeology, and Philosophical Debate

March 26/28: Traditional Archaeology in Context

• Wissler, C. (1917) "The New Archaeology." American Museum Journal 17: 100-101.
• Dixon, R. B. (1913) "Some Aspects of North American Archaeology'," with comments by Laufer. American Anthropologist 15: 549-577.
• Chamberlin, T. C. (1890) "The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses." Science 15: 92. Reprinted in Science 148 (1965): 745-759.
• Platt, J. R. (1964) "Strong Inference." Science 146 (3642): 347-353.
• Wylie, Thinking from Things: chapter 1

April 2: Critical Anticipations

• Kluckhohn, C. (1939) "The Place of Theory in Anthropological Studies." Philosophy of Science 6: 328-344.
• Caldwell, J. R. (1959) "The New American Archaeology." Science 129: 303-307.
• Smith, M. A. (1955) "The Limitations of Inference in Archaeology." Archaeological News Letter 6.1.
• Johnson, F. (1961) "A Quarter Century of Growth in American Archeology."American Antiquity 27: 1-6.
• Taylor, W. W. (1948) A Study of Archeology (Carbondale IL: Southern Illinois University Press): chapters 2 and 6.
• Wylie, Thinking from Things: chapter 2.

April 9/11: (Another) New Archaeology and Its Philosophical Roots

• Hempel, C. G. (1942) "The Function of General Laws in History." Journal of Philosophy 39: 35-48.
• Hempel, C. G. (1966) "Scientific Inquiry: Invention and Test." In Philosophy of Natural Science, pp. 3-18. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall.
• Flannery, K. V. (1967) "Cultural History versus Cultural Process: A Debate in American Archaeology." Scientific American 217(2)(August): 119-122.
• Watson, P. J., S. A. LeBlanc, and C. L. Redman (1971) Explanation in Archaeology: An Explicitly Scientific Approach, preface and chapter 6.
• Recommended: Binford, L. R. (1962) "Archeology As Anthropology." American Antiquity 28: 217-225.
• Recommended: Clarke, D. L. (1973) "Archaeology: The Loss of Innocence." Antiquity 47: 6-18.

April 16/18 Paradigms and Revolutions

• Kuhn, T. S. (1970 [1962]) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: selections tba.
• Meltzer, D. J. (1979) "Paradigms and the Nature of Change in American Archaeology." American Antiquity 44: 644-657.
• Schuyler, R. L. (1971) "The History of American Archaeology: An Examination of Procedure." American Antiquity 36.4: 382-409.

II. Focal Issues: Explanation, Evidence, Facts and Values

April 23/25: Explanation

• Salmon, M. H. (1982) "Structure of Archaeological Explanation." In Philosophy and Archaeology, pp. 113-139. New York: Academic Press.
• Read, D. W. and S. A. LeBlanc (1978) "Descriptive Statements, Covering Laws, and Theories in Archaeology." Current Anthropology 19: 307-335.
• Risjord, Mark W. (2000) "Explanation," in Woodcutters and Witchcraft: Rationality and Interpretive Change in the Social Sciences, chapter 4. Albany: SUNY Press.
• Wylie, Thinking from Things: chapter 16.
• Recommended: Fritz, J. M. and F. T. Plog (1970) "The Nature of Archaeological Explanation." American Antiquity 35: 405-412.

April 30/May 2: Interpretation

• Collingwood, R.G. (1978 [1939]) "The Logic of Question and Answer." In Autobiography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 29-43.
• Collingwood, R.G., (1956 [1949]) "Historical Evidence," in The Idea of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 249-281.
• Follesdal, D. (1979) "Hermeneutics and the Hypothetico-Deductive Method," Dialectica 33: 317-336.
• Kosso, P., (1991) "Method in Archaeology: Middle-Range Theory As Hermeneutics." American Antiquity 56: 621-627.
• Thomas, Introduction; Johnsen and Olsen, "Hermeneutics and Archaeology"; Tilley, "Interpreting Material Culture": in Interpretive Archaeology.
• Recommended: Hodder, I. (1991) "Interpretive Archaeology and Its Role." American Antiquity 56: 7-18.

May 7/9: Evidence

• Patrik, "Is There an Archaeological Record?" in Interpretive Archaeology.
• Kosso, P. (1992) "Observation of the Past." History and Theory 31: 21-36.
• Chippindale, C. (2002) "Capta and Data." American Antiquity 65(4): 605-612.
• Smith, B. D. (1977) "Archaeological Inference and Inductive Confirmation." American Anthropologist 79(1977): 598-617.
• Moser, S. and C. Gamble (1997) "Revolutionary Images: The Iconic Vocabulary for Representing Human Antiquity." In B. Le Molyneaux (ed.), The Cultural Life of Images: Visual Representation in Archaeology. New York: Routledge.
• Wylie, Thinking from Things: chapter 7.
• Recommended: Hill, J. N. and R. K. Evans (1972) "A Model for Classification and Typology." In D. L. Clarke (ed.), Models in Archeology, pp. 231-271. London: Methuen.

May 14/16: Triangulation and Epistemic Independence

• Shapere, D. (1982) "The Concept of Observation in Science and Philosophy." Philosophy of Science 49: 485-525.
• Hacking, I. (1981) "Do We See Through a Microscope?" Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 18: 305-322.
• Wylie, Thinking from Things: chapter 15
• Shott, M. J. (1998) "Status and Role of Formation Theory in Contemporary Archaeological Practice." Journal of Archaeological Research 6.4: 299-329.
• Recommended: Raab, M. L. and A. C. Goodyear (1984) "Middle-Range Theory in Archaeology: A Critical Review of Origins and Applications." American Antiquity 49.2: 255-268.

May 21/23: Hyperrelativism

• Shanks, M., C. Tilley (1989) "Archaeology into the 1990s: Questions Rather Than Answers," and "Reply to Comments On Archaeology into the 1990s." Norwegian Archaeological Review 22: 1-14, 42-54. With comments by Bender, Hodder, Olsen, et. al. pp. 15-41.
• Trigger, B. G. (1989) "Hyperrelativism, Responsibility and the Social Sciences." Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology 26: 776-797.
• Barrett, "Fields of Discourse"; Yates, "Archaeology Through the Looking-glass"; Leone et. al., "Toward a Critical Archaeology": in Interpretive Archaeology.
• Wylie, Thinking from Things: chapters 11 and 12.
• Recommended: a selecton of papers from Evaluating Multiple Narratives: Beyond Nationalist, Colonialist, and Imperialist Archaeologies, edited by Junko Habu, Clare Fawcett, John Michael Matsunaga. New York: Springer, in press.

May 30: Objectivism

• Megill, Allan. 1994. Four Senses of Objectivity. In Rethinking Objectivity. In A. Megill (ed.), pp. 1-20. Durham NC: Duke University Press.
• Hacking, Ian. 1999. Why Ask What? In The Social Construction of What?, pp. 1-34. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
• Wylie, "The Integrity of Narratives: Deliberative Practice, Pluralism, Multivocality," in Evaluating Multiple Narratives.