Thinking from Things: Essays in the Philosophy of Archaeology

Preface......Page 10
Acknowledgments......Page 18
Part One: Introduction: Philosophy from the Ground Up......Page 20
Part Two: How New Is the New Archaeology, and Other Historical Essays......Page 42
1. How New Is the New Archaeology?......Page 44
2. The Typology Debate......Page 61
3. The Conceptual Core of the New Archaeology......Page 76
4. Emergent Tensions in the New Archaeology......Page 97
5. Arguments for Scientific Realism......Page 116
6. Between Philosophy and Archaeology......Page 125
Part Three: Interpretive Dilemmas Crisis Arguments in the New Archaeology......Page 134
7. The Interpretive Dilemma......Page 136
8. Epistemological Issues Raised by Symbolic and Structuralist Archaeology......Page 146
9. The Reaction against Analogy......Page 155
10. Putting Shakertown Back Together: Critical Theory in Archaeology......Page 173
11. Archaeological Cables and Tacking: Beyond Objectivism and Relativism......Page 180
Part Four: On Being “Empirical” but Not “Narrowly Empiricist”......Page 188
12. “Heavily Decomposing Red Herrings”: Middle Ground in the Anti-/Postprocessualism Wars......Page 190
13. Bootstrapping in the Un-natural Sciences— Archaeology, for Example......Page 198
14. The Constitution of Archaeological Evidence: Gender Politics and Science......Page 204
15. Rethinking Unity as a “Working Hypothesis” for Philosophy of Science: How Archaeologists Exploit the Disunities of Science......Page 219
16. Unification and Convergence in Archaeological Explanation......Page 230
Part Five: Issues of Accountability......Page 246
17. Ethical Dilemmas in Archaeological Practice: The (Trans)formation of Disciplinary Identity......Page 248
Notes......Page 266
References Cited......Page 312
Names Index......Page 342
Subject Index......Page 346