2.

The Philosophy of Archaeology

Robert W. Preucel

Archaeology is a common theoretical hat-rack for all our parochial hats.

L. Clarke 1973]
-David

Seventeen years ago/ in his classic article on the "loss of

disciplinary innocence," David Clarke (7973) observed that AngloAmerican
archaeology had passed through three thresholds of intellectual development.
They were consciousness, self-consciousness, and critical self-consciousness.
According to Clarke, archaeology achieved consciousness when it was first
defined as a discipline and began to be practiced by specialists. Archaeology
emerged into a stage of self-consciousness when it began to evaluate its own
procedures and methodologies. Finally, archaeology reached a stage of
critical self-consciousness with the disciplinary attempts to understand its
own philosophical basis. Clarke (1973:8) further noted that the process of
moving from one stage to the next is an adaptive one, related to both the
changing internal content of the discipline and the external spirit of the times.
Today archaeology is grappling with the deeper implications of the third
phase. At issue are fundamental ontological, epistemological, and practical
issues. Do archaeologists discover an objective past, or do they create
alternative pasts? Is archaeology properly considered a human science or a
natural science? What are the social responsibilities of the archaeologist with
regard to the uses of the past in the present? In the course of dealing with
these and related questions, archaeology has turned once again to philosophy
for guidance. ]ust as positivism was adopted by processual archaeology in
the 1960s, postpositivism is currently being embraced by the movement now
known as postprocessual archaeology. This posrocessual movement is
signified by an attack on the scientism of processual archaeology (Hodder
1982b, 1984a; Shanks and Tilley 7987) and the exploration of alternative
interpretive frameworks (Hodder 1986; Leone et a1.798n.
In this chapter, I examine the philosophical content of three influential
reseach programs in Anglo-American achaeology. Specifically, I focus on

Procsual and Postyocswl Archaeologes: Multiple Ways of Knozaing the Past, edited by Robert
W. Preucel. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper No. 10. @ 1991 by the
BoadofTrustees,SouthenlllinoisUnivesity. Allrightsreserved. ISBN0-88104-074-6.

1n
18 | R. W.Preucel
positivist archaeology, the dominant framework under which archaeology is
conducted today, and two recent, but still marginal, developments, known as
hermeneutic and critical archaeologies.l I begin by reviewing thei intellectual
origins within philosophy and then document their use in archaeology,
drawing on the writings of their respective leading exponents, Lewis Binford,
Ian Hodder, and Mark Icone. I make no claim of completeness, and in fact, I
fully recognize that I do an injustice to many nuanced positions within each of
the programs in order to highlight specific aeas of contrast between them.
Finally, I discuss some of the cognitive interests underlying the three
approaches and condude that rather than being antithetical, as they are so
often presented in debate, they are in fact complementary projects that must
be pursued simultaneously if archaeology is to accept the responsibilities of
being a social science.
Positivist Approaches
Despite its overwhelming impact on the philosophy of science, the
term postipisrz is surprisingly difficult to define with any precision. A recent
review has distinguished no fewer than twelve different definitions
(Halfpenny 1982). Notwithstanding this vaiability, most philosophers agree
that positivism encompasses the theory of knowledge that seeks to explain
empirically based observational statements in terms of general laws. Three
distinct but related schools can be identified-Comtean positivism, logical
empiricism, and logical positivism (Outhwaite 798n. k is mainly in the latter
form that positivism was taken up by the new archaeology.
Positivism was originally coined in the early nineteenth century by the
French sociologist Auguste Comte. It was called positive or scientific
knowledge to distinguish it from nonpositive and nonscientific knowledge
characteristic of theology and metaphysics. Comtean positivism has three
basic tenets (Halfpenny 1982). The first is that the only kind of admissible
knowledge is that which is obtained through the senses by means of the
scientific method. That is, meaning can be attached only to those statements
about observable phenomena that are testable. The second is that all sciences
can be integrated under a single natural science model. This unity-of-science
thesis reflects the position that, in principle, there are no differences between
natural and social phenomena. The third is that the growth of knowledge is
responsible for social progress. Specifically, the discovery of laws of sociery is
essential to achieve both stabilify and social reform.
The second school is the logical empiricism of the Vienna Circle, which
arose during the 1920s and 1930s. Led by Moritz Schlick, its regular members
were Rudolph Carnap, Herbert Feigl, Hans Hein, Viktor Kraft, Otto Neurath,
and Friedrich Weismann. The Vienna Circle broke with Comte on two main
issues (Outhwaite 1987). Its members argued that Comte's law of social
development was untestable and therefore metaphysical. They also argued
that human behavior could ultimately be reduced to the principles of physics.
At the cornerstone of their philosophy was the analytic/synthetic distinction.
Philosophy of Achaeolory I 19
virtue of the meanings of the
on the basis of the way things
ientist was thus to develop a
The third school is the logical positivism of the 1940s and 1950s, often
referred to as the "received view" of science. Its principal exponents were
Rudolph Camap, Carl Hempel, Ernest Nagel, and the early Karl Popper. The
logical positivists rejected the analytic/synthetic distinction on the grounds
that the meanings of statements cannot be established without reference to
other statements that ae themselves in need of analysis. As a resul the
central project of logical positivism shifted away from language to the
structure of scientific explanation and the verification principle. For the
logical positivists, a causal explanation of an event involves deducing a
descriptive statement of the event from one or more general laws in
connection with certain unique statements about initial conditions. The
procedure was formalized by Hempel as the deductive-nomological (D-N)
mode of explanation (Hempel 7942; Hempel and Oppenheim 1948). More
recent vesions have emphasized probabilistic rather than deterministic
modes (e.9., Salmon et al. 1971).
Two different approaches to verification should be distinguished.
Confirmationists, such as the early Hempel, claimed that empirical evidence
could be used to lend support to statements. The greater number of cases that
are found to be in accord with the predictions from the statement and the
wider variety of circumstances in whidr these cases occur, the more strongly
confirmed is the statement. Falsificationists, like Popper, take the position
that no amount of empirical support can lend validity to a statement since the
next observation is just as likely to disconfim as confirm it. Using this logic,
Popper has suggested that in evaluating the validity of statements, scientists
should endeavor to disconfim rather than confirm thei theoies.
In archaeology, Lewis Binfod popularized a version of logical positivism to
counter the unstructued empiricism of aditional achaeology. One problem
with traditional approaches had been that arguments could only be evaluated
on the basis of the authority of their proponents. Positivism and the scientific
method were adopted because they provided an objective means of gaining
confidence in statements about the past. Binford justified his use of the
scientific method in achaeology from a "practical-science point of view"
(Binford 7972a:78). The statement eveals Binford's instrumentalist position,
the view that science is useful precisely because it provides a framework for
evaluating ideas once they have been proposed (Binford 7977a.'2). Science
thus provides control over individual idiosyncrasy.
Early on, Binford and others (e.g., Watson et a1.1971) sessed the covering
law model of explanation and the testing methodology as the two hallmarks
in the linkage of modern observations with past events through laws of
20 | R. W.Preucel
cultual functioning (Binford 79b:269). According to Binford, the accuracy
of ou knowledge about the past must be tested in a rigorous fashion, and the
rigor is uniquely provided through the testing procedure embodied in the
scientific method (Binford 1968a:16). In practice, it involves making
observations on the archaeological record, formulating hypotheses to account
for observed patterning, and testing those hypotheses against independent
empirical data.
In the late 1970s Binford began to acknowledge a fundamental
epistemological problem with his program. This is the problem of assigning
meaning to the achaeological record in the absence of direct observation. In
what has come to be called his "statics-dmarnics" argument, he has pointed
out that no amount of studying statics can provide the information necessary
t' 'th model and test arguments about the relationship between dynamics
;tatics (Binford "1983b:67). This is because of the paradox that the
archaeologist must use "one set of conceptual tools to evaluate another set of
conceptual tools created to explain the past" (Binford 7977a:2). Here we see
Binford struggling with the problem of maintaining a distinction between
theoretical (analytic) statements and empirical (synthetic) ones.
In order to circumvent this paradox, Binford has proposed that
archaeologists study those siruations where behavior is continually taking
place. Fieldwork, he argues, should focus on those contexts where the
production, use, and discard of material culture is empirically observable.
Only by making observations in the present will archaeologists be able to
construct a "Rosefta stone" with which Past material culture can be translated.
Binford's approach has come to be known as "middle'range theory" (Binfod
7977a:6). In spite of certain theoretical problems (see Raab and Goodyear
1984), middle-range theory has proven to be a extremely productive research
area spinning off the subfields of ethnoachaeology, modern material culture
studies, and experimental archaeology. And, indeed, the systematic
integration of these subfields is what Schiffer (1976) calls "behavioral
archaeology."
It is a curious fact that, in adopting logical positivism, processual
aitique of positivism
archaeologists paid almost no attention to the mounting
within philosophy itself. Binford, by his conspicuous silence on the subject,
seems to imply that the debate is irrelevant to archaeology. Yet, in
philosophy, the edifice was already being shaken at the hands of its own
builders. Both Hempel (1965) and Quine (1951) have siticized the trin pillars
of positivism-the theory-independent nature of data and the logical struchre
of scientific explanation. Kuhn (1970) and Feyerabend (1975) contributed to
this situation by stressing that nonscientific (sociological) factors directly
affect the outcome of scientific researc-h. In philosophy, this reassessment has
esulted in some radical modifications to positivism (Glymour 1980) and
engendered the rise of posositivist approaches (Dallmayr and McCarthy
79m.
In archaeology, a number of these issues have been raised in connection
with Binford's processual program. Alison Wylie (1989a) argues that the
attempt to ground archaeological explanation upon a body of observationally
Philosophy of Archaeology | 21
derived relationships linking behavior and material cultue is flawed. This is
because ethnographic data is just as theory laden as ardraeological data with
the result that the problem of interpretation is simply transferred from one
discipline to another. Patty Jo Watson (198) has shown that even if we were
able to obtain well-confirmed principles in the present we have no
justification for using them to explain past societies because we can never
know the degree to which our analogy is accurate. As powerful as these two
aitiques are, we should not jump hastily to the condusion that positivism is
bankrupt and that all that remains is the spectre of relativism. The testing
methodology can provide at least a "limited confirmation" of our ideas
especially when it implicates different strands of data drawn from different
sources (Wylie 1989a:15). Trigger (1989) makes much the same point in
arguing that the dramatic increase in arc-haeological data actually constrains
interpretation.
Hermeneutic Approaches
Hermeneutcs refers to a diverse group of philosophical approaches
that share a common interest in eliciting meaning through interpretation. It
has its origins in the theological problem of interpreting religious texts and
has evolved into a philosophical framework for understanding cultural
phenomena. Most hermeneutic approaches retain their philological heritage
and adopt a textual metaphor whereby understanding the meaning of a social
practice is related to deciphering the meaning of a historical document Three
sepaate schools can be distinguished: romantic hermeneutics, philosophical
hermeneutics, ad textual hermeneutics. In postprocessual archaeology, the
first and the third have received the most attention.
Romantic hermeneutics developed in Germany in the late nineteenth
century to provide an epistemological foundation for the sciences of cultue
(Geistestissenschaften) (Gadamer 1987; Outhwatte 7987). It is associated with
the writings of Wilhelm Dilthey and his followers, Herman Nohl, George
Misch, and Bernhad Groethuysen. Dilthey's project was to overcome the
dilemma of historical knowledge, that is, the different frames of reference of
the historian and the crlhre under study. In order to address that problem,
he developed the methodology of ahistorical transfeence or empathic
understanding (Verstehn). According to Dilthey, the historian must perform
the empathetic act of transporting oneself into the past and thereby become
part of the culture being studied. The procedure involves the total
subsumption of self in order to transcend lived experience, worldview, and
professional interest.
Philosophical hermeneutics is assocjated with the writings of Hans-Georg
Gadamer. It differs from traditional hermeneutics in its rejection of ahistorical
ansference and its advocacy of a method of dialectical mediation (Gadamer
198. The concepts of historicity and prejudice are particularly important in
Gadamer's method. Ir Gadamer's view interpretation of the past is always
predicated upon the point of view of the present. That is to say, interpretation
221 R.W. Preucel
can only take part by virtue of its own historicity. He further states that
objectivity is illusory since it is part of the historical reality of being an
individual (Gadamer 7975:267). Prejudices, rather than being something to
eliminate or repress, are thus necessary conditions for understanding. And
understanding can only be achieved through the dialectical confontation of
prejudice and openness that results in a working out of a projection through
the controlled movement between past and present. This controlled
movement is the famous hermeneutic cirde.
The third school can be distinguished in the work of Paul Ricoeur who
develops a theory of action as a text. Ricoeur (1971) distinguishes,two kinds
of textual readings, naive readings and stuctual analysis. Naive readings are
appropriate for certain texts whee meaning proceeds directly from sense to
referent and, consequently, there is no impediment to understanding.
Structual analysis is required for texts such as literary works where there is a
second indirect referent along with the direct referent. Readings of the latter
texts are achieved by "guessing" the figurative meaning in a naive reading and
then modifying that reading according to structural referents in the external
world. Guesses then ae evaluated using the logic of probability such that the
best reading is the one that can relate the figurative meaning to the structural
meaning in the deepest, most consistent way.
The intoduction of hermeneutics to archaeology has been almost
singlehandedly accomplished by Ian Hodder. In late 1970s Hodder, a former
student of David Clarke, experienced an intellectual crisis that caused him to
reexamine the philosophical basis of processual archaeology. He puts it
succinctly as follows: "[T]he ditemma apparent for achaeologists is that there
is a widespread desire for science and objective tests, a fear of speculation and
the subjective, and yet we want to say something about the past' . . . Yet to
say anything about the past, and past ideas, involves moving beyond the data
to interpret them, and there can be no testing of these interpretations because
the data themselves are part of the same argument as the theories" (Hodder
7984a:28). Hodder is thus led to reject processual archaeology on two
grounds: first, because of its failure to deal with such basic anthopological
issues as intentionality and social action and, second, because of the
limitations of its positivist testing program due to the theory ladenness of
data.
Hodder's thought is extremely eclectic, drawing liberally from the
traditional and textual hermeneutics. As a primary intellectual influence, he
cites R. G. Collingwood the philosopher of history and amateur archaeologist.
A follower of Dilthey, Collingwood believed that the only way the past can be
known is through reliving it. Essentially, the historian (or achaeologist) seeks
to project him,/herself back in time into a particular context to discover the
significance underlying a given action. Like Dilthey and Collingwood,
Hodder argues that the empathic procedure is justified on the basis of a
continuity between the past and present, a commonality of feeling such that
"each event, although unique, possesses a significance which can be
comprehended by all people at all times" (Ilodder 1986:95). As an example of
the procedure, Hodde cites his study of the Neolithic in western Europe to
Philosophy of Archaeology | 23
show how inferred symbolic meanings regarding ritual and domestic
architecture "make sense" within active social strategies concerned with
legitimating contol over productive and reproductive resources.
Hodder's textual approach is outlined in his book Reading the past (Hodder
1986) and elaborated upon in a series of recent articles (Hodder 1988, 1989c).
Here he puts forth the i
analogous to the reading
direct since material cultu
speech (Hodder 7989c:72).
a continuous dialogue of moving between sense and referent. Stated another
way, this reading involves the transfer of meaning from one context to
another through an interpretative exercise in which each individual actor
must decide upon appropriate signification. FIow, then, is it possible for
different readers to arive at the same or similar meanings? Hodder answers
this question in two ways. First, he notes that ambiguity is always present,
since the meaning of an object is neve fixed and is always subject to
reinterpretation. Second, he states that context, defined as organized
experience brought to bear upon an event, determines the extent to which the
same thing can be said to possess the same meaning.
The critique of hermeneutic archaeology is as yet relatively unsophisticated
(cf. Binford 1988; Earle and Preucel 1987; Watson 1986). Most studies have
adopted an externalist position in arguing that the hermeneutic approach is
debilitated by the lack of any explicit interest in theory or method. That
critique cannot stand, however, if one takes seriously the hermeneutic claim
that interpretation should not be codified and should in fact differ from
context to context. What I would like to take up instead is Hodder's use of a
textual metaphor. In literary criticism, the project is to mediate between the
text and the author for an audience. When this approach is imported to
archaeology, a number of difficulties immediately manifest themselves.
Except in perhaps some extremely rare circumstances, there is no single
author to be interpreted in the reading of the archaeological text. The
archaeological record is a palimpsest of the actions of multiple authors, each
with their own interests and identities. This fact suggests that we need to pay
more attention to who these authors wee, how texts are created and assigned
meaning, who our audience is and what thei interests are.
Critical Theory Approaches
The term critical theory has been used to chaacterize avariety of
philosophical approaches that shae the common goal of the emancipation of
the individual. The approaches have thei origin in German idealism and the
writings of Karl Max. Critical approaches view society as being composed of
inherent contradictions. The critical project is to expose those ideologies that
systematically mask the contradictions within society and to manipulate them
in order to effect change. Critical theorists thus seek to simultaneously
explain the social world, criticize it, and empower their audience to overthrow
241R.W.Preucel Philosophy of Archaeology | 25

"one of how we got from the past to the present but rather what is
communicated by going from the present to the past" (Leone 1981a:13, my
emphasis).
Leone (1982b) directly confronts the notion of self-consciousness in an
article on the state of cognitive archaeology. He identifies two different forms
of self-consciousness-a phenomenological view and a critical view. The
phenomenological view involves immersing oneself in another cultue ad
suspending one's own biases in order to achieve understanding. This
approach is closely related to the familiar participant-observer approach
adopted by some anthropologists. The critical view is associated with the
analysis of one's own social and political context through a process of self-
reflection. For Leone, a self-conscious archaeology is a study of the "history"
of ideology. Here the notion of history is particularly important since
ideology, by definition, seeks to mask its own history. The approach is well
illustrated in his critique of the outdoor museum at Shakertown, Kentucky. In
that analysis, Leone (1981b) reveals how our modern ideals of thriff industry,
and productivity are served by an exhibit that selectively emphasizes the
economic basis of Shaker society at the expense of the religious and social
foundations of Shaker life.
Recently, Leone ad his colleagues Parker Potter and Paul Shackel have
explored the uses of critical theory in demystifying the way in which different
pasts are constructed (Leone et al. 198n. A critical approach is required, they
argue, for two reasons. First, archaeology has been appropriated by those in
power to serve political ends in particular contexts. For example, Hatl (1990)
has recently shown how achaeology served colonial interests in South Afica
by denying the time depth of black history. Second, ideology existed in the
past and is characteristic of individuals attempting to mask or naturalize
existing class stratification, wealth holdings, and power relations. Leone and
others provide an example of that approach in practice with an analysis of
historic Annapolis. They show how a critical analysis of the segmentation of
tasks and standardization of products leads to an understanding of the racial
and institutional contradictions within current Annapolis society that can, in
turn, be used to guide the structure of public proglams.
Critical archaeology has been attacked on a numbe of different grotrnds
(see comments to Leone et al. 1987). Some critics take the position that it is of
little use in achaeology and the insights that it offets ae self-evident. Others
argue that if it is applicable to archaeology at all, it is only applicable to
historic contexts where written documents are available. L" view, both of
^y
those critiques are misguided. Critical theory involves, among other things,
an analysis of ourselves as archaeologists, and as any comPetent psychiatrist
will relate, we are anything but self-evident. With respect to prehistoric
contexts, there seems to be no reason not to experiment with critical theory
since ideology was as rnuch a component of prehistoric social life as it is of
modern social life. The more telling critique, then, is the critique that critical
theorists are themselves not adequately self-reflective. This observation is
certainly true and is something that must be continually confonted by oitical
theorists through practice.
 Philosophy of Achaeolo gy ZT
261 R. W.Prancel I
possible. This ambiguitn while not unique to archaeology, is compounded in
Discussion archaeology by the simple fact that there is no infimant who can be
consulted for meaning statements. Archaeologists, even more than
Inowwanttodawoutseveralconclusionsfromthisbrief practitioners of the other social sciences (with the notable exception of
overview of the philosophy of archaeolo history), are forced to "rethink the thoughts" of past individuals in rder to
the curent research Programs draws understand the intentions of past human actions. Iowever, because method
is there is
lit ,s
craim
as well' That th s seems
PhilosoPhical basis problematic, since he is reluctant to offer any internal criteria for a "best ft."
Tradition of German PhilosoPhers
while that may be understandable in terms of encouraging a multiplicity of
and citical theorists. Therefore, those who dismiss postprocessual readings, it does pose certain practical problems.
be cognizant of the fact that they are
?elhaps the most veng problem in qitical theory turns on its relationship
al tradion that has had and continues to
with history. To what extent is aitique historically determined, and to wht
modern anthropology (Macus and Fische
extent is it historically situated? The first position is the view that our
1986). western theoies and language actually impede our communication with
Second, these philosophical position those of radically different worldviews. Critique is thus a historical
one another that interact to determ movement determined by our own biases and experiences. The alternative
constructed his scientific position is that it is possible to construct a basis for citique that is part of
historical aPProach of ]am historical reality but at the same time distant from it. In this latter sense that it
hermeneutic and critical o might be said to be objective. For Habermas, the "ideal speech situation," a
similar sihration obtains in philosophy' communi is a symmetrical distribution of power,
provides In practice, however, his ideal lpeectr
situation fficult to implement and even when
implemented it cannot gua-rantee the resolution of competing interests.
Fourth, each of these approaches can be seen to represent different
t must be satisfied by all human
Processual archaeology represents
ce. These sciences are concerned

emancipatory science. These sciences are concerned with distinguishing

reference to emPirical observa between regularities of social action that are universal and those that ar
modern observations are just as ideologically determined and which can, in principle, be overthrown.
human behavior. The situation doe

thelastcenturyactuallyimposesasignificantconstraintuponinterpretation
(Trigger 1989).
The problem of interpretive adequacy is of interest to a number of
^.,1t," is an extremely- difficult text to
hermeneuric -.h";i;;ir'tr. rurut"ri But the resolution of these competing interests is, I argug the wrong goal for
read because it is arnfirous in the sense that
multiple readings are always
281 R. W.Preucel
both the social sciences in general and archaeology in particular. Instead,
what should be of central concern ae the specific forms that interests take as
they are being played out in actual practice. In what ways are they
transforming existing research programs through their interaction with one
another?
In their extreme forms, processual and posrocessual programs represent
fundamentally different kinds of approaches to knowledge acquisition. The
underlying goal of processual archaeology is to obtain an explanation of
human behavior. To explain something means to show how it is logically
entailed given certain initial assumptions. In processual archaeology, most
explanations are concerned with those cause-and-effect relationships that give
rise to cultural process. Hermeneutic archaeology seeks to achieve an
understandinc of past actions. To understand something means to be able to
fuse present and past contexts to see how a particular action was warranted.
In hermeneutic archaeology, suc-h understanding involves interpretation of
the archaeological record by taking advantage of common or universal
principles of human nature in such a way that an empathic linkage between
the past and the present is established. Critical archaeology attemPts to
provide self-understandng of the archaeologist conducting an analysis. Self-
understanding is essential to perrnit moral action, that is, how one individual
acts upon another. In critical archaeology, that involves examining oneself
with respect to why particular questions ae deemed worthy of being asked
and exposing the nature of any intellectual investment in a particular answer.
Rather than being antithetical, it is essential to recognize that the three
approaches ae in fact complementary (see Schaafsma, this volume). One key
to their relationship is provided by Karl-Otto Apel's (1984) complementary
thesis, which posits that explanation and undestanding can be viewed in
tems of two different kinds of subject-object relationships. The first of these
involves interaction between a real subject (the interpreter) and a second real
subject (the objecO. Because the second subject is objectified, the interpreter
can maintain an "objective" distance between him/herself and the second
subject. That allows for the ability to act in an analytical fashion. The second
addresses interaction between a real subject (the interpreter) and a second real
subject (co-subject). In this case, the second real subject is a cesubject and
participates more or less equally in the Process of communication and
cooperation. In this context there is no possibility for objective distance. This
underwrites the ability to take socially responsible action.
Extending the analysis to archaeologlr, there are three mutually reinforcing
projects that lie ahead. First, there is the project of explaining the past in
terms of patterns and processes. In order to achieve this, archaeology must
adopt a subject-object relationship with the archaeological record. This is best
accomplisheC through a form of neo-positivism that makes use of statistical
rather than universal laws. Second, there is the project of rnderstanding what
happened in the past in terms of meanings and subjective intentions. This
involves developing a subject-cesubject relationship between the interpreter
and past actors, which only seems to be possible through a hermeneutic
exercise. Third, there is the project of interacting with various interest grouPs
Philosophyof Archaeology | 29
to evaluate these explanations and interpretations. To do this, archaeology
must adopt a subject-co-subject relationship between the practitioners f
archaeology and the general public. This is effected by adopting a historically
self-conscious, critical framework. Each of these three projects must be
pursued simultaneously if archaeology is to continue to grow and develop as
a social science.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have argued that positivism, hermeneutics, and
critical theory represent different cognitive interests, each of which has a
legitimate place within the philosophical pantheon of achaeology. Rather
than champion one of the approaches at the expense of the others, I have
instead attempted to point out areas where each of the projects require work
and to emphasize their necessary interrelationships as mutually reinforcing
projects. If the analysis is correct, then it suggests that archaeology should
seek to explain the operation of culture process as empirically observed by
means of neo-positivist approaches, to understand the meaning of cultural
systems for those participants within it using hermeneutic procedures, and to
evaluate the degree to which such systems are transformations of both past
and present power relations from a critical framework. Only then will
archaeology be able to contribute to the difficult questions confronting the
postmodern world.
Acknowledgments
' I am grateful to David Freidel, Ian Hodder, Mark Johnson, Carl
Lamberg-Karlovsky, Mark Leone, Randy McGuire, Michael Schiffer, Patty Jo
Watson, Red Watson, Gordon Willey, and Alison Wylie, who were kind
enough to read and comment on earlier versions of this chapter. My
characterization of Karl-Otto Apel's position comes in part from informal
comments he made at the C. S. Peirce Sesquicentennal Conference held at
Harvard University, Fall 1989.
Note
1. For alternative characterizations of the philosophy of archaeoloty/ see Dunnell
(1989); Hodder (1986); Kelley and Hanen (1988); Patterson (7989c); Salmon (1982);
Schiffer (1981); Shanks and Tilley (1987); Watson et al. (7984); Wylie (1985c).
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Robert W. Preucel
(Occasional Paper No. 6)
edited by Sarah W. Neusius

Emergent Horticultual Economies

of the Eastern Woodlands
(Occasional Paper No. Z)
edited by WIIiam F. IGegan

Tracing Ardraeology's Past:

The Historiogaphy of Archaeology
(Southern trlinois University Press,
Publications in Archaeology)
edited by Andr al L. Christercon

Between Bands and States

(Occasional Paper No. 9) Center for Ar chaeolo gicI Inoestigations
edited by Suxn A- Gregg Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
Occasional Paper No. L0