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The post-processualists' approach to archaeology is diametrically opposed to that of the processualists. The processualists, as positivists, believed that the scientific method should and could apply to archaeological investigation, therefore allowing archaeologists to present objective statements about past societies based upon the evidence.
The new methodological approaches of the processual research paradigm include logical positivism (the idea that all aspects of culture are accessible through the material record), the use of quantitative data, and the hypothetico-deductive model (scientific method of observation and hypothesis testing).
It reintroduces the basic assumptions of positivism: the possibility and desirability of objective truth, and the use of experimental methodology. The work of philosophers Nancy Cartwright and Ian Hacking are representative of these ideas. [citation needed] Postpositivism of this type is described in social science guides to research methods. [7]
In 1973, David Clarke of Cambridge University published an academic paper in Antiquity claiming that as a discipline, archaeology had moved from its original "noble innocence" through to "self-consciousness" and then onto "critical self-consciousness", a symptom of which was the increasing recognition and emphasis on archaeological theory. As a ...
Philosophy of archaeology can also denote a certain approach or attitude applied to the discipline, such as feminist, Marxist, humanist or processual for example. These approaches are generally referred to as "theory" by archaeologists and are sometimes conflated with, but are not the same as, analytic philosophy of archaeology.
The Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory is a peer-reviewed academic journal which focuses on methodology and theory in archaeology. It is published quarterly by Springer Science+Business Media. [1] The journal originated in an annual edited volume series, Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, established by Michael Schiffer in ...
Although the positivist approach has been a recurrent theme in the history of western thought, modern positivism was first articulated in the early 19th century by Auguste Comte. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] His school of sociological positivism holds that society, like the physical world, operates according to scientific laws . [ 5 ]
Ian Richard Hodder CMG FBA (born 23 November 1948, in Bristol) is a British archaeologist and pioneer of postprocessualist theory in archaeology that first took root among his students and in his own work between 1980 and 1990. [1]