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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).
Postpositivism is the name D.C. Phillips [3] gave to a group of critiques and amendments which apply to both forms of positivism. [3] One of the first thinkers to criticize logical positivism was Karl Popper. He advanced falsification in lieu of the logical positivist idea of verificationism. [3]
Historicist arguments against positivist approaches in historiography include that history differs from sciences like physics and ethology in subject matter and method; [36] [37] [38] that much of what history studies is nonquantifiable, and therefore to quantify is to lose in precision; and that experimental methods and mathematical models do ...
Archaeological theory refers to the various intellectual frameworks through which archaeologists interpret archaeological data. Archaeological theory functions as the application of philosophy of science to archaeology, and is occasionally referred to as philosophy of archaeology.
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.
Archaeology journals are dominated by men. [6] Across publications, there are two to three times more papers by male authors than by women. [7] [8] [9] Many archaeology journals also show a gender citation gap: articles written by women are less likely to be cited, especially by men.
Constructive empiricism, logical positivism and instrumentalism agree that theories do not aim for truth about unobservables, which scientific realism denies. Constructive empiricism has been used to analyze various scientific fields, from physics to psychology (especially computational psychology ).