کد مقاله | کد نشریه | سال انتشار | مقاله انگلیسی | نسخه تمام متن |
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1160399 | 1490327 | 2016 | 11 صفحه PDF | دانلود رایگان |
Ethnographic analogy, the use of comparative data from anthropology to inform reconstructions of past human societies, has a troubled history. Archaeologists often express concern about, or outright reject, the practice—and sometimes do so in problematically general terms. This is odd, as (or so I argue) the use of comparative data in archaeology is the same pattern of reasoning as the ‘comparative method’ in biology, which is a well-developed and robust set of inferences which play a central role in discovering the biological past. In pointing out this continuity, I argue that there is no ‘special pleading’ on the part of archaeologists in this regard: biologists must overcome analogous epistemic difficulties in their use of comparative data. I then go on to emphasize the local, empirically tractable ways in which particular ethnographic analogies may be licensed.
Journal: Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A - Volume 55, February 2016, Pages 84–94