This is a bit late because my mailbox was down for a while... Sorry
BR,
Jani
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I agree that all knowledge is subjective and cannot be reduced to pure
objectivism.
Our mind has some kind of relevant part in the concept of truth. It's
too bad that
today's science often forgets the subject.
Science is certainly dealing with knowing but in a special way: science
handles the
truth through a determined (more or less) set of rules. The rules
through which
science works are the special thing which separates science from any
other way of
knowing.
I have noticed many times that maybe specially in archeology the truth
seems to be a
little bit too much in the eye of the beholder. This doesn't mean that
I'm thinking
the truth being something final. The truth I'm searching for is no
absolute truth.
Maybe an example helps me here:
We have three different opinions or theories (for example) dealing with
an
archeological problem/question. We have a non-archeologist person (to
make this
scenario easier let's imagine that the person doesn't have any knowledge
of his own)
who should evaluate the three theories and decide which of them is the
most
archeological. The person would need a set of basic rules by which the
evaluation
could be done. What are those "basic" rules in archeology?
Then the person would need to know what is the truth in archeology. I
think we can
find the answer by answering the question "What archeology as a science
is able to
know about the past (and the reality)?". To clarify that, we should
probably ask what
is the object of archeology. There is already an answer to this
question: it says that
archeology is studying the human being through physical remains etc. I'm
just not
satisfied with the answer because the human being is not only an object
but also a
subject. This can be seen in archeology when for example remains related
to religion
are studied: suddenly we archeologists have very little to say about the
past (well,
we maybe say much but I haven't been able to locate justification to our
theories...).
Anyway, the "archeological truth" could be a some kind of combination of
basic rules
and possible truths. And archeology is a science when done "by the
rules".
Wou, maybe there are enough questions already...
BR,
Jani Vatka
Ken Jacobs wrote:
> Given your belief that "truth lies in the fusion between both art and
> science" I would be very intrigued to know what features define for you "science."
>
> -Ken Jacobs UdeMontreal
>
> Gerry Reinhart-Waller wrote:
> >
> > Hello Jani,
> > Your question is most interesting since it's the same question I asked
> > my mentor many years ago. His answer was that truth in archaeology is
> > like truth in every discipline -- biology, history, anthropology etc.
> > He later wrote about truth being in the eye of the beholder -- which I'm
> > convinced that it is. But now that our world has been compressed under
> > the influence of the internet, I think that one needs to embrace
> > "science" as a ground mark, and then proceed carefully from there. I
> > also think that truth lies in the fusion between both art and science.
> > Regards,
> > Ger
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