Maybe I was a little misunderstood in my last mail: I want to put heavy
weight on the word archeology in my questions. I believe I realize what
kind of rules science generally has to follow but what are the rules _in
archeology_ in addition of those applicable to almost every area of
science?
****************************************************************
>>Gerry: Whose rules make archaeological truths?
Shouldn't the rules be created by archeologists? And I believe the rules
are in use already but nobody just doesn't have the "whole set".
Archeologists are using rules everyday when doing their job and
interpreting the past. Maybe one could thus "create" a common set by
collecting the most common rules together?
The answer is: archeologists make the rules for archeology (just in the
same as the rules of physics have been created).
The reason I´m searching for the rules in archeology is not that I
wouldn't find "wild" interpretations usefull but my desire to restrict
the group of "acceptable" interpretation possibilities in a special
kind of situation. I´m _not_ trying to limit or deny the need for
"wild" thinking in archeology.
**************************************************************
Juan:
>>Consider a litarary example. A novel by Emile Zola (realist writer of
>>19th. century). Is Art or science? Readers consider it is art, because
>>there is something "estetic", although no beauty at all appears. It is
>>science? Someone can imagine that any description of reality is
science.
>>But here is the core of the question. Zola wrote a novel, and not a
work
>>of sociology.
Does that mean that intension defines whether something is science or
art??
************************************************************
Jani:
> 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)?".
Christos:
>>No, we cannot. We cannot know in advance what any science is able to
>>know. And it doesn't matter. What matters is what science knows, what
>>you do know and what you may contribute to your science's advancement.
>>Or, we all have to continue to move along the path, we don't need to
>>know the end of the path, as quite certainly there is not an end of
our
>>path.
What I meant with "What archeology is able to about the past?" was that
what would be possible to know (maximum) at the present situation if
we'd have all the information possible to get with the present methods
of archeology. The area of our knowledge (=what we are able to know
within archeology) can, of course, grow in the future.
>>We can rather safely assume that human remnants can be
>>considered for the sake of archaeology/paleoanthropology/etc. (i.e.
for
>>the sake of our knowledge) as objects.
But isn't archeology studying human being not as an object but as a
factor which has created the world archeology is studying? When we
present a hypothesis on societies in the past in archeology we need to
consider human being as a subject. That subject has reflected the
society in the past. As you can see I didn't talk about human bodies
which can, I agree, be seen as pure objects of archeology.
Thank you for your comments!
BR,
Jani
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|