Empiricism




Marila Marko

Lopéz Varela Sandra L.

Malden, MA

2019

The Encyclopedia of Archaeological Sciences

598

601

9780470674611

DOIhttps://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119188230.saseas0214



In archaeology, definitions of the term empiricism are varied. In one sense, empiricism refers to the lack of specific archaeological theory due to the concreteness of archaeological materials and the craft-like character of archaeological methods from excavation to data analysis. As a philosophical term, empiricism denotes a more specific genealogy of epistemological positions in archaeological theory. In epistemological terms, empiricism in archaeology varies from the naive inductivism of culture-historical archaeology to the logical positivism of New Archaeology. Lately, empiricism has been revived as a speculative attitude in the epistemology of archaeology after the ontological turn.



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