METHODOLOGY \ PRINCIPLES \ 311b
1: G. Buccellati, February 2003

Philosophical systems

     Serious debates about certain aspects of philosophy, in particular system theory and the philosophy of science, have characterized the recent progress of the discipline of archaeology. These are treated more specifically in the section on archaeology as a method of analysis.
     In this section we will look more specifically at some of the broader philosophical systems that ground and condition the archaeological effort at theory.
     Epistemology.
     Phenomenology.
     Hermeneutics seeks to establish the basic correlation between truth and method, and as such it develops in a fresh vein the clasical concerns embodied in epistemology.
     In spite of my fundamental acceptance of such an underlying (ultimately, one might say, ontological) validity of our mental constructs, I will make a case for a dimension of modern thought, deconstruction, that is, in unexpected ways, central to the core effort of the Urkesh website.
     Semiotics.


References

     Only a few references are adduced here from a vast literature on the subject.

1992 J.-C. Gardin and C. S. Peebles, Representations in Archaeology, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
An series of articles dealing especially with semiotics and its application in archaeology (and conversely, how archaeology can contribute to semiotics).