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Synergy through Disunity, Science as Social Practice: Comments on Vanpool and Vanpool

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Scott R. Hutson
Scott R. Hutson*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, 232 Kroeber Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94709-3710
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Abstract

In “The Scientific Nature of Postprocessualism”, VanPool and VanPool (1999) attempt to demonstrate that the sometimes hostile debate between processualist and postprocessualist archaeologies disguises substantive intellectual similarities. The most important similarity is their conformity to a refined definition of science. This definition is based on seven criteria that, as a group, demarcate science from nonscience. VanPool and VanPool pay inadequate attention to critiques of the notion that science can be clearly separated from other forms of inquiry. These critiques come from both within the literature VanPool and VanPool cite as well as from bodies of literature that they do not acknowledge, such as recent sociological, philosophical, and anthropological studies of science. Many of the demarcation criteria can be shown to suffer from overly simplistic accounts of the connections between evidence and hypothesis. Other demarcations do not recognize the social nature of scientific inquiry and the consequent incorporation of interests at various scales. Although VanPool and VanPool believe their criteria of science will promote synergy between processual and postprocessual, this paper questions the conceptualization of these schools and argues that synergy is better accomplished through the appreciation of difference among the various archaeologies and openness to alternative epistemologies.

Résumé

Résumé

En “The Scientific Nature of Postprocessualism”, VanPool y VanPool (1999) intentan mostrar cómo el hostil debate entre la arqueologia procesual y postprocesual oculta sustantivas semejanzas intelectuales. Para estos autores, la semejanza más importante radica en el trabajo conjunto de ambos campos sobre una definicián más amplia de las ciencias. Esta defición se basa en sietes criterios que, como grupo, distinguen a las ciencias de otras formas de conocimiento. Sin embargo, existe una literatura disponible sobre la sociología, filosofia y antropologia de la ciencias que contradice la posibilidad de separar claramente a estas de otros modos de conocimiento, a la cual VanPool y VanPool no prestan la suficiente atención. Se puede mostrar que varios de estos criterios distintivos sufren de explicaciones simplistas de las conecciones entre evidencia e hipotesis. Además, otras distinciones no toman en cuenta el contexte social de las ciencias con la consecuente incorporation de diverses intereses. Aunque VanPool y VanPool esperan que su definition de ciencia promoverá un sincretismo de la arqueología procesual y postprocesual, este articule cuestiona la conceptualization de estas dos escuelas arqueológicas, y enfatiza la posibilidad de lograr un sincretismo más poderoso a través de una apreciación de la variedad de arqueologías en práctica hoy dia, y una apertura a epistemologias alternativas.

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American Antiquity , Volume 66 , Issue 2 , April 2001, pp. 349 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 2001

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