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Multiple Analogies in Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Cameron Shelley
Cameron Shelley*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
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Abstract

Analogies have always had an important place in the reconstruction of past cultures by archaeologists. However, archaeologists and philosophers have objected on various grounds to the importance granted to analogy. Heider proposed the use of multiple analogies—analogies incorporating several sources—as a way of overcoming these objections. However, the merits and even the meaning of this proposal have not been explored adequately. This article presents an examination of instances of multiple analogies in the archaeological literature in order to motivate an adequate account of them in terms of the Multiconstraint theory of analogy, and in order to examine their role in archaeological inference. This article does not end the debate over analogies once and for all, but it does bring some needed clarity to this issue of central importance to the philosophy of archaeology.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 66 , Issue 4 , December 1999, pp. 579 - 605
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

Send requests for reprints to the author, Department of Philosophy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48108-1003.

‡

Thanks to Paul Thagard and an anonymous reviewer for comments on earlier versions of this paper. This research is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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