Inference to the best explanation: A common and effective form of archaeological reasoning

American Antiquity

Volumn 72, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 603-625

  Fogelin, Lars ^a  

^a ALBION COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 36749095170     PISSN: 00027316     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/25470436     Document Type: Article

References (89)

1. Arnold, Philip J. 2003 Back to Basics: The Middle-Range Program as Pragmatic Archaeology. In Essential Tensions in Archaeological Method and Theory, edited by Todd L. VanPool and Christine S. VanPool, pp. 55-66. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
2. Arnold, Phillip J., and Brian S. Wilkens2001 On the VanPools' "Scientific" Postprocessualism. American Antiquity 66:361-366.
3. Ascher, Robert 1961 Analogy in Archaeological Interpretation. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 17(4):317-325.
4. Bawden, Garth (editor) 2003 Readings in American Archaeological Theory: Selections from American Antiquity 1962-2002. Society for American Archaeology, Washington, D.C.
5. Binford, Lewis R. 1962 Archaeology as Anthropology. American Antiquity 28:217-225.
6. 1967 Smudge Pits and Hide Smoking: The Use of Analogy in Archaeological Reasoning. American Antiquity 32(1):1-12.
7. 1968a Some Comments on Historical Versus Processual Archaeology. Southwestern Journal of Archaeology 24:267-275.
8. 1968b Archaeological Perspectives. In New Perspectives in Archaeology, edited by Sally R. Binford and Lewis R. Binford, pp. 5-32. Aldine, Chicago.
9. 1977 General Introduction. In For Theory Building in Archaeology, edited by Lewis R. Binford, pp. 1-10. Academic Press, New York.
10. Binford, Sally R., and Lewis R. Binford (editors) 1968 New Perspectives in Archaeology. Aldine, Chicago.
11. Brody, Baruch A. 1970 Confirmation and Explanation. In Readings in the Philosophy of Science, edited by Baruch A. Brody, pp. 410-426. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
12. Brody, J. J. 1977 Mimbres Painted Pottery. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
13. Chamberlain, T. C. 1965[1890] The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses. Science 148(3671):754-759.
14. Cole, Fay-Cooper, Robert Bell, John Bennett, Joseph Caldwell, Norman Emerson, Richard MacNeish, Kenneth Orr, and Roger Willis 1951 Kincaid: A Prehistoric Metropolis. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
15. Collingwood, Robin G. 1946 The Idea of History. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
16. Dewey, John 1929 The Quest for Certainty. Minton, Balch, New York.
17. Dunnell, Robert C. 1982 Science, Social Science, and Common Sense: The Agonizing Dilemma of Modern Archaeology. Journal of Anthropological Research 38:1-25.
18. 1989 Aspects of the Application of Evolutionary Theory in Archaeology. In Archaeological Thought in America, edited by C. C. Lamberg-Karlovsky, pp. 35-49. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
19. 1992 Archaeology and Evolutionary Science. In Quandaries and Quests: Visions of Archaeology's Future, edited by LuAnn Wandsnider, pp. 209-224. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Carbondale.
20. Earle, Timothy K., and Robert W. Preucel 1987 Processual Archaeology and the Radical Critique. Current Anthropology 28:501-538.
21. Flannery, Kent V. 1973 Archaeology with a capitol S. In Research and Theory in Current Archaeology, edited by Charles L. Redman, pp. 47-58. Charles Wiley and Sons, New York.
22. 1986 A Visit to the Master. In Guila Naquitz: Archaic Foraging and Early Agriculture in Oaxaca, Mexico, edited byKent V. Flannery, pp. 511-519. Academic Press, Orlando.
23. Fritz, John M., and Fred T. Plog 1970 The Nature of Archaeological Explanations. American Antiquity 35:405-412.
24. Gibbon, Guy 1989 Explanation in Archaeology. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
25. Gould, Richard A., and Patty Jo Watson 1982 A Dialogue on the Meaning and Use of Analogy in Ethnoarchaeological Reasoning. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1:355-381.
26. Hanen, Marsha, and Jane Kelley 1989 Inference to the Best Explanation in Archaeology. In Critical Traditions in Contemporary Archaeology: Essays in the Philosophy, History and Socio-politics of Archaeology, edited by Valerie Pinsky and Alison Wylie, pp. 14-17. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
27. Hanson, Norwood R. 1958 Patterns of Discovery. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
28. Harman, Gilbert H. 1965 The Inference to the Best Explanation. The Philosophical Review 74(1):88-95.
29. 1968a Knowledge, Inference and Explanation. American Philosophical Quarterly 5:164-173.
30. 1968b Enumerative Induction as Inference to the Best Explanation. Journal of Philosophy 65:529-33.
31. 1973 Thought. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
32. Haury, Emil 1958 Evidence at Point of Pines for a Prehistoric Migration from Northern Arizona In Migrations in New World Culture History, edited by R. H. Thompson, pp. 1-6. Social Science Bulletin, vol. 27. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
33. Hegmon, Michelle 2003 Setting Theoretical Egos Aside: Issues and Theory in North American Archaeology. American Antiquity 68:213-243.
34. Hegmon, Michelle, and Wenda R. Trevathan 1996 Gender, Anatomical Knowledge, and Pottery: Implications of an Anatomically Unusual Birth Depicted on Mimbres Pottery from Southwestern New Mexico. American Antiquity 61:747-754.
35. Hempel, Carl G. 1965 Aspects of Scientific Explanation. The Free Press, New York.
36. 1966 Philosophy of Natural Science. MIT Press, Boston.
37. Hewett, E. L., J. Henderson. and W. W. Robbins 1913 The Physiography of the Rio Grand Valley, New Mexico, in Relation to Pueblo Culture. Bulletin No. 54. Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington.
38. Hill, James N. 1970 Broken K Pueblo: Prehistoric Social Organization in the American Southwest. Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona No. 18. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
39. Hodder, Ian 1982 Symbols in Action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
40. 1983 Archaeology, Ideology, and Contemporary Society. Royal Anthropological Institute News 56:6-7.
41. 1984 Archaeology in 1984. Antiquity 58:25-32.
42. 1991 Interpretive Archaeology and its Role. American Antiquity 56(1):7-18.
43. 1999 The Archaeological Process. Blackwell, Oxford.
44. Honderich, Ted (editor) 1995 The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
45. Hume, David 1956[1777] An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Gateway Editions, Chicago.
46. Huntington, Ellsworth 1914 The Climactic Factor as Illustrated in Arid America. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, D.C.
47. Hutson, Scott R. 2001 Synergy Through Disunity, Science as Social Practice: Comments on VanPool and VanPool. American Antiquity 66:349-360.
48. Jett, Stephen C., and Peter B. Moyle 1986 The Exotic Origins of Fishes Depicted on Prehistoric Mimbres Pottery from New Mexico. American Antiquity 51:688-720.
49. Kant, Immanuel 1998[1781] Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
50. Kelley, Jane H., and Marsha P. Hanen 1988 Archaeology and the Methodology of Science. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
51. Kidder, Alfred Vincent 1924 An Introduction to the Study of Southwestern Archaeology: With a Preliminary Account of the Excavations at Pecos. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.
52. Kitcher, Philip 1981 Explanatory Unification. Philosophy of Science 48(4):507-531.
53. Kosso, Peter 1991 Method in Archaeology: Middle Range Theory as Hermeneutics. American Antiquity 56:621-627.
54. LaMotta, Vincent M., and Michael B. Schiffer 2001 Behavioral Archaeology: Toward a new Synthesis. In Archaeological Theory Today, edited by Ian Hodder, pp. 14-64. Polity, Cambridge.
55. Lipton, Peter 1991 Inference to the Best Explanation. Routledge, London.
56. Lyman, R. Lee, and Michael J. O'Brien 1998 The Goals of Evolutionary Archaeology. Current Anthropology 39:615-652.
57. Mayr, Ernst 1982 The Growth of Biological Thought. Belknap Press, Cambridge.
58. Mills, Barbara J. 1995 The Origins of Southwestern Ceramic Containers: Women's Time Allocation and Economic Intensification. Journal of Anthropological Research 51:149-172.
59. Mill, John Stuart 1904 A System of Logic. 8th ed. Longman, Green and Co., London.
60. Moulard, Barbara 1984 Within the Underworld Sky: Mimbres Ceramics in Context. Twelve Trees Press, Pasadena.
61. Newell, H. Perry, and Alex D. Krieger 1949 The George C. Davis Site, Cherokee County, Texas. Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology 5. Society for American Archaeology, Menasha.
62. O'Brien, Michael J., R. Lee Lyman, and Michael Brian Schiffer 2005 Archaeology as a Process: Processualism and Its Progeny. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
63. Ormiston, Gayle L., and Alan D. Schrift (editors) 1990 The Hermeneutic Tradition. State University of New York, Albany.
64. Peebles, Christopher S. 1992 Rooting Out Latent Behaviorism in Prehistory. In Representations in Archaeology, edited by Jean Claude Gardin and Christopher S. Peebles, pp. 357-384. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
65. Peirce, Charles S. 1931 Collected Papers. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
66. Pinsky, Valerie, and Alison Wylie (editors) 1989 Critical Traditions in Contemporary Archaeology: Essays in the Philosophy, History and Socio-politics of Archaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
67. Popper, Karl R. 1959 The Logic of Scientific Discovery. Hutchinson, London.
68. 1976 Logic of the Social Sciences. In The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology, edited by Theodor W. Adorno, Hans Albert, Ralf Dahrendorf, Jürgen Habermas, Harald Pilot and Karl R. Popper. Translated by Glyn Adey and David Frisby. Heineman, London.
69. Quine, W. V., and J. S. Ullian 1978 The Web of Belief. 2nd ed. Random House, New York.
70. Read, Dwight W, and Stephen A. LeBlanc 1978 Descriptive Statements, Covering Laws, and Theories in Archaeology. Current Anthropology 2:309-316.
71. Richards, Colin 1990 The Late Neolithic House in Orkney. In The Social Archaeology of Houses, edited by Ross Samson. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.
72. Salmon, Merrilee 1982 Philosophy and Archaeology. Academic Press, New York.
73. Salmon, Merrilee H., and Wesley C. Salmon 1979 Alternative Methods of Scientific Explanation. American Anthropologist 81:61-74.
74. Schiffer, Michael B. 1988 The Structure of Archaeological Theory. American Antiquity 53:461-485.
75. Shafer, Harry J. 1985 A Mimbres Potter's Grave. Bulletin of the Texas Archaeological Society 56:185-200.
76. Shanks, Michael, and Ian Hodder 1995 Processual, Postprocessual and Interpretive Archaeologies. In Interpreting Archaeology: Finding Meaning in the Past, edited by Ian Hodder, Michael Shanks, Alexandra Alexandri, Victor Buchli, John Carman, Jonathan Last, and Gavin Lucas. Routledge, London.
77. Shanks, Michael, and Christopher Tilley 1987a Reconstructing Archaeology: Theory and Practice. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
78. 1987b Social Theory in Archaeology. Polity Press, Oxford.
79. Taylor, Walter W. 1948 A Study of Archaeology. Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale.
80. Thagard, Paul R. 1978 The Best Explanation: Criteria for Theory Choice. The Journal of Philosophy 75:76-92.
81. Thompson, John B. 1981 Critical Hermeneutics. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
82. Tuggle, David H., Alex H. Townsend, and Thomas J. Riley 1972 Laws, Systems, and Research Designs: A Discussion of Explanation in Archaeology. American Antiquity 37:3-12.
83. VanPool, Christine S., and Todd L. VanPool 1999 The Scientific Nature of Postprocessualism. American Antiquity 64:33-53.
84. 2001 Postprocessualism and the Nature of Science: A Response to Comments by Hutson and Arnold andWilkens. American Antiquity 66:367-375.
85. Watson, Patty Jo, Steven A. LeBlanc, and Charles L. Redman 1971 Explanation in Archaeology: An Explicitly Scientific Approach. Columbia University Press, New York.
86. 1984 Archaeological Explanation: The Scientific Method in Archaeology. Columbia University Press, New York.
87. Wright, Rita P. 1991 Women's Labor and Pottery Production in Prehistory. In Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory, edited by Joan M. Gero and Margaret W. Conkey, pp. 194-223. Basil Blackwell, Oxford.
88. Wylie, Alison 2002 Thinking from Things. University of California Press, Berkeley.
89. Yoffee, Norman 2005 Myths of the Archaic State: Evolution of the Earliest Cities, States, and Civilizations. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.