Peirce and Archaeology: Recent Approaches

The philosophy of Charles S. Peirce, and in particular his theory of signs (semiotic), has seen increasing interest within archaeological theory over the past 20 years. This article reviews Peirce's most influential ideas within archaeology, directs readers to where in Peirce's voluminous...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annual review of anthropology 2021-01, Vol.50 (1), p.187-202
Main Author: Baron, Joanne P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archaeological theory
Archaeology
Paleolithic
Peirce
Philosophy
Pragmatism
semiotic
Semiotics
Sign theory
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Request full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The philosophy of Charles S. Peirce, and in particular his theory of signs (semiotic), has seen increasing interest within archaeological theory over the past 20 years. This article reviews Peirce's most influential ideas within archaeology, directs readers to where in Peirce's voluminous works they can find these ideas, and discusses how each of them has been applied by archaeologists to a variety of different research topics. In addition to the semiotic, these ideas include Peirce's metaphysical doctrine of synechism; his methodological pragmatism; abductive logic; and the phenomenological concepts of firstness, secondness, and thirdness. Finally, I discuss two research areas-materiality and paleolithic archaeology-in which a combination of Peirce's ideas has led to important new insights.
ISSN:0084-6570
1545-4290
DOI:10.1146/annurev-anthro-101819-110112