A Schutzian Theory of Archaeology

Abstract

An archaeology textbook is used to show how this science can be theorized about in Schutzian terms. Some basic concepts and the disciplinary definition are analyzed and then various distinctive methods of analysis and interpretation are sketched. But a thorough theory of archaeology would need to dig much more deeply than the stratum of textbooks.

I can understand the acts and motives of … the caveman who left no other testimony of his existence than the flint hatchet exhibited in the showcase of some museum. (V 36)

Embedded citations refer to the works of Schutz listed at the end of this chapter.

Works of Schutz

Note: Unless done otherwise, the following works will be cited with the embedded abbreviations as listed down the left margin below, plus the page number(s).

I=Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers, Vol. I, The Problem of Social Reality, ed. Maurice Natanson (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962).

II=––––, Collected Papers, Vol. II, Studies in Social Theory, ed. Arvid Broedresen (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964).

III=––––, Collected Papers, Vol. III, Studies in Phenomenological Philosophy, ed. Ilse Schutz (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966).

IV=––––, Collected Papers, Vol. IV, ed. Helmut Wagner, George Psathas, and Fred Kersten, (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996).

V=––––, Collected Papers, Vol. V, Phenomenology and the Social Sciences, ed. Lester Embree (Dordrecht: Springer, 2011).

VI=––––, Collected Papers, Vol. VI, Literary Reality and Relationships, ed. Michael Barber (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013).

PSW=––, The Phenomenology of the Social World, trans. George Walsh and Frederick Lehnert (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1967).

PP=–––––-, “Positivistic Philosophy and the Actual Approach of Interpretive Social Science: An Ineditum from Spring 1953,” Husserl Studies, Vol. 14 (1998): 123–149. Reprinted in Dermot Moran and Lester Embree, eds., Phenomenology: Critical Concepts in Philosophy, 5 vols. London: Routledge, 2004, III, pp. 119–145. Also available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/t52u22v305u28g04/