scholarly journals The beginning of the soviet theoretical archaeology: theoretical studies at the Institute of archaeology AS UkrSSR in the 1960s

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-67
Author(s):  
Sergii Paliienko
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Methods ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Theoretical Studies ◽  
Archaeological Theory ◽  
Academic Council ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Theoretical Issues

The article is dedicated to an exploration of archaeological theory issues at the Institute of archaeology AS UkrSSR in the 1960s. This period is one of the worst studied in the history of Soviet archaeology. But it was the time when in the USSR archaeological researches reached the summit, quantitative methods and methods of natural sciences were applied and interest in theoretical issues had grown in archaeology. Now there are a lot of publications dedicated to theoretical discussions between archaeologists from Leningrad but the same researches about Kyiv scholars are still unknown. The archaeological theory includes both generalizations made on the basis of archaeological sources and archaeological methodology. The article emphasizes the history of methodology studies at the IA AS UkrSSR during the mentioned period. The research is based on evidence from the annual reports on a work of the Institute from the Scientific archive of the Institute of Archaeology NASU. According to the documents the theory was mentioned in the early 1950s because of publication of new J. V. Stalin’s works. However, that time as well as at the beginning of the next decade, when works started under three volumes of “The Archaeology of the UkrSSR”, it was written that attention to theoretical issues was focused at the Institute, not enough. At the IA AS UkrSSR discussions on archaeological methodology started in the 1960s when papers on theoretical issues, applying cybernetic, methods of natural sciences and statistical methods into archaeology were regularly presented at sessions of the Academic council. Yu. N. Zakharuk was the most active employee of the Institute who worked in this field. In addition to presentation of papers at conferences, and sessions of the Academic council and publications, he was an executor of the scheduled work ‘Methodological and methodic issues of archaeological science’ in 1968–1970. Also it was planed to publish a book on theoretical issues. In other words, the IA AS UkrSSR was the first archaeological establishment in the USSR where the work on archaeological methodology was scheduled. According to circumstances this work had not been completely finished but the Ukrainian scholar was invited to hold the position of deputy director at the Institute of Archaeology AS USSR in Moscow. Despite a skeptical attitude to the theory among most Soviet archaeologists Yu. N. Zakharuk was able to intensify the work on theoretical issues in Soviet archaeology. A separate theoretical session, which was organized by him at the Plenum of the IA AS USSR in Moscow in 1972, might be considered as an initialization of theoretical archaeology as a new sub-discipline in the USSR.

Scientific realism and social science

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell Keat
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Scientific Realism ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Central Issue ◽  
Dominant Position ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Realist Conception

A central issue in the philosophy of the social sciences is the possibility of naturalism: whether disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, economics and psychology can be ‘scientific’ in broadly the same sense in which this term is applied to physics, chemistry, biology and so on. In the long history of debates about this issue, both naturalists and anti-naturalists have tended to accept a particular view of the natural sciences – the ‘positivist’ conception of science. But the challenges to this previously dominant position in the philosophy of science from around the 1960s made this shared assumption increasingly problematic. It was no longer clear what would be implied by the naturalist requirement that the social sciences should be modelled on the natural sciences. It also became necessary to reconsider the arguments previously employed by anti-naturalists, to see whether these held only on the assumption of a positivist conception of science. If so, a non-positivist naturalism might be defended: a methodological unity of the social and natural sciences based on some alternative to positivism. That this is possible has been argued by scientific realists in the social sciences, drawing on a particular alternative to positivism: the realist conception of science developed in the 1970s by Harré and others.

scholarly journals The nature and peculiarities of the use of archival documents in studying the history of Soviet industrial enterprises (on the example of Sevastopol plant of shipboard lightning engineering “Mayak”)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Anna Vasil'evna Kuz'mina ◽  
Vadim Sergeevich Komogaev
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
City Planning ◽  
Large City ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Industrial Enterprises ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Traditional Industry

This article is dedicated to the peculiarities of the use of archival documents in studying the history of Soviet industrial enterprises based on the large, city-planning enterprise of the local traditional industry – Sevastopol plant of shipboard lighting engineering “Mayak”. The authors meticulously examine different types of archival documents and their informational potential for studying operation of the enterprise. The focus of attention is the acts of acceptance and transfer report, annual reports on the workforce, salaries and regulation, as well as the materials of the trade union, and other documents. The article is based on previously unpublished archival documents on the history of Sevastopol industry that have not been previously introduced into the scientific discourse. The author explore separate episodes of the history of the plant, its establishment, evolution, and key results. The main conclusions lies in determination of the types of archival documents, which were most informative in studying the history of the enterprise. The authors indicate that archival funds, and annual reports in particular, are well preserved and contribute to examination of operation of the enterprise. It is underlined that Sevastopol plant of shipboard lighting engineering “Mayak”, which virtually ceased to operate after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, was one of the most significant and dynamically developing industrial enterprises of the city in the 1960s – 1970s. It is worth noting that currently there are projects aimed at the revival of industrial potential of Sevastopol, one of which is the technology part on the territory of the former plant “Mayak”.

Nagel, Ernest (1901–85)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isaac Levi
Keyword(s):  
John Dewey ◽  
History Of Mathematics ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
External World ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
History Of ◽  
Entire Career ◽  
The 1960S

Ernest Nagel was arguably the pre-eminent American philosopher of science from the mid 1930s to the 1960s. He taught at Columbia University for virtually his entire career. Although he shared with Bertrand Russell and with members of the Vienna Circle a respect for and sensitivity to developments in mathematics and the natural sciences, he endorsed a strand in the thought of Charles S. Peirce and John Dewey that Nagel himself called ‘contextual naturalism’. Among the main features of contextual naturalism is its distrust of reductionist claims that are not the outcomes of scientific inquiries. Nagel’s contextual naturalism infused his influential, detailed and informed essays on probability, explanation in the natural and social sciences, measurement, history of mathematics, and the philosophy of law. It is reflected, for example, in his trenchant critiques of Russell’s reconstruction of the external world and Russell’s epistemology as well as cognate views endorsed at one time or another by members of the Vienna Circle.

scholarly journals Collingwood, Scientism and Historicism

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-288
Author(s):  
Giuseppina D’Oro ◽  
James Connelly
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Historical Knowledge ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

Abstract The philosophy of history is undergoing something of a revival. Much has happened since its heyday in the 1960s when methodological discussions concerning the structure of explanation in history and the natural sciences were central to the philosophical agenda. This introduction revisits Collingwood’s contribution to the philosophy of history, his views on the relation between science and history, and the possibility of historical knowledge suggesting his work is of enduring relevance to contemporary debates. It locates his contribution in the context of the hermeneutic tradition and locates his defence of the methodological autonomy of history in the context of recent debates concerning the relation between science and the history of the philosophy of science.

‘The loss of innocence’ in historical perspective

Antiquity ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 72 (277) ◽  
pp. 694-698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce G. Trigger
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Archaeological Theory ◽  
History Of Archaeology ◽  
Dual Tasks ◽  
Intrinsic Nature ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Single Discipline ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
And Control

The dual tasks of this paper are to examine David Clarke’s ideas about the development of archaeology as they relate both to the era when ‘the loss of innocence’ was written and to what has happened since. In his treatment of the history of archaeology offered in that essay, Clarke subscribed to at least two of the key tenets of the behaviourist and utilitarian approaches that dominated the social sciences in the 1960s: neoevolutionism and ecological determinism.Clarke viewed the development of archaeology as following a unilinear sequence of stages from consciousness through self-consciousness to critical self-consciousness. The first stage began with archaeology defining its subject matter and what archaeologists do. As its database and the procedures required for studying it became more elaborate, self-conscious archaeology emerged as a ‘series of divergent and selfreferencing regional schools … with regionally esteemed bodies of archaeological theory and locally preferred forms of description, interpretation and explanation’ (Clarke 1973: 7). At the stage of critical self-consciousness, regionalism was replaced by a conviction that ‘archaeologists hold most of their problems in common and share large areas of general theory within a single discipline’ (1973: 7). Archaeology was now defined by ‘the characteristic forms of its reasoning, the intrinsic nature of its knowledge and information, and its competing theories of concepts and their relationships’ (1973: 7). Clarke looked forward to a fourth (and ultimate?) phase of self-critical self-consciousncss, when the new archaeology would monitor and control its own development.

scholarly journals The Long Road to ‘Digital History’: History of Computer-Assisted Research of the Past in Finland since the 1960s

2020 ◽  
pp. 21-44
Author(s):  
Petri Paju
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Digital History ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
User Friendly ◽  
Source Materials ◽  
Digital Or

To understand better the present shape and evolution of the digital history, this chapter examines how historians have used computers and information technology since the 1960s. Focusing on historians from Finland, the chapter starts from the late 1960s when a few younger historians first explored using the computer to perform statistical calculations. In the 1970s and the 1980s, the computers and data available were most useful and used for historical research designs applying quantitative methods. Historians carrying out qualitative research grew interested in IT when the personal computers became more user-friendly and affordable towards and especially during the 1990s. In the following decade, the internet, the World Wide Web, and digitized source materials effected all historians’ research practices directly or indirectly. Nevertheless, digital or computational history introduced in the mid-2010s took the use of IT further. These new methods were first embraced by a fraction of those historians who had previously focused on quantitative work based on textual materials. A central conclusion is that historians should pay more attention to the technologies they use to take better control of the challenges and opportunities of their changing research environment.

scholarly journals The History of Quantification in History: The JIH as a Case Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-381
Author(s):  
Steven Ruggles ◽  
Diana L. Magnuson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
The United States ◽  
Editorial Policies ◽  
Dramatic Decline ◽  
Boom And Bust ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

The use of quantitative methods in leading historical journals increased dramatically in the 1960s and declined sharply after the mid-1980s. The JIH is an invaluable source for analysis of the boom and bust in the use of quantitative methods in history; the journal remained under the same editors for almost fifty years and made no attempt to change editorial policies during that period. Shifting patterns of content and authorship in the JIH from the 1980s to the early 2000s reveal how the journal responded to a dramatic decline in quantitative submissions by U.S.-based historians. Recent years have seen a revival of quantification both in the JIH and in mainstream historical journals, especially among historians located at institutions outside the United States.

‘Princely graves’ of the central Balkans – A critical history of research

2002 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-88
Author(s):  
Staša Babić
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Theory ◽  
Archaeological Investigation ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of Research ◽  
History Of ◽  
Temperate Europe ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
The 1960S

This article critically explores the century-long history of research into a particular set of archaeological finds. The ‘princely graves’ – funerary assemblages dated to the early Iron Age (seventh to fifth centuries BC) containing, among other things, luxurious objects produced in Archaic Greek workshops – are known from various parts of temperate Europe, and were first recorded in the central Balkans region by the end of the nineteenth century. By their very nature, these finds pose several important theoretical and methodological problems, one of them being the need to bridge the divide between the procedures of prehistoric and classical archaeologies. The first attempts to account for these exceptional finds, in Europe as well as in the Balkans, were guided by the culture-historical procedure, typical of the archaeological investigation of the time. During the 1960s New Archaeology brought about the notion of chiefdom as a tool to account for the Iron Age societies. The concept was introduced into research on the central Balkan finds, proving successful in overcoming the shortcomings of the previous explanations, but at the same time creating new ones, encapsulated in the critique of the evolutionary approach. This review of research into the ‘princely graves’ concludes in proposing several new lines of inquiry, already introduced in the European archaeological theory: issues of group identity and individual actors, and phenomenological approaches to time and space.

A note on John Hawkins (1761–1841) and the Hawkins archive

2000 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-268
Author(s):  
R. J. CLEEVELY
Keyword(s):  
Major Part ◽  
Reference Lists ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

A note dealing with the history of the Hawkins Papers, including the material relating to John Hawkins (1761–1841) presented to the West Sussex Record Office in the 1960s, recently transferred to the Cornwall County Record Office, Truro, in order to be consolidated with the major part of the Hawkins archive held there. Reference lists to the correspondence of Sibthorp-Hawkins, Hawkins-Sibthorp, and Hawkins to his mother mentioned in The Flora Graeca story (Lack, 1999) are provided.

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