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The thing-in-itself. A reaction to current use of the term in archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 December 2019

Svein Vatsvåg Nielsen*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, Norway

Abstract

Scholars writing within symmetrical archaeology, or speculative realism, have lately claimed that archaeology should strive to grasp the thing-in-itself. This paper questions the rationale of this claim. It presents the philosophical definition of the concept of a thing-in-itself and a short presentation of its reception. The author argues that the concept of the thing-in-itself has nothing to offer archaeology, and questions why contemporary theoretical archaeologists show such an interest in this term.

Type
Provocation
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019 

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