Swaim, Daniel G. (2024) Getting from Here to There: The Contingency of Historical Evidence and the Value of Speculation. [Preprint]
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Abstract
Here I look to some work in the historical sciences in order to draw out some of the epistemic benefits of “speculative narratives,” which bears on some more general epistemic benefits of speculative reasoning. Due to the contingent nature of much historical evidence, some degree of speculative reasoning is necessary to get the epistemological ball rolling in the historical sciences, and I argue that speculative narratives provide the necessary sort of frameworking apparatus for doing precisely this. I use contemporary work on the first peopling of the Americas (the “Clovis First Debate”) for illustration.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Keywords: | Speculative inference, narrative, archaeology, anthropology | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Anthropology Specific Sciences > Archaeology General Issues > Philosophers of Science General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science |
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| Depositing User: | Daniel Swaim | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 07 May 2024 10:46 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 07 May 2024 10:46 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 23380 | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Anthropology Specific Sciences > Archaeology General Issues > Philosophers of Science General Issues > Social Epistemology of Science |
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| Date: | 6 May 2024 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/23380 |
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