Cabrera, Frank (2025) On the Synthesis of Historical Linguistics and Cognate Disciplines. The Bloomsbury Handbook of the Philosophy of the Historical Sciences and Big History. pp. 335-356.
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Abstract
The empirical and theoretical resources of different disciplines are often combined to shed light on questions that concern the deep history of humanity, such as the geographic origin of people groups, patterns of migration, and the diffusion of culture. In this article, I discuss three ways in which other disciplines, such as biology and archaeology, are integrated with historical linguistics to enhance our understanding of the past. First, other disciplines provide background knowledge that helps to constrain and assess competing historical explanations of the data. I examine this issue in the context of the Principle of the Common Cause and Inference to the Best Explanation. Second, the synthesis of data from multiple disciplines provides a diverse and varied set of evidence, which is epistemically superior, other things being equal, to a homogeneous set of evidence. I consider several justifications for the confirmational value of diverse evidence. Finally, methods and procedures from other disciplines can often be fruitfully applied to forge new pathways to knowledge. Here, I survey the recent application of phylogenetic methods from biology, used for inferring evolutionary trees, within historical linguistics.
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| Item Type: | Published Article or Volume | ||||||
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| Keywords: | historical linguistics principle of the common cause inference to the best explanation parsimony diverse evidence phylogenetic inference | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Anthropology Specific Sciences > Archaeology General Issues > Causation Specific Sciences > Cultural Evolution General Issues > Evidence General Issues > Explanation Specific Sciences > Historical Sciences |
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| Depositing User: | Frank Cabrera | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 09 Mar 2026 18:32 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 09 Mar 2026 18:32 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 28438 | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | The Bloomsbury Handbook of the Philosophy of the Historical Sciences and Big History | ||||||
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Publishing | ||||||
| Official URL: | https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/bloomsbury-handbook-... | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Anthropology Specific Sciences > Archaeology General Issues > Causation Specific Sciences > Cultural Evolution General Issues > Evidence General Issues > Explanation Specific Sciences > Historical Sciences |
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| Date: | 21 August 2025 | ||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 335-356 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/28438 |
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