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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
Svein Vatsvåg Nielsen*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo, Norway
*
Email: s.v.nielsen@khm.uio.no
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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.

Keywords

Thing-in-itselfImmanuel Kantsymmetrical archaeologyspeculative realismarchaeological theory

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Type
Provocation
Information
Archaeological Dialogues , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , December 2019 , pp. 123 - 126
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019 

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