Collingwood, Geertz and the cognitive value of the Human Sciences

by | Jul 28, 2019 | Inglese | 0 comments

In the first half of the last century, the neo-positivist philosophers permanently introduced into Western culture the idea that the only doctrine endowed with universal value, namely Science, was based on empirical experience and all that was outside of it was only an impression, an unverifiable, unknowable datum, of metaphysical nature. According to this neo positivist and empiricist perspective, a sentence can be verified only when a certain number of observations obtained from the experience attesting to certain truth conditions (induction) is available. With the application of the criteria of the Empirical sciences to Archeology, for some decades there has been an attempt to extend the method of quantitative and statistical investigation also to the study of prehistoric images that were increasingly discovered in every part of the world. The attempt was partly justified by the impression, at the time very felt and in some cases truthful, that a part of the arguments produced to demonstrate the meaning of prehistoric images was supported by subjective data or theoretical reconstructions whose weakness was often to be attributed to a non-correct use of the comparative method.

In the following years, scholars of Prehistoric Iconography have become increasingly aware of the fact that, to recognize its validity, an interpretation requires accurate documentation, in the absence of which the only possible choice is simply to provide a corpus of data As complete as possible, postponing the attribution of a meaning to better times. Years ago, while I was conducting a research that aimed to discover the meaning of an ancient game for children, the Hopscotch game, (Italian: Gioco del Mondo, Settimana, Campana; French: Marelle; Spanish: Rayuela), my rapprochement with the philosophy of science has occurred.

La Danza delle Origini

Versione cartacea

di Gaudenzio Ragazzi

15.00

C’era una volta il Torchio

Versione digitale

di Gaudenzio Ragazzi

8.60

L’ Albero del Tempo

Versione digitale

di Gaudenzio Ragazzi

4.90

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