P J Arponen
Biographic Data
| ID | 279068 |
|---|---|
| NAME | P J Arponen |
| GIVEN NAMES | P J |
| FAMILY NAME | Arponen |
| SIGNATURE | ARPONEN P J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7832-5479 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 57 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The Capability Approach and Archaeological Interpretation of Transformations
Over its history, archaeology has seen a varied set of uses made of philosophy and philosophical concepts. A persistent critique has been that too often philosophical or more generally theoretical debates have made little difference in terms of empirical archaeological work and interpretation. In this article, we present results from an interdisciplinary study on the operationalisation of the Capability Approach in archaeology. We trace some of i…
Games and gamification in archaeology
This article reports from an interdisciplinary, archaeological and philosophical research project developing and using an analogue model in archaeological research. With prominent uses outside of archaeology, analogue models can offer a unique participatory perspective to prehistoric processes. As such the paper contributes to recent discussions in this journal and elsewhere on the role of games, play and gamification in archaeological research, …
Two cultures in the times of interdisciplinary archaeology. A response to commentators
We would like to begin by thanking the journal and the commentators for their time and attention
Between natural and human sciences
Prominent voices in archeology have expressed deep skepticism about the role of theory in archeology, while with new, exciting methods at its disposal, archeological science is occasionally perceived as not needing theory at all. This article reflects upon the debate about theory in archeology to arrive at a robust but critical middle-range concept of the role and character of theory in socio-environmental archeology. It is argued that archeology…
Environmental determinism and archaeology. Understanding and evaluating determinism in research design
With the emergence of modern techniques of environmental analysis and widespread availability of accessible tools and quantitative data, the question of environmental determinism is once again on the agenda. This paper is theoretical in character, attempting, for the benefit of drawing up research designs, to understand and evaluate the character of environmental determinism. We reach three main conclusions: (1) in a typical pattern of research d…
Philosophy, archaeology and the Enlightenment heritage
Cartesian representationalism and the Enlightenment heritage more broadly continue to play a pivotal role in shaping the 21st-century human scientific theory and practice. This introduction to a special section on the topic surveys some aspects of that heritage
The Roots of a Crisis
The emergence of the two great late modern crises—economic and environmental—has prompted calls for a return to Marx. This article describes a Marxian account of the 2008 economic crisis relating it to the phenomena of job polarization, de-industrialization, the decline of the middle class, and political populism in Europe and elsewhere. These are argued to spring from political mobilization due to certain kinds of capability deprivations as unde…
Using the Capability Approach to Conceptualise Inequality in Archaeology
A Critique of an Epistemic Intellectual Culture
The so‐called epistemological turn of the D escartes‐ L ocke‐ K ant tradition ( R orty) is a hallmark of modern philosophy. The broad family of normativism constitutes one major response to the C artesian heritage building upon some version of the idea that human knowledge, action and sociality build fundamentally upon some form of social agreement and standards. Representationalism and the C artesian picture more generally have been challenged b…
The Cultural Causes of Environmental Problems
Understanding Rituals
The explanations of ritual practices observed in archaeological contexts often proceed on the representationalist basis that the human mind contains the social constituted ideas or representations that underpin the practice of rituals. Such a view remains widespread and, despite the often proclaimed rejection in contemporary theory of the Cartesian mind-body and other dualisms, it perpetuates the Enlightenment representationalist heritage accordi…
The difficulty of removing the prejudice
Critically discussing the causal social ontologies presented by Dave Elder-Vass and John Searle, the article argues that these views implausibly identify the causal ontological source of human sociality in collectively known, recognized and accepted statuses, criteria, norms and the like. This is implausible, for it ignores human sociality as occurring in temporally and spatially dispersed on-going processes of human interaction of differently pl…
On the extent of cognitivism
The extent of cognitivism
In this article, cognitivism is understood as the view that the engine of human (individual and collective) action is the intentional, dispositional, or other mental capacities of the brain or the mind. Cognitivism has been criticized for considering the essence of human action to reside in its alleged source in mental processes at the expense of the social surroundings of the action, criticism that has often been inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein'…
Environmental determinism and archaeology. Understanding and evaluating determinism in research design
With the emergence of modern techniques of environmental analysis and widespread availability of accessible tools and quantitative data, the question of environmental determinism is once again on the agenda. This paper is theoretical in character, attempting, for the benefit of drawing up research designs, to understand and evaluate the character of environmental determinism. We reach three main conclusions: (1) in a typical pattern of research d…
Using the Capability Approach to Conceptualise Inequality in Archaeology
The extent of cognitivism
In this article, cognitivism is understood as the view that the engine of human (individual and collective) action is the intentional, dispositional, or other mental capacities of the brain or the mind. Cognitivism has been criticized for considering the essence of human action to reside in its alleged source in mental processes at the expense of the social surroundings of the action, criticism that has often been inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein'…
Understanding Rituals
The explanations of ritual practices observed in archaeological contexts often proceed on the representationalist basis that the human mind contains the social constituted ideas or representations that underpin the practice of rituals. Such a view remains widespread and, despite the often proclaimed rejection in contemporary theory of the Cartesian mind-body and other dualisms, it perpetuates the Enlightenment representationalist heritage accordi…
A Critique of an Epistemic Intellectual Culture
The so‐called epistemological turn of the D escartes‐ L ocke‐ K ant tradition ( R orty) is a hallmark of modern philosophy. The broad family of normativism constitutes one major response to the C artesian heritage building upon some version of the idea that human knowledge, action and sociality build fundamentally upon some form of social agreement and standards. Representationalism and the C artesian picture more generally have been challenged b…
The Cultural Causes of Environmental Problems
On the extent of cognitivism
Between natural and human sciences
Prominent voices in archeology have expressed deep skepticism about the role of theory in archeology, while with new, exciting methods at its disposal, archeological science is occasionally perceived as not needing theory at all. This article reflects upon the debate about theory in archeology to arrive at a robust but critical middle-range concept of the role and character of theory in socio-environmental archeology. It is argued that archeology…
Philosophy, archaeology and the Enlightenment heritage
Cartesian representationalism and the Enlightenment heritage more broadly continue to play a pivotal role in shaping the 21st-century human scientific theory and practice. This introduction to a special section on the topic surveys some aspects of that heritage
The difficulty of removing the prejudice
Critically discussing the causal social ontologies presented by Dave Elder-Vass and John Searle, the article argues that these views implausibly identify the causal ontological source of human sociality in collectively known, recognized and accepted statuses, criteria, norms and the like. This is implausible, for it ignores human sociality as occurring in temporally and spatially dispersed on-going processes of human interaction of differently pl…
On the extent of cognitivism
The extent of cognitivism
In this article, cognitivism is understood as the view that the engine of human (individual and collective) action is the intentional, dispositional, or other mental capacities of the brain or the mind. Cognitivism has been criticized for considering the essence of human action to reside in its alleged source in mental processes at the expense of the social surroundings of the action, criticism that has often been inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein'…
The Cultural Causes of Environmental Problems
Understanding Rituals
The explanations of ritual practices observed in archaeological contexts often proceed on the representationalist basis that the human mind contains the social constituted ideas or representations that underpin the practice of rituals. Such a view remains widespread and, despite the often proclaimed rejection in contemporary theory of the Cartesian mind-body and other dualisms, it perpetuates the Enlightenment representationalist heritage accordi…
The difficulty of removing the prejudice
Critically discussing the causal social ontologies presented by Dave Elder-Vass and John Searle, the article argues that these views implausibly identify the causal ontological source of human sociality in collectively known, recognized and accepted statuses, criteria, norms and the like. This is implausible, for it ignores human sociality as occurring in temporally and spatially dispersed on-going processes of human interaction of differently pl…
Using the Capability Approach to Conceptualise Inequality in Archaeology
A Critique of an Epistemic Intellectual Culture
The so‐called epistemological turn of the D escartes‐ L ocke‐ K ant tradition ( R orty) is a hallmark of modern philosophy. The broad family of normativism constitutes one major response to the C artesian heritage building upon some version of the idea that human knowledge, action and sociality build fundamentally upon some form of social agreement and standards. Representationalism and the C artesian picture more generally have been challenged b…
Philosophy, archaeology and the Enlightenment heritage
Cartesian representationalism and the Enlightenment heritage more broadly continue to play a pivotal role in shaping the 21st-century human scientific theory and practice. This introduction to a special section on the topic surveys some aspects of that heritage
The Roots of a Crisis
The emergence of the two great late modern crises—economic and environmental—has prompted calls for a return to Marx. This article describes a Marxian account of the 2008 economic crisis relating it to the phenomena of job polarization, de-industrialization, the decline of the middle class, and political populism in Europe and elsewhere. These are argued to spring from political mobilization due to certain kinds of capability deprivations as unde…
Two cultures in the times of interdisciplinary archaeology. A response to commentators
We would like to begin by thanking the journal and the commentators for their time and attention
Between natural and human sciences
Prominent voices in archeology have expressed deep skepticism about the role of theory in archeology, while with new, exciting methods at its disposal, archeological science is occasionally perceived as not needing theory at all. This article reflects upon the debate about theory in archeology to arrive at a robust but critical middle-range concept of the role and character of theory in socio-environmental archeology. It is argued that archeology…
Environmental determinism and archaeology. Understanding and evaluating determinism in research design
With the emergence of modern techniques of environmental analysis and widespread availability of accessible tools and quantitative data, the question of environmental determinism is once again on the agenda. This paper is theoretical in character, attempting, for the benefit of drawing up research designs, to understand and evaluate the character of environmental determinism. We reach three main conclusions: (1) in a typical pattern of research d…
The Capability Approach and Archaeological Interpretation of Transformations
Over its history, archaeology has seen a varied set of uses made of philosophy and philosophical concepts. A persistent critique has been that too often philosophical or more generally theoretical debates have made little difference in terms of empirical archaeological work and interpretation. In this article, we present results from an interdisciplinary study on the operationalisation of the Capability Approach in archaeology. We trace some of i…
Games and gamification in archaeology
This article reports from an interdisciplinary, archaeological and philosophical research project developing and using an analogue model in archaeological research. With prominent uses outside of archaeology, analogue models can offer a unique participatory perspective to prehistoric processes. As such the paper contributes to recent discussions in this journal and elsewhere on the role of games, play and gamification in archaeological research, …
Philosophy (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Archaeology (5 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (5 works) · History (5 works) · History (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Critical Realism in Sociology (4 works)