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Article ID: CBB001210316

The Disciplinary and Epistemological Structure of Paleoanthropology: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Development (2012)

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Volume: 34
Pages: 283--330

Publication Date: 2012
Edition Details: Part of a special issue on the history, philosophy, and social studies of paleoanthropology.
Language: English

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Discipline formation Paleoanthropology Human evolution Epistemology 20th century 19th century 21st century

This paper aims to provide a reflection on the nature of the several disciplines that contribute to the field of human evolution or paleoanthropology. An historical approach is adopted on the grounds that the nature of their relationship is perhaps more clearly seen if a dynamic perspective is adopted; that is, if paleoanthropology is analysed as an historical entity in constant flux from 1860 to today. By following the debates over human phylogeny and various scenarios of hominization separately, I will show that paleoanthropology was in the early decades of its development only very loosely organized around a host of disciplines, disciplines that went through a unification process as the twentieth century progressed under a rapidly improving empirical basis. Interestingly, to analyse the disciplinary structure of paleoanthropology from an historical approach is also to reveal its epistemological structure as both are intimately intertwined. It will be suggested that paleoanthropology's disciplinary and epistemological structure can be understood as a multi-level organization comprising at least four distinct explanatory levels characterized by unidirectional and/or bidirectional flows of information, depending on the specific circumstances: (1) a metatheoretical foundation; (2) a level concerned with phylogeny building; (3) a level which takes up evolutionary theories and models; and (4) a level devoted to scenarios of hominization.

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Article Delisle, Richard G. (2012) Human Evolution: An Agenda for History, Philosophy, and Social Studies. History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (p. 3). unapi

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