Critique of Archaeological Reason
Introduction to the website
Giorgio Buccellati - February 2016
At all times, my research on archaeological theory went hand in hand with fieldwork, and my attention to digitality went hand in hand with programming. Accordingly, while aiming for rigor and coherence in developing an abstract argument, I have consistently been mindful of the implications of the very concrete feedback resulting from the operational side of practice. (This resulted often in a disconnect between ambition and implementation, in ways that regularly reminded me of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver on Laputa...)
The Critique website is a reflection of this process. The interweaving of different levels of information and of different moments in the development of a multi-layered argument, illustrate the special quality of the website as a concrete example digital thought. The website is in fact conceived as a specifically digital structural whole, one where structuration can be seen as the interaction between the dynamic and the static moments of a discourse. This interaction captures both moments, the flux and the quiescence, in a modulated counterpoint mode.
The recurrent interchange between theory and practice made me also aware at all times of the centrality of meaning in the middle of all effort at analysis.
"Grammar" must not become an end in itself, lest we fall prey to Erasmus's caustic condemnation.
In order to "remain capable of thought," we should eschew the "stammering greatness" of Funes el memorioso.
To ultimately access meaning, we must, with Bonaventure, keep wonder alive, and nurture love.
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