ABSTRACT
Contemporary archaeology is coping with some of the fundamental philosophical issues of our time through argumental posturing and polemics. Today I will suggest that many of these arguments and postures stem from a poor understanding of the philosophical issues themselves, but more importantly, many are metaphysical issues that are not really appropriate to science in fundamental ways. Thus, when introduced, these issues become distractions and lead to unproductive argument. This is not a new situation. Thomas Huxley spent much of his intellectual life coping with just such issues. Even when solved, these issues would never lead to greater learning, only to a kind of intellectual comfort or discomfort with the act of seeking knowledge itself and the methods proposed for doing so. I will seek to elaborate these introductory remarks with what I consider to be some fundamental issues around which current controversy swirls.
