ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out three propositions related to the second empiricism namely what is given in experience should not be oversimplified, avoid the bifurcation of nature, data are at once real and artificial. Within archaeology it is quite common to conflate the bifurcation of nature with fundamental attributes of experience, whether labelled in terms of interpretation and data, mental judgment and sensory impressions, theory and practice, present and past, or words and the world. Empirical adequacy demands that one do not decide in advance what part the past should play in the world. No longer faithful copies of the material world, data become translations that are simultaneously real and artificial. Transferable notions of what one deem methodologically adequate are placed to one side in favour of a situated understanding of adequacy with respect to good work. Indisputability of the real as matters of fact gives way to cautious negotiations around matters of concern.
