The Dialectic of Practice and the Logical Structure of the Tool: Philosophy, Archaeology and the Anthropology of Technology

The Dialectic of Practice and the Logical Structure of the Tool undertakes a critical review of recent trends in the archaeological and anthropological theory of technology from processual neo-positivism and postprocessual relativism to the contemporary French and American anthropology, and the symmetrical theory of material culture. On the basis of a critique of their logical premises and epistemological consequences, it draws on the tradition of Hegelian dialectics in order to propose an ...