Based on descriptions of the material remains of human activity, archaeological publications propose theories or ãconstructsä that are hoped to enrich our understanding of ancient societies in all their many facets -- history, economy, organization, sociopolitics, technologies, beliefs, etc. The ãlogicistä program is the 20-year old term given to an ensemble of research aiming to clarify the mechanisms and foundations of the reasoning which organize such constructs (Gardin 1980). This program rather quickly gave birth to the ãschematizationsä underlying such reasoning, in the sense which the logician J-B. Grize gave to that term: ãmodels generated by a discourse in natural languageä (1974). This shift from written texts to schematizations is a reduction, as are all models, but one which nonetheless retains the totality of elements constituting the cognitive constructs per se, separated from the rhetorical trappings which shape the presentation of traditional narratives.
The next stage in the logicist program is based on an observed parallel between the bipartite structure of logicist schematizations (data bases and rewrite formulas '[IF]p ---> [THEN]q'), and the general computational paradigm (Gardin et al. 1987). This homology generates two kinds of computer applications: (a) simulated experiences of reasoning, which concern problems of methodology (Francfort 1991); (b) a program of electronic publications in a new genre, built according to the principles of logicist modeling (Roux 2000). The Arkeotek project is one of the major pieces of this program (Gardin and Roux 2004).
Finally, epistemological questions raised by all such works are now being reconsidered in a more general and long-term debate on the human sciences, in connection with dualisms such as Science and Literature, Mathematical Formalism and Natural Language, Models and Narratives, Professional Reason and Common Sense, etc. (Gardin 2001, 2003).Références :
Francfort H.-P. 1991. «The sense of Measure in Archaeology : an Approach to the Analysis of Proto-urban Societies with the Aid of an Expert System», in : J.-C. Gardin & C.S. Peebles (eds.), Representations in Archaeology, Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, p. 291-314.
Gardin J.-C. 1980. Archaeological Constructs, an Aspect of Theoretical Archaeology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press and Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme. Adaptation française : 1979. Une archéologie théorique, Paris, Hachette. Traduction russe : 1983. Teoreticheskaja Arkheologija, Moscou, Ed. Progress.
Gardin J.-C., Guillaume O., Herman P.Q., Hesnard A., Lagrange M.-S., Renaud M. et Zadora-Rio E. 1987. Systèmes experts et sciences humaines : le cas de l'archéologie, Paris, Eyrolles. Traduction anglaise : 1988. Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems : Case Studies in the Knowledge Domain of Archaeology, Chichester, Ellis Horwood.
Gardin J.-C. 2001. «Modèles et Récits», in : J.-M. Berthelot (dir.), Epistémologie des sciences sociales, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, pp. 407-454.
Grize J.-B. 1974. «Logique mathématique, logique naturelle et modèles». In : Sciences humaines et formalisation, Jahresbericht der Schweizerischen Geisteswissenschafklichen Gesellschaft, pp. 201-207.
Roux V. (sous la direction de), 2000. Cornaline de l'Inde : Des pratiques de Cambay aux techno-systèmes de l'Indus, Paris, Editions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 534 p. Cédérom bilingue inclus.
