“Softcore solipsism” is the namegiven by Charles Tilly to the work of social historians who take alow-intensity postmodernist approach to theory and research, a kind of “postmodernlight.” Although Tilly criticizes this approach in various works, the mostexplicit is in a book review essay titled “softcore solipsism” (Tilly 1994); see also Tilly (1998, 2008, 2010). I think this phrase is anapt description of much recent archaeological theory.
Solipsism is the philosophicaldoctrine that the only thing one can be sure exists is one’s own mind. Theexternal world does not exist, or we cannot know that it exists, so only aperson’s mind is important. The softcore version admits that the real worldexists, but casts doubt on the notion that scholars can generate objectiveknowledge about that reality (particularly in the past). Everyone has their ownviews of the ancient past, and who is to decide that one view is better thananother? Specifically, the foci of analysis are ideas and mental states. Theseare what matter in the study of the past.
Tilly’s discussion of softcoresolipsism in social history includes these features (Tilly 1994):
- Only mental states are important.
- Avoidance of causality in general,and explicit denial and denigration of the notion that economic phenomena havea causative effect on society and social patterns.
- A linguistic or textual analogyfor human experience.
- Statements about past humansociety are seen as not intersubjectively verifiable.
- Heavy usage of weak verbs andpassive voice in writing.
Does this sound familiar? Checkout recent archaeological writing on the following topics:
- Identity or identities
- The meaning of material culture
- Agency and practice theory
- Social construction
- Material culture as a text
- Postcolonial and poststructuralperspectives
I am not saying that everyarchaeological work that deals with one or more of these themes can becategorized as softcore solipsism. But if the shoe fits….
Sometimes I take a relativistperspective on things like archaeological softcore solipsism. If people want totalk about this stuff, that’s fine; it doesn’t prevent more materialist andempirically-minded archaeologists from doing our work. This is the way I phrasemy distaste for high-level social theory in my urban theory paper (Smith 2011). If archaeologists want to runaround quoting Giddens and Bourdieu in every other sentence, that is fine, but thiskind of theory is not at all necessary for doing explanatory analyses of pastsocieties. It may make people feel good, but it will not move research forward.
At other times I get more alarmedby softcore solipsism. It seems to have hijacked a whole generation ofarchaeologists, who have been diverted from the hard work of empiricaldocumentation and causal explanation of past societies and their changes. Toomany smart archaeologists spend their time trying to figure out clever new waysto guess at past mental states, instead of devising new methodological andepistemological approaches to generate reliable empirical knowledge about thepast. Too many archaeologists want to deconstruct or "problmatize" knowledge of the past, rather than building and accumulating knowledge. When postmodernism hit the academy many disciplines dealt with it andmoved on, whereas anthropology and archaeology got stuck in the mud, and arestill struggling to get out. I think this has seriously harmedthe discipline of archaeology. I have found in Charles Tilly's work a strong direction forward for archaeology as a comparative, historical, and materialist social science. Check out his work.
Tilly, Charles
1998 Durable Inequality. University ofCalifornia Press, Berkeley.
2008 Explaining Social Processes. ParadigmPublishers, Boulder, CO.
2010 Mechanismsof the Middle Range. In Robert K. Merton: Sociology of Science andSociological Explanation, edited by Craig Calhoun, pp. 54-62. ColumbiaUniversity Press, New York.
