From the Ontology of Modern Archaeological Science (About Parallel Discourses and the Threshold of Mutual Understanding between East and West)

Abstract

The article outlines some aspects of the development of archaeological knowledge in the interaction, or rather in the absence of creative interaction between representatives of eastern, post-Soviet archaeology and their colleagues from Western and Central Europe and North America. In the scientific dialogue, there are clearly unhealthy tendencies that have nothing to do with science, which seriously interfere with the synergy of the cognition process. The author sees two such trends. The first is the involvement of archaeological knowledge in the illumination, or even the solution of the problems of modernity of a political and ideological nature. At the forefront of this quasi-scientific trend, there are representatives of countries experiencing various kinds of historical complexes and trying to overcome them in this way. The second is the reluctance of Western specialists to thoroughly study literature in Russian, and even more so in the national languages of the former Soviet republics. This rejection is based on a deep, ingrained confidence in the absolute superiority of the cognitive and analytical abilities of representatives of the Romano-Germanic civilization. As a result, two research paradigms are formed, which develop in parallel, having no points of contact.