wylie 1999 how archaeologists explit the disunities of science

8/16/2019 Wylie 1999 How Archaeologists Explit the Disunities of Science

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Rethinking Unity as a

“Working Hypothesis”

for Philosophy of

Science: How

Archaeologists Exploit

the Disunities of Science

Alison Wylie

Washington University in St. Louis

As a working hypothesis for philosophy of science, the unity of science thesishas been decisively challenged in all its standard formulations; it cannot be

assumed that the sciences presuppose an orderly world, that they are united bythe goal of systematically describing and explaining this order, or that they

rely on distinctively scientiªc methodologies which, properly applied, producedomain-speciªc results that converge on a single coherent and comprehensive

system of knowledge. I ªrst delineate the scope of arguments against global unity theses. However implausible old-style global unity theses may now seem,I argue that unifying strategies of a more local and contingent nature do play

an important role in scientiªc inquiry. This is particularly clear in archaeol-ogy where, to establish evidential claims of any kind, practitioners must exploit a range of inter-ªeld and inter-theory connections. At the same time,the robustness of these evidential claims depends on signiªcant disunity be-tween the sciences from which archaeologists draw background assumptions

Earlier versions of the next three papers were presented at the American PhilosophicalAssociation 1998 Eastern Division Meetings in a Symposium entitled “The Disunity of

Science.”I thank Miriam Solomon for inviting me to participate in the symposium “The

Disunity of Science” (organized for the 1997 meeting of the American PhilosophicalAssociation, Eastern Division); I initially drafted this paper for that symposium. I verymuch appreciate the comments and questions raised on that occasion by members of theaudience and by Philip Kitcher in his commentary on the session. I learned a great dealsubsequently from lively discussions with colleagues who attended symposium and lecturepresentations of this paper to the Departments of Philosophy and Anthropology at Univer-sity of Pennsylvania, the Department of History of Science at Harvard, and the MinnesotaCenter for Philosophy of Science at University of Minnesota. I hope they see ways in whichtheir engagement of the issues has sharpened my argument even if they (still) disagree withme.

Perspectives on Science 1999, vol. 7, no. 3©2000 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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and auxiliary hypotheses. This juxtaposition of unity with disunity poses achallenge to standard (polarized) positions in the debate about scientiªc unity.

Introduction

As compelling as they once were, and as inºuential as they continue to bein many contexts of practice, global unity of science theses have beendecisively challenged in all their standard formulations: methodological,epistemic, and metaphysical. It cannot be assumed as a normative ideal oreven as a “working hypothesis” (Oppenheim and Putnam 1958) that thesciences presuppose an orderly world, that they are united by the goal of systematically describing and explaining this order, and that they rely on adistinctively scientiªc method that, successfully applied, produces do-main-speciªc results that converge on a single coherent and comprehensivesystem of knowledge.

The question immediately arises, what follows from these arguments

against unity, given that they represent not just the culmination of criticaldebate about a particularly inºuential view of science, but a challenge toassumptions that have very largely deªned what it is to do philosophy of science? In this paper I consider the implications of disunity at two levels.I am concerned, ªrst (and primarily), to delineate the scope of argumentsagainst global unity theses. However much the weight of critical argu-ment tells against old-style global unity theses, it is important not to losesight of the fact that ideals of epistemic and methodological unity remaina powerful force in many sciences, and that local and contingent unifyingstrategies are crucial to scientiªc inquiry. I argue, with reference to thepractice of historical archaeologists, that the inter-ªeld and inter-theoryconnections necessary to support evidential claims represent a signiªcant if perplexing unifying force, even if they do not support global unity theses.

They establish a robust network of cross-connections that binds the sciencestogether. At the same time, however, the epistemic leverage they providedepends on signiªcant and pervasive disunity in the sciences. In the ªnalsection of this paper, I brieºy consider some meta-implications of thisargument for philosophy of science and for science studies more generally.

The Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis

Methodological unity theses

Although claims of methodological unity were the cornerstone of expansion-ist programs in philosophy and in science in the nineteenth and earlytwentieth century, they received only cursory attention from such powerfuladvocates for uniªed theories of science as Oppenheim and Putnam who

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declared that, by 1958, this genre of unity thesis “appear[ed] doubtful”(1958, p. 5).1 Indeed, such great nineteenth century systematizers as Milland Whewell took considerable care to catalogue the diversity of methods

developed by (successful) sciences and were divided in their assessment of whether or how these could be characterized in unitary terms.2 Recentreexaminations show that even such a stalwart of the Vienna Circle asNeurath was more interested in the co-ordination of scientiªc methodsthan in methodological unity per se (Cat, Cartwright, and Chang 1996,Cartwright and Cat 1996). In short, both classical and logical positivistswere equivocal in their endorsement of methodological unity theses. AsHacking puts the point with reference to unity theses of all kinds, twoquite distinct senses of unity are at issue: unity qua “singleness” and unityin a looser, contingent sense that he describes as “harmonious integration”(1996, p. 41).

Twenty years after the appearance of Oppenheim and Putnam’s declara-tion on behalf of unity, Suppes reinforced their caution about theses of

methodological unity. He declared them unsustainable in any interestingform (1984 [1978]); if formulated in general enough terms to cover allscientiªc practice, they are likely to be trivial and to obscure more thanthey illuminate of the real complexity of scientiªc practice. They are,moreover, irrelevant; it might have been important to articulate a clear-cutdeªnition of what counts as scientiªc method when science itself was inneed of a philosophical defense, but by the late 1970s, Suppes argued, thiswas no longer necessary. It was time to turn our attention to “a patientexamination of the many ways in which different sciences differ in lan-guage, subject matter, and method, as well as [to] synoptic views of theways in which they are alike” (1984 [1978], p. 125). Of recent disunitytheorists, Dupré is most uncompromising in pressing this point; he arguesthat the quest for “general criteria of scientiªcity” (1993, p. 229) is largely

irrelevant to current unity debates (Dupré 1993). Where methods areconcerned, “science is [at best] a family resemblance concept” (Dupré1993, p. 242), and where judgements of scientiªc credibility are it issue,the most promising and realistic strategy is to apply the standards of aºexible virtue epistemology on a case-by-case basis.

Debate on these issues is by no means closed. There are certainly advo-cates of more closely delimited methodological unity theses although theyusually focus on particular features of scientiªc inquiry (e.g., models of

1. Oppenheim and Putnam describe claims about the unity of scientiªc method andabout logical unity as theses that “today appear doubtful” (1958, p. 5). By logical unitythey mean theses according to which all terms of science are reducible to “sensationalisticpredicates” or “observable qualities of physical things” (1958, p. 5).

2. Hacking makes this point with reference to Comte and Whewell (1996, p. 38).

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explanation, conªrmation, testing, and belief revision), and some whoargue strenuously against disunity critics on grounds that if they are right,meaningful distinctions between science and pseudo-science are irrevoca-

bly compromised and corrosive relativism is unavoidable (see Stump 1991on challenges from Worral and Siegl). More modestly, Ereshefsky arguesthat, despite his disunifying ambitions, Dupré’s catalogue of epistemicvirtues3 captures a “fairly stable core” of non-trivial but global features of scientiªc methodology (1995, p. 156).4 In the end, however, what emergesis a decisive rout of methodological unity theses that are global in scopeand that posit the “singleness” of scientiªc method (to use Hacking’sterm). If they are characterized with any speciªcity, methodological strate-gies and standards do seem to be highly variable across the sciences, andthey clearly evolve; they are responsive to the empirical conditions of practice (to subject domain) and to the interests of investigators. Thisappreciation of the complexity and diversity of scientiªc practice is rein-forced as philosophers of science naturalize their practice and attend to the

speciªcs of practice in an increasingly wide range of ªelds.

Epistemic and ontological unity theses

The unity theses that Oppenheim and Putnam endorse have to do with thecontent of science and its subject domain(s) rather than its methodology; Irefer to these as epistemic and ontological unity theses although they didnot.5 At their most ambitious, the advocates of these theses postulate ahierarchy of micro-reductions that integrate all the sciences into one co-herent system; the language and, more to the point, the laws and theo-ries—in short, the content—of each science should (ultimately) derivefrom, or supervene upon, those of successively more basic sciences until

3. The core virtues cited are: “sensitivity to empirical fact”; cohesion with things we

know; reliance on plausible background assumptions; and exposure to as wide a variety of criticisms as possible. In addition, Ereshefsky observes that Dupré considers a number of other “free ºoating aesthetic virtues,” such as unity, generality, and simplicity, that may bedifferentially relevant to some ªelds, or subªelds, of science (1995, p. 157).

4. Note that such an argument does not establish the kind of unity thesis aboutscientiªc methodology that Dupré objects to—a monistic thesis that posits the uniquenessand “singleness” of scientiªc method—and it does not entail or support “scientiªc imperi-alism” (Dupré 1995). On Ereshefsky’s account, the central challenge for philosophers of science is to understand, in local and contingent terms, how far Dupré’s virtues “travel” andhow they are realized in diverse contexts of practice. Ironically, similar arguments forstudying, in ªne-grained (naturalistic) detail the ºexibility, adaptability, and mutability of scientiªc method have been made both by critics and by advocates of unity theses. CompareLaudan and Laudan, “Dominance and the Disunity of Method” (1989) with Giere, “Towarda Uniªed Theory of Science” (1984).

5. What Oppenheim and Putnam refer to as “epistemic theses” are claims about

methodological and logical unity, the senses of unity they thought untenable (1958, p. 5).



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you reach a “unique lowest level,” a foundational science of elementaryparticles (Oppenheim and Putnam 1958, p. 9). In this they assume that anorderly and unitary structure of part:whole relations holds between the

objects studied by sciences at each level; reduction is accomplished if it canbe shown that a science at one level involves the study of objects that canbe “decompos[ed] into things belonging to the next lowest level” (1958,p. 9). Oppenheim and Putnam are clear on the point that in the late 1950sactual science displayed no such ideal unity, although they note a numberof “unifying trends” that warrant systematic investigation; ultimately,they insist, the “unity of science” is an hypothesis that “can only bejustiªed on empirical grounds” (1958, p. 12). It is in this sense that it hasserved as the central “organizing principle” for a great deal of philosophicalwork on science in the last forty years.

In practice the interest in global epistemic reduction has fragmentedinto localized debates about the likelihood that micro-reductions will berealized between pairs of sciences: physicalist or materialist reductions of

psychology to neuroscience; biochemical reductions of genetics; the “quan-tum takeover” in physics that has been contested by Cartwright (1995).And in virtually all such cases the prospects for reduction remain at leastcontentious and certainly distant. Even paradigm examples of apparentlysuccessful uniªcation prove unexpectedly complex, providing, at best,equivocal support for epistemic and ontological unity theses. For example,Morrison argues that the uniªcation effected by Maxwell’s electromagnetictheory (1992), and more recently by electroweak theory, is “structuralrather than substantial” (1995, p. 369); unity is accomplished at a theo-retical level by extension of a powerful mathematical formalism to diversephenomena, but it leaves key elements of the constituent theories eitheruninterpreted or unreduced and provides little ground for claiming thatany deeper (ontological) unity in nature has been discovered (1995,

p. 372).6 Far from establishing a part:whole relation between the forces or

6. Wayne (1996) challenges Morrison’s account of the uniªcation accomplished byelectroweak theory. He argues that the structural uniªcation she describes depends uponthe selection of a particular “argument pattern”—a particular component of the complexarray of formal models developed to make sense of different kinds of subatomic systems(1996, p. 399)—as the element of formal structure that will be held invariant through alltransformations required to apply the theory to diverse systems. This choice, he insists,depends on prior ontological commitments that inform “an interpretation of the standardmodel that includes a small ontology of elementary quantum ªelds” (1996, p. 404), and itis these ontological commitments, not the formalism, that makes uniªcation possible. Thisundermines Morrison’s argument that uniªcation in the electroweak case is strictly struc-tural, and may have important implications for her arguments against realist construals of theoretical uniªcation (1990, as well as 1994), but it does not necessarily establish (nordoes it seem intended to establish) that the case ªts the theory reduction model associated



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entities posited by the conjoined theories, Morrison argues that in the caseof Maxwell’s theory physical interpretation of the unifying mathematicalmodel remained a fundamental difªculty, while electromagnetic and weak

forces remain distinct in electroweak theory. Here theoretical unity co-exists with ontological disunity (1995, p. 371), indeed, in the case of electroweak theory, “unity is achieved at the price of introducing an ele-ment of disunity” (1995, p. 369).

In a recent discussion of the “special” sciences (speciªcally, economics),Kincaid makes the complementary argument that even if we acceptsome form of metaphysical unity thesis it does not follow that we (“realhuman agents”) can or should make epistemic unity our central objective.The entities and events studied by social scientists may all be dependentupon or, indeed, constituted by their physical realization, but it doesnot follow that “lower level” physical theories should be granted explana-tory primacy (1997, p. 3); higher level theories in the special sciences maywell describe the causal dynamics of socio-political, cultural, or economic

systems that cannot be strictly derived from physical theories. Insofar asthe special sciences prove capable of establishing interesting (counter-fac-tual supporting) generalizations—something that must be considered anopen, empirical question—it seems unlikely that these will map ontophysical descriptions of the objects and events they systematize. As Fodorput the point in 1974, “what is interesting about monetary exchanges [forexample] is surely not their commonalities under physical description”(1974, p. 103–104).7

Dupré extends this line of argument, noting disjunctions between thetheories produced not only by distinct branches of science but within themas well (this distinction is made by Davies 1996). Biologists activelydebate divergent classiªcatory schemas all of which may be said to “cutnature at its joints” but reºect different selections of joints. These are

with Oppenheim and Putnam’s “working hypothesis.” If anything, it suggests that elec-troweak theory is an example of the kind of “interªeld theory” (discussed below) thatDarden and Maull described in the late 1970s as a standard form of ªeld-bridging develop-ment in science that does not ªt and, indeed, was obscured by, a preoccupation withderivational reduction (1977).

7. Fodor elaborates this point later in his discussion: “This brings us to why there arespecial sciences at all. Reductivism . . . ºies in the face of the facts about the scientiªcinstitution: the existence of a vast and interleaved conglomerate of special science disci-plines which often appear to proceed with only the most token acknowledgment of theconstraint that their theories must turn out to be physics ‘in the long run’.

I am suggesting, roughly, that there are special sciences not because of the nature of ourepistemic relation to the world, but because of the way the world is put together: not allnatural kinds (not all classes of things and events about which there are important,counterfactual supporting generalizations to be made) are, or correspond to, physicalnatural kinds.” (Fodor 1974, pp. 112–113)



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distinguished, not by concern with different levels of reality that ªt neatlytogether when parts are reassembled into wholes, but by an interest,pragmatic or scholarly, in different aspects of a complex reality and its

diverse causes: “evolution, the source of biological diversity, is itself adiverse set of processes . . . [why expect] that it will give rise to any uniqueand privileged set of categories suited to the varied sorts of inquiries andinterests that we bring to the study of biological organisms” (Dupré 1996,p. 443)? It is no accident, Dupré concludes, that epistemic disunity seemsto be the rule, rather than the exception. Reduction projects founder on an“apparent diversity and disorder of nature” that poses a fundamental (em-pirical) challenge to the metaphysical as well as the epistemic componentsof Oppenheim and Putnam’s “working hypothesis.”

One sympathetic critic objects that if Dupré is seriously committed topluralism, he must allow that essentialist categories may yet prove viablein some areas (Ereshefsky 1995), while another who is less sympatheticargues that Dupré puts too much weight on the state of disarray in which

he ªnds contemporary biology: perhaps “our epistemic situation now ismost like that within late sixteenth-century astronomy where much inte-grative conceptual and empirical work lay in the future and the endorse-ment of a pluralistic realism would have been at best premature” (Wilson1996, p. 312). In response, Dupré reasserts a point acknowledged at theoutset by Oppenheim and Putnam and made repeatedly by disuniªers.The question of whether unity theses are viable is an empirical one andcertainly remains open; it is, indeed, “hazardous to read a philosophicalposition off the current state of science” (Dupré 1996, p. 441). 8 Certainlyno one can claim to offer arguments that decisively settle the case for oragainst unity theses, given that these are prospective and, to some degree,normative, as well as empirical. Nevertheless, at this juncture the weightof evidence and argument counts strongly against any form of global,

“singleness” theses. If anything, methodological and theoretical disunityseems to proliferate rather than diminish as the sciences mature and spe-cialize. And, as often as not, this leads to a recognition of greater complex-ity rather than of simplicity in the ontology of the subject domains scien-tists investigate. The more we learn about the speciªcs of scientiªc inquiry

8. Dupré is careful to say that he does not claim to have “refute[d] a priori the possibilitythat future scientiªc developments might make a monistic, even essentialist view of speciesincreasingly attractive” (1996, p. 441). See also Fodor: “The question whether reductivismis too strong is ªnally an empirical question. (The world could turn out to be such that everynatural kind corresponds to a physical natural kind, just as it could turn out to be such thatthe property is transported to a distance of less than three miles from the Eiffel Tower determines anatural kind in, say, hydrodynamics. It’s just that, as things stand, it seems very unlikelythat the world will turn out to be either of these ways.)” (1974, p. 103).



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as philosophers, the more tenuous seems the rationale for taking any formof global unity thesis as our point of departure. The real challenge is todetermine to what extent disunity prevails, in what different forms, and

for what reasons.

Integration and Unification

By no means does this brief for taking disunity seriously displace allquestions about unity in more contingent and localized senses. Uniªcationremains an important ideal for many scientists (cf. Morrison 1994; Wayne1996) and, as uniªers and disuniªers alike will acknowledge, unifyingconnections within and between the sciences are a crucial feature of muchresearch practice. Fine-grained studies of inter- and intra-ªeld relationsbring into focus a complex network of interdependencies—counterparts tothe methodological, epistemic, and metaphysical unity postulated by tra-ditional unity theses—that do not ªt reductionist models but nonethelessbind the sciences together “by much more subtle routes” (Kincaid 1997,

p. 6).Perhaps the most tangible evidence of such cross-ªeld connections is in

the examples of “interªeld theories” analyzed in the late 1970s by Dardenand Maull (1977), in the emergence of “cross-disciplinary research clus-ters” described by Bechtel (1988) and by Abrahmsen (1987), and in theexpanded range of inter-ªeld problem-solving strategies that have sub-sequently been identiªed by Darden (1991) and by Galison (1996). In thecases considered by these analyses, questions arise concerning aspects of thesubject domain studied by one ªeld that can only be addressed adequatelyby engaging the resources of another. The interaction between ªelds thatthis generates often results, not in a reductive assimilation of one ªeld (ortheory) to the other, or in a simple borrowing of information, technology,or explanatory models that leaves each essentially unchanged, but in the

formation of substantially new theories and research programs concernedwith relations between phenomena that cross-cut the traditional domainsof neighboring ªelds (Darden and Maull 1977, p. 50). The cases that posethe most telling challenge to traditional unity theses are those originallydescribed by Darden and Maull in which vertical links hold betweeninteracting ªelds of just the sort that should support micro-reduction—their subject domains stand in a part:whole relation to one another—butwhat emerges is a semi-autonomous theory. Typically these concern as-pects of the entities studied by one ªeld that have not typically been itsfocal concern but are relevant for understanding the wholes studied byanother ªeld. In addition, Darden and Maull consider interªeld theoriesthat are formed to account for a range of other structural:functional and



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causal relations between phenomena at the same level of organization thatare studied by distinct ªelds.9 Bechtel, and Abrahmsen, add to this ex-panded account of interªeld relations a consideration of instances of hori-

zontal integration that result when a number of ªelds concerned withoverlapping problems form loosely co-ordinated “disciplinary researchclusters” (Bechtel 1988, p. 110; Abrahmsen 1978). In some cases practi-tioners in these clusters study relations that hold between distinct phe-nomena studied by different ªelds; in others they concern what are recog-nizably the same phenomena studied from different ªeld-speciªcperspectives. But despite assuming some form of local ontological unity,what emerges are conjoint bodies of theory and research practice that areintegrated to varying degrees but fall well short of content reduction.

The technology-induced emergence of trading zones recently discussedby Galison (1996) is a rather different but related phenomenon that arisesfrom methodological rather than theoretical integration. Here the technol-ogy of computer simulation establishes unifying connections between

ªelds, connections embodied in “strategies of practice” that depend on nopresumption of ontological unity (however local) and yield no substantialtheoretical integration, much less theory reduction (1996, p. 157). Theydo represent, however, “a new cluster of skills . . . a new mode of produc-ing scientiªc knowledge that was rich enough to coordinate highly diversesubject matters” (1996, p. 119). As the pioneers and advocates of thesecomputer applications reªned their technical practice, they found them-selves marginalized in their home ªelds and increasingly drawn into a

9. The pattern Darden and Maull describe is one in which interªeld explanatoryproblems arise by virtue of causal interaction or part:whole interdependence between theentities that comprise the distinct domains of two ªelds, or because two ªelds study thesame phenomena from distinct points of view; for example, one may focus on structure andanother on function (Darden and Maull 1977, p. 45), or on process as opposed to productin the same domain (Abrahmsen 1987, p. 370). Darden and Maull describe situations inwhich existing background knowledge in one or both ªelds establishes, in advance, thatthey are dealing with phenomena studied by another ªeld. An interªeld theory arises when,in order to account for these cross-ªeld connections, it becomes necessary to introducesubstantially new ideas not derived from either contributing ªeld or the backgroundknowledge that establishes the link between them. As Bechtel describes the cases Dardenand Maull consider, they arise in situations where interªeld theories emerge to “ªll . . . inmissing information about a phenomena that was already partially understood in otherªelds” (1986, p. 45). He offers an illustrative example in which the development of aninterªeld theory—one that links research on vitamins to research on metabolism—wastriggered by the accidental discovery of domain-transgressive phenomena (1986, pp. 45–46). Darden has since expanded this catalogue of interªeld theories in connection with ageneral account of interªeld relations that are instrumental to the formation of theories(1991).



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delocalized trading zone (1996, p. 155); they developed a language10 and astyle of inquiry that took on a life of its own; it was this creole that gaverise to a reconceptualization of the subject domains of contiguous ªelds.

Computer simulation technologies may have been introduced as a tool thatcould help diverse ªelds solve internally deªned problems but, “bit by bit(byte by byte) . . . the computer came to stand . . . for nature itself” (1996,p. 157). What emerges is a body of practice that, like interªeld theories, isnot strictly the product of any one existing ªeld; to varying degrees and indifferent ways it transformed and integrated the research of distinct disci-plines, but did not generate an autonomous new ªeld nor reduce any oneexisting ªeld to another.11

When Darden and Maull ªrst described interªeld theories they wereconcerned that these had been ignored because the mandate set by Oppen-heim and Putnam’s working hypothesis focused philosophical attentionon just one kind of interªeld relationship, that of derivational micro-reductions. They proposed a new working hypothesis, one that conceptual-

izes unity in science as “a complex network of relationships betweenªelds effected by interªeld theories” (1997, p. 60). Even this remains toorestrictive, however.12 Bechtel’s and Abrahmsen’s research clusters repre-sent a looser interªeld co-ordination of theory, and Galison’s tradingzones, quite another (primarily methodological) interªeld formation.In addition, there are innumerable other more mundane and “work-a-day” connections (Abrahmsen 1987, p. 356; see also Darden 1991) thatsustain durable networks of relationships between ªelds but do not supple-ment the donor or recipient ªelds substantially enough to warrant theformation of an interªeld theory or cross-disciplinary research cluster, andare not contentious enough to generate a semi-autonomous trading zone.These are exchanges that proceed relatively quietly, establishing them-selves as a stable and ubiquitous form of discipline bridging (Abrahmsen

1987, p. 356).13

10. Galison argues that the formation of a distinct technical language, an interªeldpidgin that became a creole (1996, p. 153), was instrumental in setting simulation re-searchers apart from colleagues in their home ªelds and in creating the heterogenousdomain Galison refers to as a trading zone.

11. It is a contingent matter whether, in fact, these interªeld theories or technicaltrading zones will crystallize into a distinct new ªeld. This may be the ultimate outcomebut, Bechtel argues, what degree of autonomy is realized depends on such factors as theintegrity of the inter-ªeld phenomena under study and the ability of inter-ªeld researchersto maintain ties with their home disciplines (Bechtel 1986, p. 37).

12. As indicated earlier, Darden has subsequently broadened her account of the relationsthat bind (and divide) research ªelds (Darden 1991).

13. The following catalogue of interªeld connections is based on Abrahmsen (1987),Darden (1991), Bechtel (1988, chapters 5 and 6), and the introduction by Bechtel and



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At the relatively broad and transformational end of this spectrum of interactions, one ªeld may appropriate the orienting theory or domain-deªning metaphors and sometimes, with it, the problematic, of another

ªeld, but remain a theoretically and methodologically (as well as institu-tionally) autonomous endeavor. Psycholinguistics is an example consideredin some detail by Abrahmsen (1987) in which the balance betweeninºuence and assimilation is renegotiated on an ongoing basis. The diffu-sion of structuralist approaches through the social sciences, described inanother connection by Pettit (1975), is a case in which a linguistic meta-phor and, selectively, some aspects of linguistic theory and linguisticmethods of analysis, were extended to a wide range of ªelds dealing withcultural subjects that could reasonably be conceived as meaning bearing invarious senses. Archaeology is a ªeld whose recent history has been shapedby a succession of experiments with different metaphoric and theoreticalconstructions of its cultural-material subject domain: a reductive eco-materialism that privileges the environmental determinants of cultural

behavior; various forms of historical materialism, structuralism, and post-structuralism; and, recently, a newly stringent evolutionism on whichcultural phenomena are conceived as part of the extended human pheno-type, to be explained in terms of selection pressures. In addition, however,borrowings of more limited scope are essential even in ªelds with lesspermeable boundaries whose subject domains and problematics are dis-tinctly their own. These include the transfer of explanatory models, em-pirical results, and research technologies (skills and instruments) from oneªeld to another where they are used to develop ªeld-speciªc explanatorytheories and to establish the evidential basis necessary for evaluating thesetheories.

Dupré considers these elements of the “densely connected network”that binds various sciences together, but dismisses them as irrelevant to

the debate about unity; they establish nothing more than that “no form of knowledge production can be entirely isolated from all the others” andthis, he says, is “too banal an observation to glorify with the title ‘unity of science’” (1993, p. 227). He is certainly right that such interªeld connec-tions provide little support for the kind of global, “singleness” unity thesishe contests.14 But if Dupré’s critique of these theses is taken as a point of

contributions to Integrating Scientiªc Disciplines (edited by Bechtel, 1986). It is also informedby Kincaid’s more general analysis (1997) and by Baigrie and Hattiangadi’s discussion of consensus and stability in science (1992), and Hacking’s account of self-stabilizing, consil-ient networks of “ideas, things, and marks” (1992, p. 44).

14. Dupré cites Darden and Maull in this connection, arguing that their examples of interªeld theories do not establish grounds for endorsing any very strong unity thesis. Infact, Darden and Maull’s account of interªeld theories was speciªcally intended as a



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departure, such banal interactions are crucial for understanding the rela-tionships that productively integrate and coordinate the actual practice of science. These low-level, unexceptional connections often involve just the

kind of paradoxical juxtaposition, indeed, interdependence, of unity anddisunity on which Morrison remarks; they preserve disunities in manyareas while at the same time building localized bridges, trading zones, andpoints of integration between ªelds. In the case I consider below, historicalarchaeologists make use of integrative connections between ªelds to estab-lish an evidential basis for building and testing claims about the past, butthe epistemic advantage this affords depends on their ability to systemati-cally exploit the disunities that persist on many levels among scientiªcªelds and theories.

Localized Unity: Historical Archaeology

Conjoint uses of evidence

Historical archaeology has emerged as a distinct ªeld only in the last thirtyyears.15 In North American contexts its proponents have struggled vocifer-ously to establish its credibility and deªne its identity in opposition to twopowerful parental disciplines: real archaeology and real history. Prehistoricarchaeologists have been inclined to treat historical archaeology as trivial,16

and historians dismiss it as a hopelessly thin source of insight about thepast. Historical archaeologists, for their part, insist that much damage hasbeen done by arrogant prehistorians who, enlisted by contract ªrms, gov-ernment agencies, and university ªeld schools, assume that historic sitespose no interesting challenge of their own, and by insular historians whoinsist that there is nothing to be learned from kitchen middens and cellar

counter-example to Oppenheim and Putnam’s working hypothesis; even in cases where

neighboring ªelds deal with just the kinds of boundary-straddling, part:whole relationsthat are most amenable to interªeld reduction, reduction is often not realized.15. See, for example, Schuyler’s discussion in the preface to the ªrst comprehensive

reader in historical archaeology, Historical Archaeology: A Guide to Substantive and Theoretical Contributions (1978, p. ix). He argues that historical archaeology—“an entirely new area of scholarly research and public concern”—took shape after World War II, but notes that theSociety for Historical Archaeology was not formed, and did not begin publishing Historical

Archaeology, until 1967. Schuyler describes parallel developments in the U.K. and inAustralia, although the disciplinary afªliations are different in these contexts from those inNorth America (e.g., industrial archaeology and the archaeology of Roman Britain, in thecase of historical archaeology in the U.K.). As he notes, much of the impetus for thedevelopment of this ºedgling ªeld in North America came from federal and state orprovincial programs of historic site preservation and interpretation.

16. As one put it in discussion at a recent conference, historical archaeologists play inthe “shallow sandbox of recent history” while real archaeologists dig the deep holes of

serious prehistory.



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pits that cannot be better learned from the documentary record. It isstriking, however, that as intent as historical archaeologists are on deªningthe boundaries of their new ªeld, they consistently emphasize the need for,

and value of, substantial interªeld connections. A recurrent theme in thesedebates is an insistence that where historic period events and conditions of life are concerned, vastly more can be achieved by making conjoint use of the evidential, methodological, and theoretical resources of archaeologyand documentary history than can be achieved by either ªeld working inisolation from the other.17

This is not just an argument that archaeological inquiry provides sup-plementary detail about the past, useful for animating museum displaysbut of only marginal relevance to the bigger picture historians constructon the basis of documentary research. In resisting the imperialism of history, historical archaeologists sometimes insist that they offer substan-tially different, potentially transformative insights about the recent past.The gritty details of the archaeological record bear witness to “the inar-

ticulate” (Ascher 1974, p. 11), the “endless silent majority who did notleave us written projections of their minds” (Glassie 1977, p. 29), whosedispossession extended well beyond the alienation of their labor to theproduction of what Glassie describes as “superªcial and elitist . . . tale[s]of viciousness”—”myth[s] for the contemporary power structure” (1977,p. 29). Historical archaeology promises not just to ªll in missing informa-tion about those who are largely invisible in the narratives of text-basedhistory, but to counter the “inevitable elitism” (1977, p. 29) of traditionalhistory. While this sells short the insights afforded by radical history (e.g.,history from below), and ignores the conservatism of much historicalarchaeology, it does draw attention to the transformative potential of theªeld, a potential that has been realized in a number of areas in whichhistorical archaeologists have been active the last thirty years.18

17. There is a parallel here with cases described by Bechtel who argues, with referenceto psychology and neuroscience, physiology and chemistry, that an insistence on strictdisciplinary autonomy can be as counterproductive as reductive uniªcation schemes (1988,pp. 79–81), and by Darden who shows how important a role interªeld interactions play inthe creative development of science (1991).

18. Consider, for example, the insights afforded by the development of an archaeologyof sharecropping and free black settlements, as well as of slave quarters, in contexts wherethey should not have existed or where the great houses of prominent planters had been theexclusive focus of attention (Singleton 1985; Epperson 1990; Orser 1990, 1999; Yentsch1994). Consider, too, the growing body of research that is transforming our understandingof early Spanish exploration and settlement in the Americas (Deagan 1990; Thomas 1991),and that which has begun to document the enormous diversity of those who populated theWest (see discussion in Wylie 1993), the changing roles and activities of women in the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (e.g., Seifert 1991), and the (largely suppressed)



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Sometimes these claims about the corrective powers of historical archae-ology are generalized in epistemologically interesting ways. The disci-pline-bridging position of the new ªeld is represented as a resource rather

than a liability because the credibility of whatever we claim about thehistorical past is improved to the extent that it is supported by bothdocumentary and archaeological evidence. Here historical archaeologistsappropriate arguments that are central to a long-running debate in NorthAmerican archaeology about the status of archaeological evidence. Thepoint of departure is typically one or another form of anti-foundationalistargument to the effect that reasoning from evidence is inevitably a “three-place relation” (Glymour 1980). Any claim about the evidential sig-niªcance of material identiªed as a record of the past depends on mediat-ing assumptions: background knowledge, auxiliaries, interpretiveprinciples, middle range theory, that establish a link between the materialtraces that survive archaeologically and the past events or conditions of lifethat are presumed responsible (in part) for producing these traces. At one

extreme the most uncompromising anti-positivists argue, on this basis,that any appeal to archaeological evidence is inescapably and viciouslycircular; we cannot but construct all and only the evidence we require (orexpect) given the interpretive theories on which we rely. At the otherextreme there are unreconstructed positivists who take refuge in the pre-sumption that certain ranges of auxiliaries (usually those established bythe most successful of the physical sciences) can secure a surrogate founda-tion of stable (if not given) evidence; they then restrict the scope of archaeological inquiry to those aspects of the cultural past that can beinvestigated using just the kinds of evidence they regard as secure beyondreasonable doubt.19

More typically, however, archaeologists embrace a range of mediatingpositions.20 They do what they can to assess, or establish, the security of

the sources on which they rely. But, beyond this, they exploit the fact thatstrong constructivist arguments presuppose a degree of unity in sciencethat simply does not exist. Circularity is an inescapable problem only if one assumes a seamless integration of all the various ªelds and theories on

history of systematic oppression and displacement in post-colonial states (see contributionsto Schmidt and Patterson 1995) and in capitalist systems generally (Leone and Potter1999).

19. If a self-vindicating foundation cannot be found, one vindicated by physics is closeenough. This is sometimes the tenor of Binford’s defensive responses to his post-processualcritics (Binford 1989). See also recent debates about the merits and limitations of evolu-tionary archaeology (e.g., Schiffer 1996, p. 650).

20. See Kosso (1992) for a philosophical account of similarities in research strategy thatunderlie the sharply drawn opposition between these archaeological positions. VanPool and

VanPool (1999) develop a parallel argument for an archaeological audience.



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which archaeologists rely when constructing models of the past and wheninterpreting their data as evidence for or against these models.21 In prac-tice, archaeologists make good use of disunities that (contingently) ensure

evidential independence on two dimensions. First, they exploit a verticalindependence that often exists between the background assumptions usedto interpret archaeological data as evidence and the hypotheses they testagainst this evidence; all evidence is theory-laden, but typically not by thesame theories as archaeologists are intent on testing.22 Consider, for exam-ple, the possibility that an archaeologist might use radiocarbon dating andvarious types of materials analysis to test the plausibility of an hypothesisabout trade connections, perhaps an hypothesis inspired by structuralistanalysis of the grammar of design traditions evident in the burial goods,elite ceramics, and architecture of two distant and otherwise distinct pre-historic communities. The test in question would be a matter of estab-lishing whether the material thought to have been traded into one contextcould have originated in the other (e.g., whether it is contemporaneous

and whether it is made of materials or by means of technologies possessedby the source culture). In such a case, the assumptions from linguistics andsocio-cultural anthropology that frame the test hypothesis are remoteenough from the chemistry and physics necessary to establish the sourceand dates of the archaeological material that the resulting evidence couldwell subvert the structuralist hypothesis about trade relations linking thecultural traditions.

A second and, for present purposes, more important sense of inde-pendence—the one that historical archaeologists emphasize most strongly(e.g., Leone and Potter 1988)—is the horizontal independence that mayobtain between a number of different lines of evidence that are presumedto bear on a given context or set of events in the cultural past. The

21. It is sometimes suggested that if uniªcationist ideals were realized, the resultingsystem of scientiªc knowledge could not be subjected to systematic empirical evaluation:“the success of a Grand Uniªed Theory in contemporary physics would make scienceuntestable (or only circularly testable)” (Stump 1991, p. 468). If, however, the broadoutlines of Glymour’s bootstrapping model of conªrmation captures the practice typical of even a few cases (i.e., one need not embrace Glymour’s more expansive claims on behalf of the model), this consequence may not follow. Glymour argues that circularity will notnecessarily prove to be viciously circular even when a single theory incorporates both thehypotheses you want to evaluate and the linking principles that establish the signiªcance of any evidence brought to bear in evaluating these hypotheses (Glymour 1980). In the caseshe considers, critical independence may be maintained between hypothesis and test evi-dence such that the evidence can turn out to disconªrm the hypothesis even if both areconstituents of a single comprehensive theory.

22. This account of vertical independence has been developed in more detail elsewhere

(Wylie 1996).



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assumption at work here is that if several lines of evidence based ondifferent ranges of background theory converge in supporting a givenhypothesis, its credibility is enhanced much beyond a simple additive

function insofar as it is implausible that such coherence could arise acci-dentally or as a result of compensating errors that compromise each line of evidence. In this spirit, Leone and Potter argue that if we “abandon theconceit that the documentary record was created for us,” and the underly-ing premise that interpretation of the archaeological record is dependenton the documentary record, it becomes possible to exploit these records as“two independent sources of evidence” (1988, p. 14, italics in original). Aprocess of “analytical byplay” between documentary and archaeologicaldata, of working “back and forth, from one to the other,” suggests thateach can be used “to extend the meaning of the other” (1988, p. 14). Thecrucial methodological corollary is that if two sources are indeed inde-pendent, then a failure to converge can be counted on to expose weaknessin the constituent chains of reasoning that may not be evident when the

security of each is considered on its own; each line of evidence can be usedas a check on the other.

Causal, Inferential, and Disciplinary Independence

Although I am sympathetic to these claims on behalf of historical archae-ology, they conºate several different senses of independence between linesof evidence not all of which are epistemically relevant or coincident withthe disciplinary boundaries between history and archaeology. There are atleast three kinds of (horizontal) independence at issue here: causal, inferen-tial, and disciplinary independence. I disentangle them initially with refer-ence to the examples of microscope development and use that Hackingconsiders (1983, chapter 11); the parallels with archaeological practice areinstructive, particularly if it is conceptualized as a matter of “indirect

observation” of the cultural past (e.g., Fritz 1972). On Hacking’s account,the makers and users of microscopes exploit a number of different physical(causal) processes of interaction (or, signal production) between the targetand the receiving instrument. The great value of the proliferation of mi-croscopes that exploit these different causal processes (e.g., acoustic asopposed to optical microscopes) is that they allow for a triangulation of signals, correcting and enhancing the information any one microscopecould provide about the entities they allow us to observe: “we believe whatwe see [through microscopes] largely because quite different physical sys-tems provide the same picture” (1983, p. xiii). Triangulation depends oncrucial unities between ªelds and domains, but the judgement that somelines of evidence are (horizontally) independent in an epistemically rele-vant sense depends on causal and theoretical disunities.



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The ªrst and most obvious dimension of independence in Hacking’sexamples is that which distinguishes the different physical systems—dif-ferent causal processes or mechanisms—that produce the traces detectable

by different kinds of microscope. It has to be assumed that these causalpathways all emanate from, or interact in the production of, an ontologi-cally uniªed subject: the entity or events that the microscope is meant todetect. At the same time, however, triangulation depends on the plausibil-ity of the assumption that these different trace-generating systems arecausally independent in the sense that they do not interact in such a way asto ensure an artiªcial congruence in the signals they transmit.

Independence in a second sense holds between the bodies of backgroundknowledge, the auxiliaries, that are deployed in inferentially reconstruct-ing the pathways by which signals are transmitted and received. Thetransfer to one ªeld of empirical or theoretical results established in an-other—the basis for constructing any one line of evidence—depends on alimited assumption of ontological unity and of theoretical congruity be-

tween the source and target ªelds. That is, it is assumed that the causalprocesses exploited by microscopes are relevantly the same in the (exportdestination) contexts where they support mediated observation as in thesource contexts where these causal processes are a primary object of study.Under these conditions the knowledge developed of these causal systemsby one science can serve as the basis for auxiliaries in another. But if horizontal independence is to be established, it must also be assumed thatthe background knowledge concerning causally distinct processes isepistemically independent. Here the crucial forms of inferential inde-pendence are those which ensure that a coincidence of images produced bydifferent instruments is not an artifact of the instruments themselves or of the auxiliaries that inform our interpretation of the traces they allow us todetect. Triangulation thus depends on theoretical disunities between the

different ranges of auxiliaries on which microscopists rely to make observa-tions of the same entity or process; these include disunities of content,domain deªning presuppositions, and traditions of research practice thatmitigate against an arbitrary congruence between lines of evidence con-structed using different instruments.

One indication of such inferential (epistemic) independence may be thefact that the background theories on which microscope makers rely havebeen developed by institutionally distinct disciplines. This disciplinarydisunity is a third sense of independence that ªgures in archaeologicalcontexts, with particular prominence in historical archaeology. Althoughthese three senses of independence—causal, theoretical, and disciplinary—are often treated as one, it cannot be assumed that they will coincide. Thesame signal transmission process might be detected, or interpreted, using



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very different bodies of background theory but may, nonetheless, carry thesame distortion through different channels. Alternatively, bodies of back-ground theory that are drawn from different disciplines and that seem

distinct in content may share enough in the way of common assump-tions—perhaps a consequence of the kinds of trade between ªelds de-scribed by Darden, Bechtel, Abrahmsen and others—that persistent, com-pensating errors arise in the detection and interpretation of signals evenwhen they are generated by causally independent processes and interpretedusing apparently distinct bodies of theory.

The kind of (horizontal) independence that archaeologists invoke isassumed, in the ideal, to incorporate all three of these dimensions of independence: causal independence is assumed to be aligned with an inde-pendence in the content of background theory that is marked, in turn, bythe distinctness of its disciplinary sources. The most obvious archaeologi-cal examples of this ideal are cases in which different methods of physicaldating are applied to material from a single archaeological context. Con-

sider the use of tree ring counts and measures of radio-carbon decay,magnetic orientation, and the internal evolution of stylistic traditions todetermine (respectively) absolute cutting, burning, and deposition dates,and tradition-speciªc production dates. The disciplines that supply therelevant technologies of detection are certainly institutionally autono-mous, and the content of their theories is substantially independent; it isunlikely that the assumptions that might produce error in the reconstruc-tion of a date using principles from physics will be the same as those thatmight bias a date based on background knowledge from botany or socio-cultural studies of stylistic change.23 Finally, this independence in thecontent of the auxiliaries and in their disciplinary origins is especiallycompelling because it is assumed to reºect a genuine causal independencebetween the chemical, biological, and social processes that generated and

transmitted the distinct kinds of material trace exploited by differentdating techniques.

The case of historical archaeology makes it clear, however, how complexand uncertain the argument for epistemically signiªcant independencebetween textual and archaeological sources can be. In some respects and insome cases the archaeological record can reasonably be assumed to beindependent of the documentary record in all the senses described here. It

23. Although it is important to note that the calibration of C14 dates depended ontree-ring and design sequence dating. In this case the possibility of confounding error wascountered by using still other dating techniques (e.g., archaeomagnetism, varve and othermethods of geological dating) to cross-check and reªne the accuracy of the calibrationcurves.



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may be entirely plausible that the contents of trash pits and various kindsof ofªcial documentary history are produced by such different means andfor such different purposes that they can be regarded as causally inde-

pendent, even though they derive from (and therefore serve as evidence of)the same community or set of historical events. Moreover, to make effec-tive use of such different kinds of material as a record of the (same) past itmay be necessary to rely on interpretive techniques and bodies of back-ground knowledge that derive from distinct research traditions and de-pend on fundamentally different skills and presuppositions, speciªcally,those necessary for the interpretation of documentary records as opposed tothe analysis of material culture.24 In such cases historical and archaeologi-cal lines of evidence may be expected to provide a check on one another:the disunity of their sources confers epistemic advantage on their conjointuse.

In many cases, however, these assumptions of independence cannot bemade, and none can be assumed to entail the others. The disposal of trash

may reºect the same principles of decorum as writing for the publicrecord, and both lines of evidence may systematically obscure precisely theunderlying contradictions that are reºected in the silences of elitist historythat historical archaeologists mean to correct. Indeed, there may be greatercausal independence between different types of documentary record, forexample, between legal statutes and personal diaries, than between certainkinds of archaeological and documentary record: public architecture andspeeches made by the heads of state, for example. In addition, howeverresolute archaeologists and historians have been in maintaining theboundaries between their disciplines, they are almost certainly subject tomany common inºuences and often rely on similar interpretive resources;they are affected by a range of bridging and integrating forces that persist-ently undermine the institutional disunities they guard so jealously. For

example, there is no reason to believe that the politics structuring debateabout how to mark the Quincentennial would have had a fundamentallydifferent impact on historians, as opposed to archaeologists, who study theoperations of various colonial powers in the Americas. Similarly, it isimplausible that the systematically distorting romanticism about FirstNations cultures critiqued by Trigger (1991) would have shaped the ar-chaeological interpretations he considers but not the accounts developedby historians of the dynamics of contact. In short, historians and archaeolo-gists often interpret the different records with which they deal in strik-

24. For a philosophical account of the differences between these approaches as they arisewithin archaeology see Patrick (1985).



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ingly similar ways; they may consistently overlook or misinterpret aspectsof their subject that are incongruous (unpalatable or unrecognizable) givena common stock of background assumptions. The emergence of closely

parallel feminist critiques in both ªelds makes it clear that the practiceof deploying different kinds of evidence, even in conjunction with oneanother, is not in itself proof against pervasive androcentrism orsexism. Appearances of disciplinary and theoretical disunity may bedeceiving.

In short, questions about the conceptual, causal, and disciplinary inde-pendence of distinct lines of evidence must be treated as empirically openand assessed on a case by case basis. Disciplinary boundaries may not cutthe world at its joints where different orders of causal production areconcerned, and may not insulate neighboring disciplines from theinºuence of assumptions that are capable of inducing compensatory errorsin seemingly independent lines of evidence. It follows that two lines of inquiry are necessary to determine epistemically relevant independence:

one to establish the extent to which the processes responsible for ostensiblydifferent records are, in fact, causally independent of one another; and an-other to determine the extent to which the background theories concern-ing these processes—the interpretive principles used to ‘read’ these re-cords—are conceptually independent . While questions of causal independencecan be addressed only by ªrst order empirical research, questions of con-ceptual independence require a program of second order, meta-scientiªcinvestigation that is both philosophical and empirical (speciªcally, socio-logical and historical); confounding presuppositions that are deeply em-bedded in disciplinary traditions may come to light only through system-atic study of the various kinds and degrees of interaction that bindapparently distinct ªelds together. Whenever archaeologists assess thetransferability and the (likely) independence of the auxiliaries they borrow

they make judgements about the reach across disciplinary boundaries of cross-cutting interests, shared assumptions, and common theoretical mod-els and methodologies. If these judgements are to be set on a ªrm founda-tion, they must be grounded in a detailed understanding of the diversepatterns of integration, trade, co-ordination, and differentiation that bothunify and fragment the scientiªc enterprise.

Conclusion: Meta-philosophical Implications

Although philosophers and colleagues in neighboring ªelds of sciencestudies have largely abandoned global unity theses about the sciences,meta-versions of these theses often underpin our own practice. The rela-tions between history, philosophy, and sociology of science continue to be



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structured by claims that privilege a particular methodology as the onlyway properly to study science. Whether the approach in question is that of exact philosophy or informal conceptual analysis, technical or social his-

tory, sociometrics or ethnography, the assumption lying just below thesurface is often that science, as a subject for investigation, falls within theambit of a speciªc discipline and the methodology of that discipline isuniquely appropriate to its study. To be sure, this conªdent imperialismhas been sharply contested in recent years. A number of sociologists nowurge a strategy of “alternation” between diverse standpoints and methodsfor studying science, while philosophers have long negotiated an uneasyalliance with historians of science and some are now intent on socializingand humanizing, as well as naturalizing, the philosophical study of sci-ence. My claim is, however, that if unity theses are called into question asthe working hypothesis that frames science studies, two meta-philosophi-cal consequences follow that require a substantial extension of these initia-tives.

First, the working hypothesis that frames our research must be re-deªned; we must ªnally set aside the polarized options deªned by debateover global unity and disunity theses. Although unity cannot be presup-posed, the scientiªc disciplines are unevenly and contingently interde-pendent in any number of ways that are crucial to their practice andsuccess as a family of enterprises. If we are to understand the sciences, wemust attend to the diverse networks of interaction responsible both for theproliferation and for the integration of distinct bodies of theory and re-search traditions. This serves not just a philosophical interest but, morespeciªcally, a normative and practical concern to clarify concepts, such asthat of evidential independence, which are methodologically central to thepractice of science in a great many contexts.

Reorientation along these lines requires, second, a commitment to

methodological pluralism at a meta-level that substantially underminesthe boundaries that persist between various ªelds of science studies. As thecase of historical archaeology makes clear, epistemically salient notions of evidential independence cannot be explicated in strictly philosophicalterms. Some kinds and degrees of inter-ªeld integration are necessaryconditions for the effective transfer of expertise and theory between ªelds.At the same time, the epistemic signiªcance of appeals to diverse (horizon-tally independent) lines of evidence depends on the persistence of ontologi-cal, epistemic, and institutional disunities between the sciences. To deter-mine whether epistemically relevant independence holds in any particularcase requires close examination, not just of conceptual connections thatmay hold between ªelds, but also of the histories of discipline formation



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and the social, institutional dynamics that bind these ªelds (uneasily)together.

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