Philosophy in Geography Theory and Decision Library
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PHILOSOPHY IN GEOGRAPHY THEORY AND DECISION LIBRARY AN INTERNATIONAL SERIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY AND METHODOLOGY OF THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES Editors: G ERA L DEB E R LEI N , University of Technology, Munich WERNER LEINFELLN ER, University ofNebraska Editorial Advisory Board: K. B 0 R C H , Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration M. BUN G E , McGill University J. S. COL E MAN, University of Chicago W. K ROE B E R - R I E L, University of Saarland A. RAP 0 P 0 R T , University of Toronto F . S CHI C K ,Rutgers University A. SEN, University of London W. STEGMULLER, University ofMunich K. S Z AN I A W SKI, University of Warsaw L. TON D L , Prague VOLUME 20 PHILOSOPHY IN GEOGRAPHY Edited by STEPHEN GALE University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.A. and GUNNAR OLSSON Nordic !m;titute for Studies in Urban and Regional PlIlnning, Stockholm, Sweden D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY DORDRECHT: HOLLAND I BOSTON: U.S.A. LONDON:ENGLAND Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Philosophy in geography. (Theory and decision library) Includes bibliographies and index. 1. Geography-Philosophy. l. Gale, Stephen. II. Olsson, Gunnar. G70.P46 910'.01 78-21037 ISBN-13:978-94-009-9396-9 e-ISBN-13:978-94--Q09-9394-5 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-9394-5 Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company, P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada and Mexico by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Inc. Lincoln Building, 160 Old Derby Street, Hingham, Mass. 02043, U.S.A. All Rights Reserved Copyright © 1979 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland and copyrightholders as specified on appropriate pages within. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1979 No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface vii Introduction ix J. M. BLAUT/Some Principles of Ethnogeography 1 ANNE BUTTIMER/Erewhon or Nowhere Land 9 MICHAEL F. DACEY / A Framework for Examination of Theoretic Viewpoints in Geography 39 MICHAEL DEAR/Thirteen Axioms of a Geography of the Public Sector 53 STEPHEN GALE and MICHAEL ATKINSON/On the Set Theoretic Foundations of the Regionalization Problem 65 REGINALD G. GOLLEDGE/Reality, Process, and the Dialectical Relation Between Man and Environment 109 PETER GOULD/Signals in the Noise 121 DAVID HARVEY/Population, Resources, and the Ideology of Science 155 LESLIE J. KING/ Alternatives to a Positive Economic Geography 187 DAVID LEY /Social Geography and the Taken-For-Granted World 215 BERNARD MARCHAND/Dialectics and Geography 237 ERIC G. MOORE/Beyond the Census: Data Needs and Urban Policy ~~. ~ GUNNAR OLSSON/Social Science and Human Action or on Hitting Your Head Against the Ceiling of Language 287 JOHN S. PIPKIN /Problems in the Psychological Modelling of Revealed Destination Choice 309 DAVID RUSSELL/ ~ Open Letter on the Dematerialization of the Geographic Object 329 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ALLEN 1. SCOTT /Land Use and Commodity Production 345 ERIC S. SHEPPARD/Spatial Interaction and Geographic Theory 361 w. R. TOBLER/Cellular Geography 379 YI-FU TUAN/Space and Place: Humanistic Perspective 387 MICHAEL J. WOLDEN BERG/ A Periodic Table of Spatial Hierarchies 429 Unconventional Name Index 457 Reference List 459 INDEX OF NAMES 461 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 469 PREFACE In any edited volume most credit is due to the individual authors. The present case is no exception and we as editors have done little apart from serving as coordinators for a group of friends and colleagues. For once, the responsi bilities are shared. We feel that the collection gives a fair representation of the activities at the frontier of human geography in North America. Whether these premonitions will be further substantiated is of course to be seen. In the meantime, we take refuge in Vico's saying that "doctrines must take their beginning from that of the matter of which they treat". And yet we also know that new treatments never lead to fmal ends, but rather to new doctrines and to new beginnings. It is also a pleasure to acknowledge those publishers and authors who have given permission to reprint copyrighted materials: Association of American Geographers for Leslie J. King's 'Alternatives to a Positive Economic Geography', Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 66,1976; Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd. for Yi-Fu Tuan's 'Space and Place: Human istic Perspective', in Christopher Board et al. (eds.), Progress in Geography, Vol. 6, 1974; Economic Geography for David Harvey's 'Population, Resources, and the Ideology of Science' ,Economic Geography, Vol. SO, 1974; Institute of British Geographers for David Ley's 'Social Geography and the Taken-for-Granted World', Transactions of the Institute ofBritish Geogra phers, Vol. 2, 1977; and North-Holland Publishing Company for Allen J. Scott's 'Land Use and Com modity Production', Regional Science and Urban Economics, Vol. 6, 1976. S T E P HEN GAL E and GUN N A R 0 L S SON Philadelphia and Ann Arbor, March 1977 vii INTRODUCTION I. THE ECLECTICISM OF DISCIPLINARY CHANGE Within the scientific community, change is often foreshadowed by an increased concern with philosophical and methodological issues. We fmd that traditions, principles, and alliances - the very theoretical and epistemological presuppo sitions of an area of inquiry - come to be questioned and scrutinized. Radical transformations of purpose and substance are proposed. Of equal significance are the moves for modifications in the structure of arguments. For the historian of science, changes in a discipline are usually viewed as parts of an intellectual evolution. But for those who toil daily in the garden, change is rarely seen as a clear, systematic shift in a paradigm. More often, it is experienced as a series of disputes which involve the nature of observation and evidence, the effects of existing theoretical presuppositions, and the effi cacy of alternative modes of inference. Rarely is there a grand rejection of a theory or a line or inquiry; even more rarely is there a conclusive resolution of a dispute. The fundamental questions remain much the same, even though the methodologies gradually may shift as the ongoing dialogue between intel lectual communities continues. It is in the spirit of this conception of scientific change that the essays in the present volume were collected. Our approach is natural, since modern geography has undergone an almost continual transformation of purpose, language, and methodology. There has been a clear movement from the early concerns with discovery and mapping, via the social Darwinism, human ecology, and geo-politics around the first world war, to the current involve ment in cultural, economic, environmental, and regional issues. And yet, geography has exhibited an eclecticism that defies conventional codification even though there has prevailed a synthetic attitude and a tendency to focus on broad concerns with man's social and environmental relationships rather than on the visibility of singular theories. The daily work is marked by an awareness of competing modes of thought and perhaps even by the import ance of maintaining the viability of the conflict. Since in the mid 1950's, when James and Jones published American ix x INTRODUCTION Geography: Inventory and Prospect, 1 there have been only scattered attempts to trace the development of the philosophy of geographic thinking.2 In part this is a result of the diverse subject matter and of a general feeling that the so-called 'quantitative revolution' of the 1960's had exorcised philosophy from the legitimate concerns of the discipline. But even during that period, it gradually became clear that the changing relations among individuals, the sciences, and society once again necessitated philosophical and methodologi cal reevaluation. It is the purpose of the present volume to provide an expo sition of some recent creative and critical activities within North American geography. It is obvious that no collection can portray the dynamic plot which charac terizes a discipline's actors and their respective motivations and relationships. Instead, we have had to use the more indirect, selective means of soliciting manuscripts from those geographers who had exhibited more or less developed philosophic concerns in their previous work. In addition, most of the authors had some direct or indirect connections with the 'quantitative' movement of the last decade. But not~ven these biases could prevent geography's acknowl edged eclecticism from appearing. Indeed we have come to believe that the diversity may be an extremely healthy sigrl although we appreciate that it may be frustrating to those who believe only in unified approaches to well defmed problems. What is found in the collection is therefore not one but several themes and not only one but several methodologies. In one form or another, we expect that they may all survive. Some might even turn into the types of research programs that the late Irnre Lakatos regarded as the real substance of scientific appraisal. It is our hope that the collection itself will serve as an intellectual touchstone capable of generating further development. The disciplinary diversity and eclecticism is further underscored by our attitude toward editing the papers. Except for minor adjustments, the articles were left untouched. Moreover, we have chosen to publish the papers in alphabetical order rather than in traditional groupings. On closer inspection, we believe that this ordering is not as artificial as it may first seem. Indeed, we arrived at it in frustration after failing in our attempts to impose any of the usual frameworks on the collection.