Explanation in Geography

Geog 305 Lecture 6

What is Science?
Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined,
logical search for knowledge about any and all
aspects of the universe, obtained by examination
of the best available evidence and always subject
to correction and improvement upon discovery
of better evidence

What is Explanation
Explanation is any satisfactory or reasonable
answer to WHY or HOW things happen. An
explanation reduces an unexpected outcome (the
unknown) to an expected outcome (the known).
An explanation originates from a reaction or
surprise to some experience
Males and females have different number of teeth: Aristotle
Relative position of Sun and Earth in rotation
You can reach India by going west/east: Columbus

Puzzle 1

Puzzle 2

EXPLANATION IN GEOGRAPHY
The relationship between the views of philosophers, methodologists
and practitioners is expressed in explanation
Science seeks explanations and Geography provides the spatial
explanations of earthly range
Because of the gulf between philosophy, methodology and practice, it
is therefore important to understand
How far the views of methodologists of Geography tally with the
views of philosophers of science
The relationship between statements made by methodologists of
geography and empirical work of geographers
The relationship between the explanatory form accepted by
geographers and that of other disciplines

Methodology of Geography and Philosophy of Science

Slow pace of development of rigorous theoretical explanation in
Geography

Adoption of scientific method in geography in varying degrees and shapes

Contradictions in bridging the gap between philosophy and practice
Geography defines its objectives rather than providing explanations
Uniqueness foundation laid by Kant, Hettner and Hartshorne: Uniqueness
or Idiographic method affected geographys development ...Exceptionalism
in Geography ...Fred Schaefer

Geography as a spatial science beyond science: scientific method is

inappropriate, therefore law-making is possible in the physical sciences
but irrelevant in human geography (City Campus)
Different systematic themes treated by geographers offer problems or blessings

Methodological separatism in geography: integration

Geographical writing and research lacks any generally accepted, over all
view of the subject: orthodoxy vrs drifting apart

Geographers were remote from the 'ferment of ideas' and bathed in

euphoria of inertia'

Methodological controversies in Geography

Explanatory forms in geography are spurious due to the
objectives defined by geographers
Geographys overall aim of acquiring knowledge of the
world is not at variance with science, but the claim that
some questions, which geographers ask, are beyond
science thereby making it a special science, because the
scientific method cannot answer them is nave.

All sciences have some difficulty in using the

scientific method, but it is a question of degree
rather than kind
Geographic methodology needs to move in tandem with
the general philosophical debate.

Reasons for slow move into scientific mainstream

Idiographic method in early geography and the shift
to nomothetism is difficult
Uniqueness is linked to the absolute concept of space, hence
geographers concerned with locations rather than events and
objects. Uniqueness applied to locations rather than properties
Relative view of space: locations are either not unique or, at best,
unique only within a selected coordinate system
The uniqueness thesis does not provide a realistic framework for
explaining and describing without a violation of the notion of
uniqueness

Rejection of environmental determinism led to lost of

interest in law-Making
Little effort has been put in geography to explore the 'dialogue between the
empirical-inductive and the theoretical-deductive methods of thought and
Investigation.
Indigenous theories in geography can 'only developed in terms of space-time
language' capturing both Kant's absolute space and relativistic concepts.

Geographical Explanatory Erameworks

The Hartshornian version of Bacon's/Harvey inductive route
prominent in geography, produces weak theories or only
covering laws or valid general statements.
The failure to achieve a hypothetico-deductive unification of
geographic principles has
Relegated most geographic thinking and activity simply to the task of
ordering and classifying data
Restricted our ability to order and classify in any meaningful way.
Explanations have been ad hoc and unsystematic in form.

Geographical explanatory frameworks include: Cognitive

description, Morphometric analysis, Cause-and-effect analysis,
Temporal or genetic modes of analysis, Functional and ecological
analysis, and systems analysis

6 Geographical Explanatory Frameworks

Cognitive description
Morphometric analysis
Cause-and-effect analysis
Temporal or genetic modes of analysis
Functional and ecological analysis
Systems analysis

Cognitive Description
Collection, ordering and classification of data
Answers the question how may the phenomena being
studied be ordered and grouped
Involves a priori notions about structure implicit in the
process
Primitive theories initially and sophisticated descriptive
statements emerge later
Range in quality from simple primary observations
through to sophisticated descriptive statements

Morphometric analysis Shapes & Form

Answers the question how are phenomena organised in
terms of their spatial structure and form?
Involves a space-time language which provides a
framework within which the geographer examines shapes
and forms in space
Assumptions are geometric and amounts to identifying a
co-ordinate system
Patterns and shapes of town locations and the structure
of networks can be explained under this pathway
Using the laws of central place theory geographers
explain how initial settlements will expand in some
directions.

Cause-and-effect analysis
Exploration of cause-effect relationships

Answers the question how are phenomena

caused?
Led to the adoption of mechanistic and
deterministic concepts
Can be adapted to new philosophical views
without being deterministic

Temporal or genetic modes of analysis

Particular circumstances may be explained by examining the
origin, and subsequent development of phenomena
Answers the question how did the phenomena originate
and develop?
The operation of process laws
Metaphysical assumptions regarding real world processes
underpin analysis
The nature of anything could only be comprehended in
terms of its development (genetic fallacy)
Provides a dimension of explanation that examines
temporal change and the nature of temporal processes

Functional and ecological analysis

Tries to analyse phenomena in terms of the role they play
within a particular organisation
Answers the question how do particular phenomena
relate to and interact with phenomena in general?
Towns are analysed in terms of the function they
perform within an economy, rivers in terms of their role
in denudation
Geography as the study of interrelationships within
areas has a distinctively functional-ecological ring to it

Systems analysis
Examines the structure of an organisation as a system of
interlocking parts and processes
Answers the question how are phenomena organised
as a coherent system?
Provides a framework for describing the whole
complex structure of activity
Good for multivariate situations

Sources
Just read the notes. That is enough
OR plus

David Harvey 1969. Explanation in Geography

Trial Questions
Geographers have been very remote from the ferment of ideas
by preserving the status quo, that is, bathing in an euphoria of
inertia. Discuss this statement in relation to the form of
explanation provided by geographers (before 1960)
Discuss the following geographic explanatory forms showing
the type of questions they seek to answer

Cognitive description,
Morphometric analysis,
Cause and effect analysis,
Temporal modes of explanation,
Functional and ecological analysis and
Systems analysis.