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 of British Geogra phers, Vol. 2, 1977; and North-Holland Publishing Company for Allen J.

This accessible and engaging text explores the relationship between philosophy, science and physical geography. It addresses an imbalance that exists in opinion, teaching and to a lesser extent research, between a philosophically enriched human geography and a perceived philosophically empty physical geography. The text challenges the myth that there is a single self-evident scientific method that can, and is, applied in a straightforward manner by physical geographers. It demonstrates the variety of alternative philosophical perspectives and emphasizes the difference that the real world geographical context and the geographer make to the study of environmental phenomenon. This includes a consideration of the dynamic relationship between human and physical geography. Finally, the text demonstrates the relevance of philosophy for both an understanding of published material and for the design and implementation of studies in physical geography. This edition has been fully updated with two new chapters on field studies and modelling, as well as greater discussion of ethical issues and forms of explanation. The book explores key themes such as reconstructing environmental change, species interactions and fluvial geomorphology, and is complimented throughout with case studies to illustrate concepts.

The relationship between geography and philosophy is still largely in need of being explored. Geographers and philosophers share the responsibility for that. On the one hand, geographers have considered as a dangerous deviation any attempt to elaborate an image of the Earth which was not a mere replica of a cartographic representation. On the other hand, philosophers have generally been uninterested in a discipline offering little chance for critical reflection. In light of these considerations, the purpose of this book is to identify some fundamental philosophical issues involved in the reflection of geography by adopting a perspective which looks at the discipline with a specific focus on its fundamental concepts and distinctions.

Places are today subject to contrary tendencies. They lose some functions, which may scale up to fewer more centralized places, or down to numerous more dispersed places, and they gain other functions, which are scaling up and down from other places. This prompts premature prophecies of the abolition of space and the obsolescence of place. At the same time, a growing literature testifies to the persistence of place as an incorrigible aspect of human experience, identity, and morality. Place is a common ground for thought and action, a community of experienced particulars that avoids solipsism and universalism. It draws us into the philosophy of the ordinary, into familiarity as a form of knowledge, into the wisdom of proximity. Each of these essays offers a philosophy of place, and reminds us that such philosophies ultimately decide how we make, use, and understand places, whether as accidents, instruments, or fields of care.

This ism-busting text is an enormously accessible account of the key philosophical and theoretical ideas that have informed geographical research. It makes abstract ideas explicit and clearly connects it with real practices of geographical research and knowledge. Written with flair and passion, A Student′s Introduction to Geographical Thought: Explains the key ideas: scientific realism, anti-realism and idealism / positivism / critical rationalism / Marxism and critical realism/ social constructionism and feminism / phenomenology and post-phenomenology / postmodernism and post-structuralism / complexity / moral philosophy. Uses examples that address both physical geography and human geography. Use a familiar and real-world example - ‘the beach’ - as an entry point to basic questions of philosophy, returning to this to illustrate and to explain the links between philosophy, theory, and methodology. All chapters end with summaries and sources of further reading, a glossary explaining key terms, exercises with commentaries, and web resources of key articles from the journals Progress in Human Geography and Progress in Physical Geography. A Student′s Introduction to Geographical Thought is a completely accessible student A-Z of theory and practice for both human and physical geography.

Johnston traced the debates within human geography since 1945 over philosophical and methodological issues. In the present book, the aim is the complementary one of giving an introduction to the foundation of those discussions, assuming no prior knowledge of philosophy.

Philosophy in the American West explores the physical, ecological, cultural, and narrative environments associated with the western United States, reflecting on the relationship between people and the places that sustain them. The American West has long been recognized as having significance. From Crèvecoeur’s early observations in Letters from an American Farmer (1782), to Thoreau’s reflections in Walden (1854), to twentieth-century thoughts on the legacy of a vanishing frontier, "the West" has played a pivotal role in the American narrative and in the American sense of self. But while the nature of "westernness" has been touched on by historians, sociologists, and, especially, novelists and poets, this collection represents the first attempt to think philosophically about the nature of "the West" and its influence on us. The contributors take up thinkers that have been associated with Continental Philosophy and pair them with writers, poets, and artists of "the West". And while this collection seeks to loosen the cords that tie philosophy to Europe, the traditions of "continental" philosophy—phenomenology, hermeneutics, deconstruction, and others—offer deep resources for thinking through the particularity of place. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Philosophy, as well as those working in Ecocriticism and the Environmental Humanities more broadly.