On the role of evidence in physical and human geography |
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| Authors: | Leonard Guelke |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Geography, University of Waterloo, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1 |
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| Abstract: | While physical geographers are united in a commitment to the scientific method with its emphasis on quantitative evidence, human geographers face a dilemma in deciding whether to adopt a scientific or humanistic approach in their research. The scientific approach offers a more secure, objective knowledge, but limits the scholar to a relatively narrow range of topics. The humanistic approach allows the scholar to explore a wide range of human experiences, but it lacks rigorous procedures of objective verification. The difficulty of the application of theoretical ideas to human societies can, to some extent, be avoided by adopting an historical approach, with an emphasis on the empirical investigation of human activity as a reflection of ideas. As long as human geographers have a commitment to basing their interpretations of geographical phenomena on objective evidence the possibility of a profitable co-operation exists among proponents of different philosophical approaches. A unified human geography embracing scholars of diverse views depends for its success on the identification of geographical problems that transcend philosophical and theoretical points of view. |
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