ATS2780 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Scientific Revolution, Uniformitarianism, Ruling Class
25 May 2018
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Lecture 5 – Elements of Geographical Enquiry
Building Knowledge
• Knowledge
o Understanding enabling prediction
• Inquiry
o Asking questions, finding answers
o Paradigms – accepted processes of inquiry
▪ E.g. uniformitarianism, critical theory
• Epistemology
o How we think we know what we know
o Academic approaches
o Popular science, pop-psychology
o Indigenous knowledge ways
• Representations
o How do we present and communicate knowledge
o Words, pictures, diagrams
Hegemony
• Ruling class controlling beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values
• E.g. The geocentric universe
• Galileo’s observations
Scientific Revolution
• Enlightenment
o Reason and individualism over tradition
o Skeptism and intellectualism over superstition and intolerance
o Political revolutions in France and USA
• Scientific revolution
o Rebuliding verifiable scientific knowledge from a clean slate
Empiricism in Geography
• Empiricism = gaining knowledge through the senses
• Survey, interview, remote sensing, experiment
Ontologies
• How do we make sense of what we see
o Plato: unchanging forms or ideas
o The things we sense are copies that partake of such forms
o Different versions/aspects of the same thing: e.g. grains of sound
• May depend on our scale of consideration
Reductionism
• Models – concepts stripped of their complexity
• Mathematically
• By analogy
Using Models in Geography
• May be a theory of structure
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Document Summary
Hegemony: ruling class controlling beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, e. g. Scientific revolution: enlightenment, reason and individualism over tradition, skeptism and intellectualism over superstition and intolerance, political revolutions in france and usa, scientific revolution, rebuliding verifiable scientific knowledge from a clean slate. Empiricism in geography: empiricism = gaining knowledge through the senses, survey, interview, remote sensing, experiment. Reductionism: models concepts stripped of their complexity, mathematically, by analogy. Using models in geography: may be a theory of structure, an idealised case, an experimental version, an analogy, an abstractions. Positivist approaches in geography: arid land process geomorphologist, climate change modeller, wildlife manager, epidemiologist, regional policy analyst, corporate environmental analyst, aged care provision specialist, spatial analyst, agricultural geographer, behavioural geography. Non-positivist approaches: urban community planner, post-colonial theorist, feminist geographer, cultural geographer. The process of representation: phenomenon, pattern we see from empiricism, sensed incident, measurement, uncertainty, ontology, processing, modelling, selection, generalisation, bias, presentation, symbology.
