Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
However, underlying such a negative judgement about disunity are some question-
able presumptions that are not always made manifest. One is that there is a single
reality 'out there' that demands an intellectual and practical approach able to respect
its integrity. Another, relatedly, is that otherwise different perspectives on the world
can ultimately be commensurated and synthesised (perhaps via a meta-language like
'complexity theory'). The idea that there might be multiple realities and/or a range
of legitimately different perspectives on them is barely entertained. As sociologist
of knowledge Tim Dant (1991) once noted, 'We tend to live as if knowledge could
be settled, as if there is only
one
true knowledge we are striving for' (p. 1, emphasis
added).
This belief refl ects the enduring power of the idea of 'science' in the 21st century.
In William Whewell's (1794-1866) original sense, 'science' simply meant any form
of systematic inquiry undertaken according to a procedure that suitably qualifi ed
others that could replicate or validate. However, over time, the term has become
polysemic, signifying (among other things) a form of 'objective inquiry' into a world
that exists independently of the inquirer and whose 'real' properties can be correctly
understood given time and adequate resources. Geography's enchantment with
science in this specifi c sense was most intense between the mid-1950s and mid-
1970s. Somewhat diminished, it nonetheless continues to this day, notably in most
branches of physical geography, some parts of human geography and in elements
of environmental geography too. The commitment to science conceived thus has a
'strong' and a 'weaker' form. The former (which few environmental geographers
or, indeed, any geographers would publicly defend) supposes that there is only
one
'true method' for interrogating reality: namely, 'the scientifi c method', which would
today be understood practically as a form of hypothesis testing (or problem-solving)
using melange of inductivism, deduction, inference, retroduction, verifi cation and
falsifi cation depending on the case. The latter ('weak scientism') is a modern version
of Auguste Comte's (1798-1857) Enlightenment conception of human knowledge
as a giant jigsaw puzzle, the pieces of which can be identifi ed by different disciplines
and sub-disciplines and ultimately pieced together. It supposes that there may be
different ways of deriving true knowledge, but that these knowledges (once derived)
can be married together on the grounds that reality is continuous not partitioned
into the mental boxes we typically use to comprehend it.
The commitment to science in either of these forms cannot be dismissed, even
after several decades of questioning the whole idea that science
truth (or at least
the quest for truth). However, our own view - and that of environmental geogra-
phers as a whole, if this topic is anything to go by - is that 'science' is in fact plural
and, thus, best seen as one approach to, and form of knowledge, among many -
rather than a privileged or Archimedean one. To argue otherwise entails suggesting
that 'non-scientifi c' forms of knowledge are less valid and that reality is, ontologi-
cally speaking, singular and consistent rather than discontinuous, differentiated and
stratifi ed. There is also the questionable implication that science is value-free.
1
In this light, we might look favourably upon the 'multi-paradigm' condition of
environmental geography (and note too that many other fi elds of knowledge in the
humanities, social sciences and humanities are today similarly heterodox). The
fi eld's astonishing intellectual diversity can, perhaps, be seen to refl ect a very impor-
tant fact: namely, that a topic as broad as 'human-environment' relations simply
cannot be understood through one - let alone one putatively 'objective' - approach,
worldview or method. You do not have to be an epistemic 'conventionalist' or
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