Cartesian dualism
From Geography
The concept of Cartesian Dualism can be derived from the time of the Greeks, when Plato and Aristotle argued that the human mind and soul were not to be identified with the human body. One of the first examples of this thinking can be seen in the bible. The story and Adam and Eve tells us that Adam needed God to breathe life into his body to become a living person (Fraser, M. & Greco, M, 2005, p. 260).
Rene Descartes was the one of the philosophers who followed this thoughts and expended the concept. He named his concept Dualism, which is also known as the Cartesian Dilemma (Baker& Morris, 1996, p1). Though ‘Cartesian Dualism’ is nothing more than the Latin name for the concept of the dualism of Descartes. In short Dualism is the idea that there are two worlds (Baker& Morris, 1996, p1).
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The physical world
The pysical world exists of physical objects which contains matter, energy and the touchable contents of the world which also includes the human body. All physical objects are observable by the senses and are public.
The mental world
The mental world includes the inner thoughts, desires etc. that are states of consciousness. Mental objects are private cannot be observed by other people. Mental objects are only partly observable by the human being itself through self-observation of the inner-thoughts.
Both worlds are able to interact within the human body. So mind and body are strongly related parts of the human being. This duality between mind and body can also be seen in geography. There is a distinction between human geography (referring to the mental world) and physical geography. Mind, which is related to meaning and indeterminism, and matter, which is related with determinism, are connected (Zierhofer, 2002, p. 1356).
Physical geography
Physical geography represents geography as a science about space, special processes and phenomena. From the point of view of physical geography space is a ‘pregiven thing’, which causes effects. Zierhofer (n.d.)argued that of geography represents the geographic mainstream, because still the majority of geographers see the world as a empty box, which can be filled with human activities and material objects.
According to the human geography, geography should not define itself as a science of space, but rather transforms geography into a social science that focuses on the human activities (which in turn effects space). For human geographers space is neither a ‘thing’ nor ‘box’. Space can be used to observe and describe meaning to what we perceive. It is the frame of our interpretation. (Zierhofer, n.d.)
Wolfgang Zierhofer ( 2002, p. 1355-1356) tries to overcome the duality between physical and human geography by understanding the world by the idea that the world is linguistically produced. Both worlds have a different language game and are interpreted differently. According to him, neither space nor the mind creates the world around us but it is language that is the constructor of our world. In his opinion (Zierhofer, 2002, p.1359 ) all concepts and distinctions are entities that are created within specific language games and situations. These language games depend on the context, meaning that a different context will lead to a different language game. Thus nature, culture, law, agency, mind, body etc. have to be understood as communicative forms. It is also language that creates phenomena of two radically different kinds, although from another point of view they might be seen as the same. Thoughts exist in the human mind mind and to express them, an external medium, which is language is this case, is needed. Using language, thoughts can gain independence from the mind and become ideas and communicative forms. In this case: “Spaces are seen as phenomena which are constituted and applied by agents, pursuing particular projects by using their specific semantic competences” (Zierhofer, 2002 p. 1371).
References
Baker, G. & Morris, K. J. (1996). Descartes Dualism. St. Edmundsbury Press: Suffolk
Fraser, M. & Greco, M. (2005) The body, New York: Routledge
Zierhofer, W. (2002). Speech acts and space(s): language pragmatics and the discursive constitution of the social, Environment and Planning A, 34, 1355-1372
Zierhofer, W. (n.d.) Human geography - a social science?. Retrieved on the 6th of August 2010 from http://socgeo.ruhosting.nl/colloquium/WoZReferat1.html
Contributors
- Published by Marjolein Selten and Fleur van der Zandt
- Edited by Bert Hegger on September 19th 2012.
- Added link and formatting page by Michiel van Rijn--MichielVanRijn 22:37, 25 October 2012 (CEST)
