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Revision as of 16:07, 26 September 2009

The Human Geography Knowledge Base

In developing this knowledge base we focus on an action theoretic approach in human geography in the broadest sense of the word. This knowledge base was created by Prof. dr. Huib Ernste at the Department of Human Geography of the Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands but everyone is invited to contribute to this knowledge base. We try to develop this knowledge base in both the English and the Dutch language. Contributions in both languages are welcome.

De Sociaal Geografische Kennis Data-Bank

Bij de ontwikkeling van deze kennis data-bank richten we ons met name op de handelingstheoretische benadering in de sociale geografie in de breedste zin van het woord. Deze kennisdatabank is opgezet door Prof. dr. Huib Ernste van de vakgroep sociale geografie van de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen in Nederland maar iedereen is van harte uitgenodigd om een bijdrage aan deze kennis data-bank te leveren. We proberen deze kennis data-bank zowel in het Engels als ook in het Nederlands op te bouwen. Bijdragen in het Nederlands of in het Engels zijn van harte welkom.

Existentialism

Assumes that people are unique and responsible for their own existence. People are part of a chaotic, undetermined world; if a human wants to become a person he has to create an own identity and give meaning and order to the world. They are responsible for what they are and what role they play in society. People are forced to act to become someone. Contrast with the idea that the situation determines a person, a person is responsible for what he is.

People are estranged from their intrinsic creativity and live instead in worlds of objects which exist for them only as externalized ‘things’ (passive attitude; environmentalism – Tuan (1971, 1972)) and that any attempt to realize a truly human condition trough an active ‘openess’ to the world necessarily involves a freely entered struggle against estrangement. Samuels (1978) argued that this struggle entails an essentially spatial ontology; that it is ‘a history of human efforts to overcome or eliminate detachment, which is to say, to eliminate distance’ trough the creation of meaningful, so to speak ‘authored’ places.

Phenomenology was used as critique, while existentialism is used constructively. ‘Existence’ comes before ‘essence’. Critique on rationalism and idealism. Human beings are free to choose the nature of their existence and to ascribe it with meaning Human being is a self-creating being. Do not look at dots, lines or hexagons but at meanings of space. --Mariska de Gooijer 16:07, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Being en Dasein (part of existentialism)

Dit is van Heidegger. Being is datgene wat er is, wat je ziet. Dasein is het individu 'being in the world'

Hermeneutics

The study of interpretation and meaning. A tradition that emphasizes the symbolic constitution of the world. Played important role in theology; for example, people thought the bible was god’s word, and the science hermeneutics studied how this is interpreted. Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) argued that the human sciences, because of their subject matter, required a special methodology – hermeneutics – which was very different from the empirical methodology of natural sciences. ‘Objective’ knowledge was obtainable. Interrelationship between author and reader – both of them together create final interpretation – hermeneutical continuous circle  creative, progressive and open-ended process in which there is no final truth

Examination of meaning in texts. Space and Place as texts (texts symbolize meaning, but all our behavior have a symbolic meaning, we express our meaning and that way we are all authors) In human geography; there is not one message to be discovered (like bible) but there are many different truths which we can discover through interpretation. --Mariska de Gooijer 16:07, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Phenomenology

Philosophical approach: partly inspired by natural sciences, wanted to develop a research approach that was as successful as natural science Reflects on the ways in which the world is made available for intellectual inquiry; it pays particular attention to the active, creative function of language and discourse in making the world intelligible.

Critique on positivism – empiricism because of phenomenology’s concern about disclosing ‘the world as it shows itself before scientific inquiry, as that which is pre-given and presupposed by sciences’.

Edmund Husserl; phenomenological reduction: philosophical self-reflection on ‘from what perspective things in the world are taken by the sciences and how the objects of science are constituted’: - Suspending one taken-for-granted presuppositions - Reflecting ‘not upon the objects of our perception but on the way in which they are originally given…[on] the way in which we grasp the corresponding experiences’ (phenomena) - Disclosing the very essence of the phenomena

By disclosing the ‘essences’ (back to the things themselves), regional ontologies (theoretical frameworks) will be established. It ‘grounds’ thematic frameworks of the various empirical sciences by revealing the really essential nature of the objects and concepts which constitute their empirical domains.

It is assumed there is an objective reality out there, but we as human beings are not able to observe that reality; people always have intentions and that influence the way they observe the world. What we see are not the objects its self, but they are phenomena o Strip away all subjective distortion and bias; Husserl in beginning had this ambition, but during research he changed the focus to ‘common’ knowledge instead of ‘real’ knowledge, intersubjectivity, fe a tree can be seen in different ways but also in common concepts. Why do we see things like that? o The true essence of objects resides in our deepest intentional relationship with them o This deepest communion with the world id the life world common to all humanity o Only subjects can produce meaning --Mariska de Gooijer 16:07, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Fenomenologische reductie

Dit is van Husserl. Het houdt in dat je bij een waarneming moet afzien van alle voorkennis die je al hebt. Dan kun je zien hoe je het fenomeen in je bewustzijn construeert.

Via de methode zou je tot een ‘zuiver’ begrip van de dingen in de wereld kunnen komen. Zuiver in de zin dat je de ‘verschillende werkelijkheidstoestanden’ van een ding (een situatie, een fenomeen) kunt onderscheiden. Dit niet zozeer door op de dingen zelf te letten, maar door analyse van de waarneming van de dingen, de organisatie van de manier waarop je dingen waarneemt, de manier waarop je dingen ziet.

(http://www.screenwork.nl/?id=20000302), 15 september 2009

Possibilism

The view that the physical environment provides the opportunity for a range of possible human responses and that people have considerable discretion to choose between them.

Usually identified with the encounter at the turn of the century between Durkheim (reduction of geography to social morphology - radical possibilism), Vidal, and Ratzel (environmental determinism). Vidal argues: - Human beings ‘join in nature’s game’ - Milieu externe is ‘a partner not a slave of human activity’ - ‘nature is never more than a adviser’ - Milieu intern revealed the human being as ‘at once both active and passive’ - Organizing freedom of [the human being], bounded by the realities of the mechanisms of the natural realm’ - Instead if a dual between ‘society’ and ‘nature’, human beings are a ‘part of living creation’ and ‘its most active collaborator’ - Power of human agency - Society and nature --> equal role

Lucien Febvre (1932): ’there are not necessities but everywhere possibilities; and man as master of these possibilities is the judge of their use’

--Mariska de Gooijer 16:07, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

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