GEOGRAPHY'S SPATIAL PERSPECTIVE AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF ERNST CASSIRER
Author(s) -
Entrikin J. Nicholas
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
canadian geographer / le géographe canadien
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.35
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1541-0064
pISSN - 0008-3658
DOI - 10.1111/j.1541-0064.1977.tb01594.x
Subject(s) - perspective (graphical) , variety (cybernetics) , human geography , time geography , scope (computer science) , epistemology , geography , sociology , historical geography , economic geography , perception , spatial relation , social science , development geography , mathematics , philosophy , computer science , programming language , statistics , geometry , remote sensing
O ne of the distinctive features of geographic research is the spatial perspective which is manifested in the geographic literature through the use of a wide variety of spatial concepts. Until the recent work of phenomenological geographers, the variety of concepts used by geographers conformed to the ideals of a scientific geography in that they referred to measurable relations between phenomena. The relations may be directly measurable, such as the highway distance between Los Angeles and San Diego, or they may be indirectly measurable, such as an individual's perception of the distance between the same two cities. This interest in both objective as well as perceived spatial relationships illustrates the expanded scope of geography's spatial perspective, which has resulted in an increase in the number of spatial concepts of significance to geographers and a proliferation of the meanings given to the traditional spatial concepts of geography.