The Status of Geography in the Context of Positivist and Conventionalist Understandings of Science

Abstract

In the philosophy of science, geography has a special status in the discussion of epistemological model of social sciences in the context of 'Two Cultures'. Because the relationship between geography's subdivisions carries the distinctions between natural sciences and social sciences in itself. And the multi-paradigm structure of social science dimension of geography also reveals a possibility of scientific unity of disipline for seperate paradigms under the name of ‘geography’. In other words, the answer of the question of how to consider the 'space' from different angles and even from -in Kuhnian terminology- different paradigms under the roof of a single discipline name (Geography) will have a potantial to provide a new approach for togetherness of different understandings of science. In fact, the philosophy and history of geography is the micro-sized reflection of the macrosized "Two Cultures" debate. Macro level's question of how to achieve the scientific unity with the multitude of disciplines in first culture (in science culture) and in such a multiplicity whether it is still possible to refer to first culture is reflected on micro level's question of how to achieve the discipliner unity and such a multiplicity whether it is possible to refer a single discipline. These questions could also affect the form of academical organization. Indeed, the ensued responses as a result of debates on this ground, generally in social sciences and specifically to geography discipline, are either to internalize a multi-paradigm structure on the grounds that it could eliminate the tension of two cultures, or to resist on behalf of the first culture. Therefore, the discussion about the relationship between Two Cultures and Social Sciences and also multi-paradigm structure of any social science discipline should be based on the epistemological analysis of different understandings of science. This study is an introduction to analyzing of the understandings of science (positivism and conventionalism) in geography in the context of philosophy of science. For this aim, the epistemological debates in the philosophy of science are addressed as backgroundknowledge and then the status of geography is discussed in context of this knowledge. The result obtained from this approach is that the debates in the main stream of philosophy of science and the history and philosophy of geography can be read as parallel traces after 1960. With this result, it is identified that the geography has concurrent potentiality for the conclusion of debates in favor of multi-paradigm (with Kuhnian approach) and for the absolute disciplinary pillarization (with positivist approach).