GEOGRAPHY AS A FORMAL INTELLECTUAL DISCIPLINE AND THE
WAY IN WHICH IT CONTRIBUTES TO HUMAN KNOWLEDGE
F. LUKERMANN
University of Minnesota
OVERTWO years ago Professor Carl 0.
Sauer wrote me a letter which I have not
answered as yet. I thought it might be ap-
propriate to try to do so today.* I had
written a paper on the concept of classical
location as an excuse to say something
about the methodological nature of geo-
graphy, and Professor Sauer was kind
enough to encourage me to go on. He
made three points in his letter which he
thought I might pursue further. One sug-
gestion related to the position of g e e
graphy among the sciences; another to
what kind of knowledge geography was;
and the third to the kind of intellectual
insights geography offered its students. In
one way or another, I would suggest that
these three themes or questions are com-
prehended in the title of this paper. I could
also suggest that Professor Sauer has al-
ready given the answers in the introduc-
tion to his Morphology of Landscape, but
that would only make redundant what I
am about to say.
First, let us look at geography among
the sciences. A field of study is best de-
fined, not by an etymological analysis of
its name, nor by its logical place among
the sciences, nor by its ptace in the cur-
riculum, but rather by its history of de-
velopment, by what it has produced, and
whether this meets its logical requirements
or not. A discipline, after all, is a social
matter, a community of scholars carrying
on a conversation of common interests,
asking questions, suggesting tentative
answers which lead to further questions.
Thus, a discipline is best defined by the
questions which, in one form or another,
*This paper which was read as part of a
symposium at the 1964 Canadian Association
of Geographers meeting in London is a sum-
mary of a much longer manuscript which
although unpublished is available from the
author.
167
GEOGRAPHER,
CANADIAN VIII, 4, 1964
continuously recur. Over the centuries the
questions are the central points of the con-
versation, and it is their recurrence which
keeps alive the literature and gives conti-
nuity, depth, and form to its investigations.
What is the question in geography?
What is the one theme that pervades such
seemingly diverse subject matter as social,
cultural, economic, political, physical, and
bio-geography? There is no unity, no spe-
cialization of the field in subject matter
content obviously. As a science it has no
particular method of investigation. It ob-
serves, measures, classifies as every other
science; in other words, it employs the
scientific method which hardly distinguishes
it from physics or economics. Geography
holds in common with the other sciences
both its content and its method. It
distinguishes itself from other scientific
disciplines by its approach-by what it
asks the scientific method to reveal about
phenomena. Geography is a catalogue of
questions, and the questions-not the
phenomena, not the facts, not the method
-are geographic.
Every science by definition takes as
given, or as naively existing, the thing it is
going to investigate. The thing in the world
that geography takes as given, as its datum,
is the fact of area. This is what geography
is all about. It is the knowledge of the
world as it exists in places. Why is the
world-or why do we see the world-as
divided up into places or regions is the
geographic question.
Professor Carl Sauers justification for
selecting area or place as the naive section
of reality upon which to build geography
is pertinent here if I may elaborate on it
a moment. The argument runs as follows:
The divisions of knowledge that we call
the social sciences exist for us because they
are concerned with recognizable categories
of reality-man, human events, places,
social, economic, and political behaviour.
168 LE GB~CRAPHECANADIEN
In this way they do not differ from the
natural sciences wherein botany is the
study of plants or geology of rocks, or
from the more exact sciences where
astronomy is the study of stars and planets
or physics the study of physical forces and
motion. Each discipline has validity be-
cause there is a common curiosity about
that subject. The study of place is the sub-
ject matter of geography because con-
sciousness of place is an immediately ap-
parent part of reality, not a sophisticated
thesis. Every school child knows that geo-
graphy is knowledge about the places of
the earth, as every school child knows that
history is the knowledge about events in
the human past. Knowledge of place is a
simple fact of experience.
The literature of geography begins in
the myths and sagas of every tongue in
which human events are recorded. Every
event described, every series of events re-
constructed has to have a place. The con-
tinuing human needs to describe the places
of the earth, as well as to recall the events
of the past, are the foundations upon
which both geography and history rest as
disciplines. The record of human events
on the earths surface is, after all, the
source of all our knowledge, scientific and
otherwise.
This common pool of knowledge, called
by the Greeks historia (inquiry), expanded,
and new disciplines emerged, but the de-
velopment of the individual and specialized
sciences did not displace either geography
or history as fields of study. The newer
disciplines studied their separate categories
of phenomena both as to location and
distribution on the earths surface as in
geography, and as to duration and se-
quence in time as in history, but always in
terms of the phenomena themselves. The
study of events as a serial whole was left
to history. The study of place as a com-
plex of phenomena, as an integrated
whole, was left to geography. No discipline
other than geography studies the facts of
area from the viewpoint of the area alone
rather than from the viewpoint of the
phenomena.
It is enough then to define geography in
the simplest connotation of the Greek
word as earth description, if we under-
stand by this that the geographer describes
and explains the earths surface in its areal
differentiation. Geographers describe the
phenomena of the earth as do botanists,
zoologists, physicists, and economists. The
sciences differ, however, in what they de-
scribe and how and why they describe
what they do. Each science has a given
part of reality which its scientists take upon
themselves to study and describe. The
geographer studies place. It is the character
of the place, the areas of the earths sur-
face that form the subject matter of
geography, not the distribution over the
world of a single or multiple class of
phenomena.
Knowledge of place is in the integration
of all elements, insofar as they give char-
acter to the area as an area-as a bounded
element complex, as a locality-not as
infinitely varying distributions, nor as total
description. If one accepts this final phras-
ing it seems clear that what we mean by
geographic method or concepts in geog-
raphy is simply how we formulate our
questions to obtain knowledge of place;
and explanation in geography would be
the description and analysis of area con-
tained in those questions.
What kind of knowledge, then, is
geography? How d o we conceive or iden-
tify the places of the earth?
All geographical evidence is empirical
evidence. What we call facts about area
are observations and happenings, some-
times assembled and ordered by enumera-
tion and mensuration with instruments,
but, however assembled, they are a sym-
bolized record of human experience-a
statistic. Every distribution of phenomena,
which is the basic set of data in geography,
is of that nature, and, being statistical, it is
susceptible to mapping, classification, ag-
gregation, and analysis. Simple description
of size, shape, distance, and direction, as
well as analytic statements of gradient,
density, dispersion, and clustering, must
be handled statistically. In these matters
geographers, searching after areal differ-
entiation and areal element complexes, are
using standard scientific method to obtain
their ends.
To be a little more specific: given the
fact that everything in the world is dif-
ferent in some respect, a thing apart, by
what methods can we group things as more
alike rather than less alike? The only way
 GEOGRAPHY AS A FORMAL INTELLECTUAL DISCIPLINE
is to treat every observation as if it were
a sample of a population, an instance of a
class. The problem is a statistical problem
methodologically, even though the obser-
vational data may technically be unquanti-
fiable. Thus, everything observed must be
treated as a member of some distribution
and its position in that distribution must
be ascertained, if we are to treat it as a
fact about the world. This is the only
way we can handle observation, order it,
and give it objective meaning.
Geographers seek more than objective
areal patterns, however; they seek also
the subjective meaning of area. Geo-
graphers wish to understand not only why
place is a factual event in human con-
sciousness, but what beliefs people hold
about place. The basis of human action is
in what is believed to ,be true, not neces-
sarily what is true, and certainly one can-
not maintain that most of past human
behaviour has followed from scientific
knowledge. It is necessary, therefore, that
the geographer not only objectively mea-
sure the location and areal configuration
of happenings on the earths surface, but
also know what man experienced and be-
lieved about his environs. It is this alone
that underlies mans acts, which in turn are
what give character to place. Man, seeing
his environment through the cultural prism
of his beliefs, acts as a historic being, and
place, as an event in human experience,
becomes above all a cultural concept.
It would seem to follow that all of
geography must be approached historically.
If culture is the historical accumulation of
social behaviour, it seems hardly possible
to do geography either from an acultural,
strictly objective viewpoint, or from a
static, merely cross-sectional perspective.
Culture is handed down directly by tradi-
tion and education, and transmitted indi-
rectly by diffusion and imitation. We must
understand these processes and have
knowledge of these patterns to give mean-
ing to social behaviour in place. Geo-
graphers have no absolute configuration of
attitudes and behaviour towards environ-
ment upon which to base the understand-
ing of area. The character of the places of
the earth is always emergent and becom-
ing. To treat the study of area otherwise is
to delude ourselves into thinking we can
areally differentiate the surface of the
169
earth on some other basis than the ex-
perience of mankind.
Having said these things about what
kind of knowledge geography is, we may
now ask what kind of a world does the
geographer see? what are his insights?
That geography is a way of looking at
the world, not an inventory of its contents,
is a consistent theme of this paper. This
emphasis on geography as being concerned
with the areas of the earths surface as
seen by man may be summarized in a set
of philosophical precepts or guides. This
is an attempt then to give the conceptual
framework through which the geographer
views the world. This is the intellectual
content of geography which we offer to
the world of knowledge-a geographically
meaningful guide to the world of expe-
rience.
The first insight, the first conceptual
theme of geography, is localion. Historic-
ally, it is the most consistent thread run-
ning through the literature of the field.
The fact that place, movement, and ar-
rangement are parts of our experience and
therefore condition our actions and be-
liefs must be taken into account in any-
thing we call geographical description and
explanation. How we categorize location
becomes a conceptual tool for both under-
standing and analysis.
Geographers have given variant mean-
ings to location in the specific context of
their studies, but in general these have
been given in answer to one question, that
of place. For possibly three thousand
years the place of something has been
described in terms of the internal arrange-
ment of features (site) and of external
connectivity and environs (situation).
Separately or together as definitions of
place, site and situation are locating in
relation to some other place or thing. To
locate is to relate; and a relationship is a
conceptual system of thought. This mean-
ing of location to the geographer-the
relative distributional condition of the area
under study-is the first conceptual cri-
terion of doing geography. If the geo-
grapher fails to conceive of his research as
involving this step it seems difficult to
accept such study as either explanatory or
descriptive in any geographical sense.
Having argued that the concept of
170 THE CANADIAN GEOGRAPHER
relative location has conceptual priority in
the history of geographical literature, we
may also judge it basic in a logical analysis
of the field. The location of a place is not
completely defined for the geographer un-
til it is described in relation to all other
interacting places. Involved here are events
and places of the past as well as the pres-
ent. The study of distributions and areas
through time reveals both geographic or-
der and process. It is difficult to speak of
locating something, or the location of some
place, without necessarily becoming in-
volved in the antecedent distributional con-
dition of the place under study. Discus-
sions of migration and diffusion, of trans-
portation flow and spatial interaction, are
logical outcomes of questions of location.
It follows that complementary to the geo-
graphic concept of relative location is a
concept of age and area-the interaction
of period and place.
A third aspect of the relative location
insight is the concept of locality or
localization. This is nothing more than the
conceptual realization of that conscious
experience of area that we have argued
previously as being the naive basis on
which geography as a discipline rests.
The world is diverse. It is made up of
separated places, but it is also a unity. It
has order-geographical order-for the
connections and the associations of one
place to another reveal an underlying sys-
tem of localization. The geographer is
seeking to identify that system. The tra-
ditional emphasis on dividing up the world
into separate regions is but one view of the
problem of localization; the other view is
to measure the degree of connection, to
discover the areal system of connectivity.
Current interest in studies of nucleation,
dispersion, and uniformity, whether of re-
gions, cities or industries, plant communi-
ties, slopes or air masses, is of one general
character in the sense that all the studies
comentrate on systems of localization. The
culminating point of geographic study is
the description of the places of the earth
in some geographical order. This has been
true in the past: it is now in the present.
The key to that order has always been the
locational concept of place.
Another set of conceptual themes that
have made a distinguishing mark in the
literature and research of geovaphy de-
rive not only from the fact of the locality
of experience as we have just noted, but
also from the realization that all places,
though unique, exist and function only
within a world-wide framework of interde-
pendence. The analogue in other sciences
is the concept of the interdependence of
all phenomena. In geography this concept
is generally attributed to Ritter and Ratzel,
but it is probably best exemplified in the
literature and research of Vidal and the
French school of geography. Just as the
idea of the pays profoundly incorporates
the concept of location and localization,
so lunite terrestre is a hallmark embodying
Ritters and Ratzels concept of the earth
as the home of man, linking through the
idea of habitat both physical and cultural
process in the description of place.
If we accept the thesis of the interde-
pendence of phenomena, it follows that
each place or region is a complex of ele-
ments, just as the world as a whole is a
complex of places and regions. The con-
cept of the regional framework of the
earths surface, then, emphasizes the func-
tional interdependence of phenomena in
place. If we analyze why we experience
place it must be in this fact of the inter-
dependence or integration of phenomena
in place-what the French have called the
theme of ensemble, what Hettner and
Hartshorne call the element complex.
Each place has its own order, its special
ensemble, which distinguishes it from the
next place, but obviously each place is not
entirely discrete. What we experience is
not different phenomena but different ar-
rangements of phenomena. This is the
basis for our regional methodology which
creates places or regions of patterned
elements by statistical analysis.
If we carry the argument further, every
framework has some degree of order and
is the result of some process. An areal or
regional framework of the earths surface
implies a hierarchical system of functional
whole and part. There must be a connec-
tive hierarchy because both time and direc-
tion are involved in process. This spatial
connectivity of places and phenomena has
been treated by the French as the theme
of circulation. As a word circulation is
probably to be preferred over Ullmans
phrase spatial interaction: the former is
more concrete and brings to mind actual
 GEOGRAPHY AS A FORMAL INTELLECTUAL DISCIPLINE
connection and process. Unfortunately it
does not emphasize mutual interdepen-
dence which is conceptually necessary if
we are to make use of modern statistical
theory in our studies of areal association.
Possibly there are two themes we should
emphasize here: one of area2 association,
or spatial co-variation of phenomena, and
the other of a flow or transfer of pheno-
mena, that is, circulation, between places.
The importance of the concept of spa-
tial interaction is in giving understanding
to the areal system of the earth's surface.
Any classification of areas involves us in
a system of spatial connectivity. If the
classification is to be of any use we must
understand its purpose, which not only
means to divide up the earth into areas,
but to connect areas with each other in
some kind of order. In geography that
order must be locational as specified in the
fist concept we noted.
The themes of l'unite' terrestre, ensem-
ble, and circulation itemized above have
always been part of the geographical
idiom. The sense of location as place, the
linkage of both culture and nature as de-
scriptive of the character of place, the
perspective of connectivity, the fact of area
being part of a larger area, had all been
un-disciplined elements of Greek literature
before Eratosthenes. The great changes con-
ceptually of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, which we hail as modern geo-
graphy, have largely been a restatement
and elaboration of these earlier themes of
proto-geography. Possibly the most impor-
tant of all concepts re-introduced into
modern geography is the concept of the
cultural landscap-the concept of the en-
vironment as modified by man. Here
again it is both difficult and probably
erroneous to assign discovery of this in-
tellectual redirection, but the theme is best
described in the French school's terms of
genre de vie and milieu.
Traditionally geographers have described
the areas of the earth as much in the cul-
tural level, technology, and belief of the
inhabitants as in the physical elements of
landscape and climate, but it is only in
recent decades that they have applied this
to a changing concept of environment. En-
vironment varies as to place, time, and
culture. Thus, no statement of an area's
environment is pertinent unless specified
171
in the historical and cultural terms of its
inhabitants. The most striking example of
this environmental relativity is in the geo-
grapher's concept of resources. In the f i s t
place, the geographer would literally deny
that there are such things as natural re-
sources at all, because, to be a resource,
environment must be technologically avail-
able to man. Secondly, the environment
of an area, by definition, would vary as
to time and culture, and thus all state-
ments of resource capability would be rel-
ative to the historic time and the occu-
pying culture. In essence, therefore, the
geography of a place is constantly emerg-
ing. New elements are being added; old
elements are being modified or disappear.
This concept of places being emergent
or becoming rather than being is crucial
for an understanding of modem geo-
graphy. Can a cultural concept of land-
scape, for example, have any meaning un-
less it is accompanied by a concept of
emergence? It can further be argued that
this concept seems implicit in such tradi-
tional ideas as situation and relative loca-
tion as well as in the modern analysis of
localization and the behavioural environ-
ment. In fact, to treat the study of area in
any other fashion seems explicitly to deny
that geography is an empirical science
based wholly on the experience of man.
The final point we must make leads
back to this same thesis of geographic
knowledge being empirical and statistical
and, we would now add, therefore only
probable. This conditional or dependent
character of all geographical evidence is
what the French school has called the
theme of contingence. All happenings in
the world of experience are contingent and
can be given meaning only in comparison
with, and dependence on, other like expe-
riences. In this way we judge what is aver-
age or normal, what is deviate or extreme,
what is marginal or peripheral. All events
and facts are unique, but they are also
members of a class or we could not talk
about them.
The statements of law, of cause and
effect, are dependent on statistical analysis.
They are analytical concepts conditioned
by the scale of recording the data, by
the methods of analysis and correlation.
but not directly by observation. The
observation-the event-is empirical. It is
172 LE GBOGRAPHE CANADIEN
neither lawful nor unlawful. Of itself it is Toute science considbre comme acquis, ou
neither deviate nor normal; it just is. In- comme existant de faGon spontante, Iobjet
sofar as place is an event, the range and quelle entend ttudier. Lobjet que la gto-
variety of places as human experiences graphie tient pour acquis, quelle considere
comme sa donnCe propre, cest le fait de
are thus of as great concern as are aver- Iespace. Voill Itltment gbgraphiqFe
ages and norms. If the geographers pur- essentiel: la connaissance du monde tel qu11
pose is to understand mans experience in se prCsente, i.e. divist en espaces dtfinis. Le
place, it is incumbent upon geographers pourquoi de cette division du monde en
to acknowledge the contingency of all ex- espaces dCfinis-en rtgions: telle est la ques-
perience and to see i n the variety and tion gkographique par excellence. Nulle autre
range of places as much importance as in discipline nbtudie ainsi les faits despace, du
the typical. T h e purpose is t o understand seul point de vue de Iespace hi-mkme, plutbt
mans experience, not primarily to judge que d u point de vue des phknorn6nes qui y
sont contenus. On peut donc difinir la gto-
what is lawful. graphie par Iexpression grecque description
In closing we might re-emphasize that de la terre, si Ion entend par I l que le gCo-
the geographer must conceive of the places graphe Ctudie la terre par diffkrenciation
of the earth as parts of a system, related spatiale.
to each other at different levels of inter- Lorsque nous parlons de mtthode ou de
action. It is his task t o identify the areas concept gtographique, nous faisons donc
of the earth and their position in the sys- rtftrence B la faGon dont nous formulons nos
tem of classification. If the geographer questions pour en arriver 1 la connaissance de
fails t o integrate his localities and his re- Iespace dtfini, et Iexplication, en gkographie,
comporte donc la description et Ianalyse de
gions structurally, he is merely dividing lunit6 spatiale telles quenglob6es dans ces
up the world, not explaining it. If h e in questions.
turn creates a hierarchy of regions with- Quel genre de connaissance la gCographie
out investigating the historical process of reprbsente-t-elle? Elle recherche des modes
connection, he fails to differentiate mean- objectifs de ripartition dans lespace. Elle
ingfully in terms of mans experence in cherche Cgalement B dtcouvrir le sens sub-
his environment. jectif de Iespace. Mais cornme le caractere
The culminating point of geographic des unit6s spatiales du monde se situe dans
study is the description of the places of un devenir continu plutbt que dam un pr&
sent arrkt6, il faut nkcessairement Ctudier ces
the earth in some geographical order. T h e modes de rtpartition et ce sens subjectif de
key to that order is in the locational con- Iunitt spatiale dans un contexte historique.
cept of place. To emphasize the relative, La gkographie est donc une faGon de voir
the cultural, the historical experience of le monde plutbt quun inventaire de ce qui y
mankind along with the physical attri- est contenu. Son premier niveau de pCnt-
butes of area is to do the complete study tration est celui du concept de lieu-au sens
of geography-the study of the places of absolu de site et au sens relatif de situation.
the earth. Son second niveau est celui de 1lge dans
Iespace, i.e. celui des rapports mutuels de
R ~ S U M ~
temps et de lieu. Puis vient la dCcouverte du
systbme dagencement des phknombnes dans
Un domaine dktude se ddfinit le mieux non Iespace, de cet ordre geographique qui donne
par lanalyse Ctymologique du terme qui le Iunitt densemble malgrt la diversit6 des
dkigne, ni par sa position logique dam Ien- tlCments constituants. Le concept dunitis
semble des sciences non plus que par la place rkgionales vient ensuite mettre laccent sur
quil occupe dam un programme denseigne- Iinterdtpendance fonctionnelle des phbno-
ment, mais bien par Ihistoire de son Cvolution, mhnes spatiaux. I1 faut Cgalement considtrer
par ce quil a produit et par le degrt de cor- Ievolution des associations de phknomPnes
rClation entre sa production et ses objectifs dans un espace dtfini, puis les migrations de
Iogiques. Une discipline, aprbs tout, est un phtnombnes de certains lieux l dautres, i.e.
phtnomene social, une cornmunautt dhommes les faits de circulation.
de science entretenant une conversation Lauteur souligne enfin que la connaissance
dinttrkt commun, se posant mutuellement gtographique, parce quelle est empirique et
des questions et suggtrant des rCponses pro- statistique, ne peu arriver qul des conclu-
visoires qui, elles-m&mes, entrainent dautres sions probables. Les notions de gtographie
questions. sont donc, par dtfinition. contingentes.