Nature of Geography

a) Peculiarity of subject matter in the sense that geography is nourished by different subjects. Example:-Climateology is a part of independent subject meteorology, Soil geography is a part of pedology.

b)the history of evolution of this subject shows variation in it’s nature for the last 200 years i.e., paradigm instability, focus changed(theoretical and practical).

c) Different paradigm remained co-existant and one school of thought never replaced another and is present in conflicting relation to each other.

d) There is no interpretative closure in the physical geography’s definition and the absence of a grand or meta-theory in the geography. Several definition have been forwarded by Jones, D. Smith, Hartshorne, F. Shaefer etc.

e) Unclear relation between the ‘signified (objects of interest) and the ‘signifier’ (words spoken in favour of the concepts perceived by a geographer and/ or a school of thought). Example:- whether a hill is a ‘monadnock’ or an ‘inselberg’ is a hypothetical concept because either Davis’s concept is true or vice versa or both their concepts are false but both their concepts can’t be true at the same time for a hill in question.

f) Dichotomy in definition due to division of the subject into physical and human. It can be argued that if geography is the study of the man on the earth then it can’t exist without man and man being a social creature creates society and hence, geography should be labeled as a social science. If this argument holds true then splitting the subject into physical and human parts is irrational and useless.

g)conflicting situation in relation to philosophy and methodology among different schools of thought like positivists, radicals etc.

h) There is dichotomy between regional and systematic geography.

i) Geography has both theoretical and applied aspects (like remote sensing, Geological information system etc.)