Geographic Thought Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The dualism is related to the distinction between natural and cultural landscape.

The physical-human dualism divides geography into the study of the natural environment (landforms, climate, soils, vegetation) and the study of human activities and their works. In landscape terms this is the distinction between the natural landscape and the cultural landscape that people create from it, as in Sauer's work.

Environmental versus economic factors, landforms versus climate (both physical), and absolute versus relative location are other distinctions that do not capture the physical-human divide.

Answer: B

The perspective is positivism.

Positivism holds that knowledge comes from the objective, empirical observation of facts and the testing of hypotheses, with the aim of discovering general laws. In geography it drove the quantitative revolution of the 1950s and 1960s and the search for laws of spatial organisation, as in location theory.

Humanism rejects this in favour of subjective meaning and experience. Structuralism looks for underlying structures that are not directly observable, and behaviouralism focuses on decision-making and perception.

Answer: B

The key gives (B) Earth Science.

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) treated the earth as one connected physical system. His Cosmos, a description of the physical universe, brought together geology, climate and geomagnetism. He drew the first isotherms, lines joining places of equal temperature, and measured the strength of the earth's magnetic field at many places, and he studied altitude zones of climate. These are contributions to the science of the earth, which is the reading the key adopts.

He also did a great deal of work on plant geography, which is why option C (life science) is a plausible alternative, but it is the narrower description of his work as a whole. Environmental determinism is associated with Ratzel and his followers, not with Humboldt. Cartography was a tool he used, as with the isotherm map, and not the field of his major contribution.

Answer: C

The approach that some geographical facts, according to Ritter, cannot be explained scientifically and must be understood as the working out of a divine plan is called teleological. Karl Ritter believed that the earth was made by God as a home for man, and so looked for purpose in nature.

The ecological approach studies organism and environment relations, the regional approach studies areas as units, and the locational approach studies the spatial positions of things. None of these appeals to a divine purpose, so the key is teleological.

Answer: D

According to Hartshorne, the pioneer statement on the scope and method of modern geography that set the direction of geographic thought was by Ferdinand von Richthofen, in his Leipzig inaugural lecture of 1883. He defined geography as the chorological science of the earth's surface and its areal differentiation.

Vidal de la Blache, Schlüter and Ratzel were also important, as founder of the French school, of landscape morphology and of anthropogeography respectively, but Hartshorne in The Nature of Geography gives the place of the pioneering statement to Richthofen.

Answer: C

Ellsworth Huntington emphasised the predominant role of climate in human life. In Civilization and Climate he argued that human energy and the rise and fall of civilisations were linked to climatic conditions, and he proposed an ideal climate for progress.

Geddes was a planner and sociologist who formulated the idea of the region and the conurbation, Jefferson is known for the primate city law and Brunhes for human geography in the possibilist tradition. None of them held that climate dominates life as Huntington did.

Answer: C

Possibilism was first developed by the French School of Geography, led by Vidal de la Blache and developed by Lucien Febvre. It holds that nature offers possibilities and humans choose among them according to their culture and needs.

The German school is known for early environmental determinism (Ratzel), so A is wrong. The Russian and British schools are not identified as the origin of possibilism.

Febvre said that there are no necessities, but everywhere possibilities, and man, as master of the possibilities, is the judge of their use. Vidal de la Blache's school in France studied genres de vie, ways of life, and this gave the idea its foundation, in contrast with the German tradition of environmental control.

Answer: D

The question asks who is not a supporter of determinism, and the key is 'All the above'. Wolfgang Hartke, Richard Hartshorne and O.H.K. Spate are not counted as supporters of strict environmental determinism, so each of the three fits the question.

Since each of A, B and C fits the question, D is the correct choice, and picking any one of the three alone would leave the other two unexplained.

Since each name is associated with an approach other than strict determinism, the question's final option, 'All the above', is the only choice which covers all three. Option A, B or C alone would imply that the other two are supporters of determinism, which is not the case.

Answer: A

Guelke is an advocate of idealism in geography; he applied Collingwood's idea of rethinking the thoughts of actors to explain human actions in his work on the philosophy of geography.

Gilbert, Samuels and Pocock are not the principal advocates of idealism in the options as the key lists them. They are better known in other fields such as humanistic, phenomenological and positivist writing.

Idealism in geography goes back to the philosopher R. G. Collingwood, whose view was that history is the re-enactment of past thought. Guelke applied this to geography in his book on historical understanding, which is why he is named as its advocate.

Answer: B

The statement that a method by which one can rethink the thoughts of those whose actions one seeks to explain refers to idealism. Collingwood's idea of rethinking the past thought of agents, taken into human geography by Guelke, rests on this.

Phenomenology deals with lived experience and perception of the world. Existentialism stresses individual existence and choice. Positivism uses empirical, law-seeking, quantitative methods and does not rely on rethinking thought.