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Edition for the history of geography

16th~18th centuries in the West
Geography as a science experiences excitement and exerts influence during the Scientific Revolution and Religion Reformation. In the Victorian period, the oversea exploration gave it institutional identity and geography was "the science of imperialism par excellence." Imperialism is a crucial concept as the institution become involved in geographical exploration and colonial project. Authority was questioned, and utility gained its importance. In the era of Enlightenment, geography generated knowledge and made it intellectually and practically possible as a university discipline. The natural theology required geography to investigate the world as a grand machine from the Divine. Scientific voyages and travels constructed geopolitical power from geographical knowledge, partly sponsored by Royal Society. John Pinkerton appraised the eighteenth century had "the gigantic progress of every science, and in particular of geographical information" and "alteration has taken place in states and boundaries."

After English Civil War, Samuel Hartlib and his Baconian community promoted scientific application, which showed the popularity of utility. For William Petty, the administrators should be "skilled in the best rules of judicial astrology" to "calculate the events of diseases and prognosticate the weather." Institutionally, Gresham College propagated scientific advancement to a larger audience like tradesmen, and later this institute grew into Royal Society. William Cuningham illustrated the utilitarian function of cosmography by the military implement of maps. John Dee used mathematics to study location--his primary interest in geography and encouraged exploiting resource with findings collected during voyages. Religion Reformation stimulated geographical exploration and investigation. Philipp Melanchthon shifted geographical knowledge production from "pages of scripture" to "experience in the world." Bartholomäus Keckermann separated geography from theology because the "general workings of providence" required empirical investigation. His follower, Bernhardus Varenius made geography a science in the 17th century and published Geographia Generalis, which was used in Newton's teaching of geography at Cambridge.

Science develops along with empiricism. Empiricism gains its central place while reflection on it also grew. Practitioners of magic and astrology first embraced and expanded geographical knowledge. Reformation Theology focused more on the providence than the creation as previously. Realistic experience, instead of translated from scripture, emerged as a scientific procedure. Geographical knowledge and method play roles in economic education and administrative application, as part of the Puritan social program. Foreign travels provided content for geographic research and formed theories, such as environmentalism. Visual representation, map-making or cartography, showed its practical, theoretical, and artistic value.

The concepts of "Space" and "Place" attract attention in geography. Why things are there and not elsewhere is an important topic in Geography, together with debates on space and place. Such insights could date back in 16th and 17th centuries, identified by M. Curry as "Natural Space", "Absolute Space", "Relational Space" (On Space and Spatial Practice). After Descartes's Principles of Philosophy, Locke and Leibniz considered space as relative, which has long-term influence on the modern view of space. For Descartes, Grassendi and Newton, place is a portion of "absolution space", which are neural and given. However, according to John Locke, "Our Idea of Place is nothing else, but such a relative Position of any thing" (in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding). "Distance" is the pivot modification of space, because "Space considered barely in length between any two Beings, without considering any thing else between them". Also, the place is "made by Men, for their common use, that by it they might be able to design the particular Position of Things". In the Fifth Paper in Reply to Clarke, Leibniz stated: "Men fancy places, traces, and space, though these things consist only in the truth of relations and not at all in any absolute reality". Space, as an "order of coexistence", "can only be an ideal thing, containing a certain order, wherein the mind conceives the application of relation". Leibniz moved further for the term "distance" as he discussed it together with "interval" and "situation", not just a measurable character. Leibniz bridged place and space to quality and quantity, by saying "Quantity or magnitude is that in things which can be known only through their simultaneous compresence--or by their simultaneous perception... Quality, on the other hand, is what can be known in things when they are observed singly, without requiring any compresence." In Modern Space as Relative, place and what is in place are integrated. "The Supremacy of Space" is observed by E. Casey when the place is resolved as "position and even point" by Leibniz's rationalism and Locke's empiricism.

During Enlightenment, advancements in science mean widening human knowledge and enable further exploiting nature, along with industrialization and empire expansion in Europe. David Hume, "the real father of positivist philosophy" according to Leszek Kolakowski, implied the "doctrine of facts", emphasizing the importance of scientific observations. The "fact" is related with sensationalism that object cannot be isolated from its "sense-perceptions", an opinion of Berkeley. Galileo, Descartes, later Hobbes and Newton advocated scientific materialism, viewing the universe--the entire world and even human mind--as a machine. The mechanist world view is also found in the work of Adam Smith based on historical and statistics methods. In chemistry, Antoine Lavoisier proposed the "exact science model" and stressed quantitative methods from experiment and mathematics. Karl Linnaeus classified plants and organisms based on an assumption of fixed species. Later, the idea of evolution emerged not only for species but also for society and human intellect. In General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens, Kant laid out his hypothesis of cosmic evolution, and made him "the great founder of the modern scientific conception of Evolution" according to Hastie.

Francis Bacon and his followers believed progress of science and technology drive betterment of man. This belief was attached by Jean-Jacques Rousseau who defended human emotions and morals. His discussion on geography education piloted local regional studies. Leibniz and Kant formed the major challenge to the mechanical materialism. Leibniz conceptualized the world as a changing whole, rather than "sum of its parts" as a machine. Nevertheless, he acknowledged experience requires rational interpretation--the power of human reason.

Kant tried to reconcile the division of sense and reason by stressing moral rationalism grounded on aesthetic experience of nature as "order, harmony, and unity". For knowledge, Kant distinguished phenomena (sensible world) and noumena (intelligible world), and he asserted "all phenomena are perceived in the relations of space and time." Drawing a line between "rational science" and "empirical science", Kant regarded Physical geography--associating with space--as natural science. During his tenure in Königsberg, Kant offered lectures on physical geography since 1756 and published the lecture notes Physische Geographie in 1801. However, Kant's involvement in travel and geographical research is fairly limited. Kant's work on empirical and rational science influence Humboldt and at smaller extent Ritter. Manfred Büttner asserted that is "Kantian emancipation of geography from theology."

Humboldt is admired as a great geographer, according to D. Livingstone that "modern geography was first and last a synthesizing science and as such, if Goetzmann is to be believed, 'it became the key scientific activity of the age'." Humboldt met the geographer George Forster at the University of Göttingen, whose geographical description and scientific writing influenced Humboldt. His Geognosia including the geography of rocks, animals, and plants is "an important model for modern geography". As the Prussian Ministry of Mines, Humboldt founded the Free Royal Mining School at Steben for miners, later regarded the prototype of such institutes. German Naturphilosophie, especially the work of Goethe and Herder, stimulated Humboldt's idea and research of a universal science. In his letter, he made observations while his "attention will never lose sight of the harmony of concurrent forces, the influence of the inanimate world on the animal and vegetable kingdom." His American travel stressed the geography of plants as his focus of science. Meanwhile, Humboldt used empirical method to study the indigenous people in the New World, regarded as a most important work in human geography. In Relation historique du Voyage, Humboldt called these research a new science Physique du monde, Theorie de la Terre, or Geographie physique. During 1825 to 1859, Humboldt devoted in Kosmos, which is about the knowledge of nature. There are growing works about the New World since then. In the Jeffersonian era, "American geography was born of the geography of America", meaning the knowledge discovery helped form the discipline. Practical knowledge and national pride are main components of the Teleological tradition.

Institutions such as the Royal Geographical Society indicate geography as an independent discipline. Mary Somerville's Physical Geography was the "conceptual culmination of ... Baconian ideal of universal integration". According to Francis Bacon, "No natural phenomenon can be adequately studied by itself alone -- but, to be understood, it must be considered as it stands connected with all nature." In the pre-Darwinian period, the geographical literature could be divided into practice and theory (the design). For example, Herder, "one of the three fathers of modern geography" according to Guthe, maintained that the Divine plan could be detected still. Moreover, Ritter observed the world as 'evidence of God's design'. From a professor of history at the University of Frankfurt and Germany's first modern chair of geography, Ritter built a "scientific geography".

Main References

 * Bowen, M. (1981). Empiricism and geographical thought from Francis Bacon to Alexander von Humboldt. Cambridge University Press.
 * Livingstone, D. (1993). The geographical tradition: episodes in the history of a contested enterprise. Wiley-Blackwell.
 * Earle, C., Kenzer, M. S., & Mathewson, K. (Eds.). (1995). Concepts in human geography. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
 * Casey, E. (2013). The fate of place: A philosophical history. University of California Press.