22 EXCEPTIONALISM IN GEOGRAPHY

Dr. Nasim Aktar

Exceptionalism refers to the belief that geography and history are methodologically distinct from other systematic sciences because they are peculiarly concerned with the study of the unique and the particular. This idea is closely associated with Kantianism. Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher-geographer of eighteenth-century is recognized as the founder of exceptionalism. According to Kant, history and geography find themselves in an exceptional position and are different from that of other systematic sciences. He considered history as temporal science and geography as a regional science. According to Kant, history differs from geography only in the consideration of time and space. History is a report of phenomena that follow one another and has reference to time while geography is a report of phenomena besides each other in space. History is narrative and geography is descriptive. Both fill up the entire circumference of our perceptions: geography that of space and history that of time (Hartshorne, 1993).

The progress of geography was much slower than the other social sciences like economics. This slow progress of the subject is perhaps due to the unrealistic ambitions adopted by the undefined idea of an inimitable integrating science with a distinctive methodology all its own. The major pattern producing variables are spatial in geographical studies. Humboldt and Ritter who was considered as the founder of modern geographical thought accepted that all natural and spatial relations were governed by the laws. In this type of study, tools were needed in the form of concepts and laws. Hence geography had to be conceived as the science concerned with the formulation of laws to govern the spatial distribution of the certain features which were found over the earth surface. After the successful development of geophysics, astronomy, and geology, geography can no longer deal with the whole earth, but only the earth’s surface.

Humboldt and Ritter thus recognized that the major concern of geography was the manner in which all the natural phenomenon including man were distributed over the earth’s surface. It means that geographers must explain and describe all these natural phenomena in a systematic manner in which things combine to fill an area. These combinations may vary from place to place. Different places contain different factors or the same factors in other combinations. These differences either in the combination of factors or in their arrangements from place to place trigger the common sense of the idea that areas differ. This view-point is known as the chorological or chorographical science. Thus, geography must pay attention to the spatial arrangements of the various natural phenomenon of an area rather than the phenomena itself. Spatial relations among the phenomena are found only in geographical studies and no other social science subject. Kraft also agrees with views of Humboldt and Ritter that geography is a science which is trying to formulate laws; chorological and is limited over the earth’s surface.

The chorological viewpoint of geography has caused more methodological debate and misinterpretation than any other viewpoint in geography. There is mainly two different types of geographer’s: either systematic or regional. A region is a unique area that is differentiated from another area with specific criteria. The regional geographers describes the various features of the earth surface at the outset of his investigation that depends on the size of the region considered. The regional geographer must try to find out those relations obtaining among the each individual features by virtue of which the area considered has that unitary character that creates its region. They must also identify the causal interrelations among such features, classes that obtain in this specific area in all circumstances. But the application of systematic geography is the causal interrelationship among various features of the specific area for the scientific understanding of that region. In order to obtain a generalization or law the spatial relations among two or more selected classes of phenomena must be studied all over the earth’s surface. For example, two phenomena are found to arise regularly at the same place. As a result, a hypothesis may be formed to influence that whenever the members of the one class are found in one place, members of the other class will also found at the same place under the conditions stated by the hypothesis. Therefore, the geographer’s will need a large number of cases and variables to test the hypothesis that could find in any region of the earth surface. But if it is confirmed in a sufficient number of cases then the hypothesis becomes a law that may be used to explain the situation not yet considered. Classification is the first step of any kind of systematic work. But if the other steps is not taken into consideration and classification is considered as the final step of the investigation, then the field becomes disinfected.

According to Kant, knowledge about the spatial location of objects is quite distinct from knowledge about their time, nature and the natural laws governing them. The later sort of knowledge is eternal and universal, and are truly scientific (whereas) spatial and temporal coordinates are separate and rather secondary attributes of objects, and spatial and temporal arrangements of objects are not a matter of science (Hartshorne, 1993). Thus the systematic sciences are regarded as law-making and true sciences while history and geography are descriptive by nature and differ from those of systematic sciences.

German geographer Alfred Hettner (1859-1941) defined geography as the chorological science of the earth’s surface. He was one of the most influential methodological geographer in Germany who did utmost to redevelop and elaborate Kantian thought. Hettner in his writings had revived the definition of geography given by Kant. In considering the logical position of geography among the sciences, Hettner like Kant proceeds not from the consideration of particular branches of science but from a view of the whole field of objective knowledge. Hettner (1972) states, “reality is simultaneously a three-dimensional space, which we must examine from three different points of view in order to comprehend the whole. From one point of view we see the relations of similar things, from the second the development in time, and from the third the arrangement and division in space…..The systematic sciences ignore the temporal and spatial relationships and find their unity in the objective likeness or similarity of the subjects with which they are concerned. With the same justification as the development in time, the arrangement of things in space demands special study.”

The idea of exceptionalism is closely associated with Kantianism, but in geography, this term is usually identified with F.K. Schaefer. Schaefer was originally an economist who joined the group of geographers teaching in Economics Department of the University of Lowa (U.S.A) after his escape from Germany during Nazi regime. He made a critical analysis of the Hartshorne’s book ‘Nature of Geography’ published in 1939. Schaefer made vigorous attempt to criticise the exceptionalism claims made for geography as a regional science. Schaefer’s paper ‘Exceptionalism in Geography: A Methodological Explanation’ was post-post-thumously published in 1953 in the Annals of the Association Geographers. His essay was widely regarded as a rallying point for young researchers of human geography.

Schaefer in his paper which was published in 1953 he criticised the works of Hartshorne, Hettner, Kant, and others. He strongly criticised Hartshorne’s exceptionalism claims for regional geography and presented an alternative case for geography adopting the philosophy and methodology of positivist approach. First of all, he elaborated the nature of science and then defined the peculiar characteristics of geography as a social science. He argued that a science is characterized by its expansions and explanations require laws. To explain the phenomena one has to describe means always to recognize them as instances of laws. In geography, the major regularities which are described refer to spatial patterns and hence geography has to be conceived as the science concerned with the formulation of the laws governing the spatial distribution of certain features on the surface of the earth. These spatial arrangements of phenomena, and not the phenomena themselves, should be the subject of geographers search for law-like statements. Geographical procedures would then not differ from those employed in the other systematic sciences, both natural and social. Observation would lead to a hypothesis about the interrelationship between two spatial patterns, and the hypothesis would be tested against a large number of cases, to provide the material for a law if it was thereby verified (Schaefer, 1953).

He argued that the geography as the integrating science which put together the results of individual systematic sciences was arrogant and that in any case there were somewhat lacking in its products. A science is characterized by its explanations, and explanations require laws. “To explain the phenomena one has described facts always to identify them as instances of laws.” Schaefer opined that in geography the major regularities which are described refer to spatial patterns. Therefore, geography has to be perceived as the science concerned with the making of laws to govern the spatial distribution and spatial arrangements of different phenomena over the surface of the earth should be the subject of geographers.

Geographical phenomena would then not differ from the phenomena found in other sciences, both natural and cultural. The observation of these natural and cultural phenomena would lead to the formulation of hypothesis about the interrelationship between two spatial patterns. These hypotheses would be tested against a larger number of cases, to provide the material for a law if they were thereby verified.

The argument against the definition of geography as the science of spatial arrangements was termed as ‘exceptionalism’. It claims that geography does not share the methodology of other sciences because of peculiar nature of its field of study—the study of unique places, or regions (and compares geography with history, which studies unique periods of time).

Schaefer found exceptionalism in Hartshorne’s regional geography which according to him claims that geography does not share the methodology of systematic sciences because of the peculiar nature of its subject matter, the study of places or regions which are unique by their nature. Using analogies from systematic sciences like physics and economics, Schaefer argued that geography is not peculiar in its focus on unique phenomena; all sciences deal with unique events which can only be accounted for by an integration of laws from various systematic sciences, but this does not prevent the development of those laws. Thus, however, there is nothing extraordinary about geography in that respect.

   Thus, Schaefer claimed that there is nothing exceptional about the nature and methodology of geography as advocated by Hartshorne. As stated above, he placed human geography in the category of social sciences rather than in humanities or natural sciences. Geography must be considered as the subject like other social sciences and not ‘exceptional’.

The belief that geography and history are methodologically distinct from other fields of enquiry because they are particularly concerned with the study of unique and particular. Thus, Schaefer rejected the ideographic orthodoxy enshrined in Hartshorne’s ‘The Nature of Geography. In other words, he argued for nomothetic geography declaring geography as general or systematic which aims to furnish general and universal ‘morphological laws’ about spatial patterns. He declared geography as the science of earth surface in which the general and universal laws about spatial patterns are to be formulated instead of the regional and local laws.

Hartshorne attempted to express his reaction to Schaefer’s attack and criticism to his regional geography publishing three paper (1954,1955, 1958) and a monograph (1959). Hartshorne’s most bitter rebuttal of Schaefer’s criticism was published in his monograph ‘Perspective in the nature of Geography’ (1959). To Gregory (1986), Hartshorne’s view was in fact more nuanced than Schaefer maintained, and he never accepted any clear division between the idiographic and the nomothetic because they were both, present in all branches of science. But he did insist that any general concepts used in geography should be directed towards the analysis of specific regions and that its essential task was the study of ‘areal differentiation’ rather than (as Schaefer preferred) the elucidation of the laws location that was supposed to underpin these regional configurations.

Hartshorne upheld the Hettnerian tradition of geography as a chorological science with history as a chorological science. This is valid because it describes the way in which geographers have worked, on both topical and regional subjects, with reference to interrelationships and integrations within the area. Hartshorne’s was a positive view of geography: geography is what geographers have made it. Schaefer’s was a normative theory of what geography should be, irrespective of what it had been (Johnston, 1983).

Earlier, Humboldt and Ritter accepted that the major concern of geography is to examine the manner of systematic distribution of the natural phenomena (including man) in space. This implies that geographers must describe and explain the manner in which things combine “to fill an area”. These combinations change, of course, from area to area.

These differences differ from place to place due to either in the combination of factors or in their arrangement underlie the common sense notion. This viewpoint is termed as choreographic or chorological one, depending on the level of abstraction. Geography, thus, must pay attention to the spatial arrangement of the geographical phenomena in an area and not so much to the phenomena themselves. Spatial patterns are the ones that matter in geography, and no others. Non-spatial relations found among the phenomena in an area are the subject matter of other specialists such as ecologist, anthropologist or economist.

Subsequently, Kraft, while discussing Humboldt and Ritter, agrees with them that geography is a science trying to discover laws which is limited to the earth’s surface; and that  it is essentially chorological. Incidentally, he also feels that all these adequate phenomena to set geography logically apart as an exceptional discipline.

Hettner, one of the leading German geographers declared that “both history and geography are essentially chronological”. History arranges phenomena in time, geography in space. Both, in contrast to other disciplines, integrate phenomena heterogeneous among themselves. Also, these phenomena are unique. No historical event and historical period are like any other. In geography no two phenomena and no two regions are alike. Thus, both fields face the task of explaining the unique (exceptional). Hettner calls history ‘time-Wissenschaft’ and geography ‘space-Wissenschaft’. Hartshorne translated them into ‘time science’ and ‘space science’.

Hartshorne’s views were, in fact, more nuanced than Schaefer maintained, and he never accepted any clear division between the idiographic (regional or particular) and the nomothetic (general or systematic) because both are “present in all branches of science”. But, he did insist that any general concept used in geography should be directed towards the analysis of specific ‘regions’and that its essential task was to study areal differentiation rather than (as Schaefer preferred) the elucidation of laws of location that were supposed to underpin these regional configurations.

It may be summarized that both Hartshorne and Schaefer relied upon mainly German sources such as Kant, Humboldt and Hettner, and both directed geographers towards spatial patterns. Even so, Schaefer was among the first geographers to teach the ideas of Christaller, Von Thunen, and Losch, which Hartshorne has not acknowledged but which was to become the mainstay of 1960s human geography. He also positioned human geography in the social sciences rather than the humanities or natural sciences. Geography, he argues, must be like other social sciences and not exceptional.

References

• F.K. Schaefer (1953), “Exceptionalism in Geography: A Methodological Examination”, Annals of Association of American Geographers, Vol. 43, No. 3, pp- 226-249.
• Hartshrone (1955), “Exceptionalism in Geography: Re-Examined”, Annals of Association of American Geographers, Vol. 45, No. 3, pp- 205-244.
• S.D. Maurya (2013), “History of Geographical Thought”, ShardaPustakBhawan, Allahabad. S. Adhikari (2015), “Fundamentals of Geographical Thought”, Orient Black Sawn, Hyderabad