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Geography: De Facto Or De Jure, F. Lukermann

Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Science

ABSTRACT-The acceptance of the Kantian classification of geography among the sciences as the science of space carries with it certain methodological obligations. Geographers who advocate a macroscopic approach to research are especially bound by Kantian strictures to employ mechanistic models of gravity, equilibrium and potential force fields in their studies. The limitations of such functional models in formulating hypotheses and the underlying assumptions these models make in causal explanations are examined in detail. Reference is made to a number of studies in the post-war period, culminating in the programmatic statement for the macroscopic method in geography published by the Geographical …