Logic, Consilience, and Wicked Problems in Geographic Thought: A Humanistic Appraisal
Topics: Geographic Thought
, Human-Environment Geography
, Anthropocene
Keywords: Human-Environment Geography, Geographic Thought, Consilience, David Lowenthal, Humanistic Geography, Logic
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 46
Authors:
Thomas Barclay Larsen, University of Northern Iowa
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Abstract
In the context of geography, logic refers broadly to how humans evaluate arguments about places and geographic phenomena. Logical reasoning shapes the ways people order and make sense of the world, yet the idea of logic has numerous meanings in geographic thought. In this paper, I describe how logic has been defined and deployed by geographers through the discipline’s history. Then I explain the implications of logic on the quest for consilience, the act of converging knowledge in response to wicked problems with no singular cause or win-win solution. For a discipline that affirms multiple theories, methods, and modes of synthesis, different logics can yield varying combinations of knowledge to address wicked problems like climate change mitigation, environmental racism, and pandemics. An applied geography of logic can be established through the humanistic perspective, which allows for comparing and creating links among diverse interpretations of human-environment relations through place and time. Oriented from the humanistic geography approach, prospects are discussed for logic’s role in updating previous stocktakings of the human-environment relationship, developing a human-environment timeline, and generating powerful knowledge about wicked problems.
Logic, Consilience, and Wicked Problems in Geographic Thought: A Humanistic Appraisal
Category
Virtual Paper Abstract
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