Concept
Geosophy
Overview
Geosophy is a concept introduced to geography by J.K. Wright in 1947. The word is a compound of ‘geo’ (Greek for earth) and ‘sophia’ (Greek for wisdom). Wright defined it thus:
Geosophy ... is the study of geographical knowledge from any or all points of view. It is to geography what historiography is to history; it deals with the nature and expression of geographical knowledge both past and present—with what Whittlesey has called ‘man’s sense of [terrestrial] space’. Thus it extends far beyond the core area of scientific geographical knowledge or of geographical knowledge as otherwise systematized by geographers. Taking into account the whole peripheral realm, it covers the geographical ideas, both true and false, of all manner of people—not only geographers, but farmers and fishermen, business executives and poets, novelists and painters, Bedouins and Hottentots—and for this reason it necessarily has to do in large degree with subjective conceptions.
THE CONCEPT OF GEOSPHY
Geosophy is the school of thought that asserts that earth cannot be studied independent of the people who live & experiences Earth.
The range of perception of the Earth is so varied & there are as many perception as people themselves, so, it is impossible to study the Earth independent of people who experiences it.
This concept reinforced the concept of cultural landscape of Carl 0. Sauer & Ratzel & also the work of vidals Genere-de-vie.
(Wright 1947)
This has been summarised as:
the study of the world as people conceive of and imagine it
(McGreevy 1987)
Belief systems as they relate to human interaction with the Earth's environments.
(attributed to Professor Innes Park 1995)
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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The conception of εῖδος, species, a fixed form and final cause, was the central principle of knowledge as well as of nature. Upon it rested the logic of science. Change as change is mere flux and lapse; it insults intelligence.
John Dewey, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy, and other essays in contemporary thought
Close in meaning to Geosophy; the term itself is not named.
This point may be illustrated by brief reference to a few of the school studies. In the first place, there is no line of demarkation within facts themselves which classifies them as belonging to science, history, or geography, respectively. The pigeon-hole classification which is so prevalent at present (fostered by introducing the pupil at the outset into a number of different studies contained in different…
John Dewey, Moral Principles in Education
Close in meaning to Geosophy; the term itself is not named.
Thus we gain from the poets the doctrine that a philosophy of nature must concern itself at least with these five notions: change, value, eternal objects, endurance, organism, interfusion. We see that the literary romantic movement at the beginning of the nineteenth century, just as much as Berkeley’s philosophical idealistic movement a hundred years earlier, refused to be confined within the…
Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the modern world
Close in meaning to Geosophy; the term itself is not named.
Related ideas
Place in the tradition
Part of Philosophy of geography.