Determinism and Possibilism in Geography
Determinism:
The point of view of determinism is that the environment controls the course of human action, determines his attitude and process of decision making - man is a passive agent. Thus the variation in human behavior, the history, culture, living style, and stage of development of a social group or nation around the world can be explained by the differences in the natural environment.
The dictionary meaning of determinism says everything which happens must happen as it does and cannot occur in any other way. Environmentalists argue that nothing is free of the influence of the environment, “peoples and their environments are inseparable”.
Doyle (2011) says determinism is a theory or a doctrine based on the occurrences in nature, or social or psychological phenomena causally determined by preceding events or natural laws.
This "environmentalist or determinist concept" of geography was given by Barrows, who reversed the usual form of "human ecology," as the study of man's adjustments to the natural environment (Hartshorne, 1939). Probably the term has been coined by Veblen (1857–1929), an American.
Geographical determinism dominated the writings of Greek, Roman, and Arab scholars. Ibn Khaldun, also an adherent of environmental determinism, in his Muqaddimah (1377), explained that black skin was due to the hot climate of sub-Saharan Africa and not due to their lineage. He postulated Hamitic theory.
Buffon also subscribed to the climatic determinism of ancient Greeks but to him, the man was not a passive agent, rather capable of adjusting to any climate through his technology and culture.
Marx and his followers, who were strong advocates of economic determinism, and were opposed to any suggestion that the natural environment was a potent force in shaping the life of human communities in particular areas.
Montesquieu, Malthus, George Tathan, Kant, Ritter, Humboldt, Darwin, Ratzel were also determinists. Ratzel opined, “similar locations lead to similar modes of life”. An interesting fact is that the prominent scholars (supported Environmental Determinism) were non-geographers like Hippocrates, Eratosthenes, Strabo, Aristotle, Herodotus, Ptolemy, and others.
During the 20th Century, Semple and Huntington were the leading proponents of environmentalism.
Book: Influence of Geographical Environment --- Ellen Churchill Semple (“Man is a product of the earth’s surface”)
Book: The Principles of Human Geography--- Ellsworth Huntington (“religion and racial character are the products of climate”)
Subsequent geographers like Mackinder, Chisholm, Davis, Bowman, Robert Mill, Geddes, Sauer, Herbertson, Mac Carrison, Karl Mackey, Taylor, Jared Diamond, or Philip M. Parker et.al. supported the deterministic approach.
Andrew et al. (2003) forwarded the central argument of the environmental determinists that aspects of physical geography, particularly climate, influence the psychological mind-set of individuals.
Durkheim, Spate, Wolfgang Hartake, Hartshorne et.al. rejected environmentalism. Hartshorne (1939) clearly mentioned environment affects the day-to-day activity of man. He rejected environmentalism purely because it separates nature from man and thus is “disruptive of the fundamental unity of the field”, i.e., contradicts the concept of geography as an integrated science.
Possibilism: (Critics of Environmental Determinism)
From 1920 to 1940, environmental determinism came under repeated attacks as its claims were found to be severely faulted at best, and often dangerously wrong. The counter Geographers to the determinists’ view reacted to this by first developing the softer notion of "environmental possibilism". The first forceful attack on the tenets of environmental determinism in modern geography came only in the late 1920s from Wittfogel (1929).
This is a philosophy that attempts to explain the man and environment relationship differently, taking man as an active agent in the environment. The natural environment provides options, the number of options increases as the knowledge and technology of a cultural group develop. Lucien Febvre was the founder of this view. "there are not necessities but everywhere possibilities; and man as master of these possibilities is the judge of their use" (Febvre, 1932)
Vidal de Lablache was such a staunch supporter of this philosophy that he developed the ‘school of possibilism’. Jean Brunhes was a strong supporter of possibilism. Later, Barrows, Sauer, Bowman, Taylor et.al. subscribed to this philosophy. They commonly argue that it is not the physical environment that influences man but also the human effort that has to be considered. However, the idea of an environmentalist is more dominant and widely accepted than that of a possibilist.
To Carl Sauer and Barrow man is not a complete slave and nature is never more than an advisor. This hypothesis argues that man could not free himself from all environmental influences. For example, you cannot grow bananas on the pole, nor pineapples in Greenland. “people and their environments are inseparable” (Singh, 2007).
Neo-determinism:
This concept was propounded by Griffith Taylor. He propounded that “the best economic program for a country … determined by the natural environment … geographer’s duty to interpret this program. Man can accelerate, slow, or stop the progress of a country’s development but a wise man should not depart from directions as indicated by the natural environment. Man is like the traffic controller in a large city who alters the rate but not the direction of progress.”
Probabilism held the view that although the physical environment does not exactly determine human actions, it does exert considerable influence on human action so that certain responses are more likely than others. (Spate, 1957)
The concept of probabilism was closely parallel to the neo-environmentalist view of stop-and-go determinism developed by Griffith Taylor (1951).
Relph (1987) said, “the landscape and places we live in are important. Whether we shape them or they shape us, they are the expressions of what we are. Our lives are impoverished precisely to the extent that we ignore them.” He has been acting as a soft and neutral determinist, who has accepted both concepts.
Difference Between Determinism and Possibilism:
*The determinists rely more on physical geography, but the possiblists rely more on human geography. Environmental possibilism is the inverse of determinist. It is the critics of the determinist that seem to act against the determinist. The idea of possibilist has been accepted by geographers in the 20th century, in France, in the school of human geography.
It is not by compulsion but a choice based on the balancing of probabilities. Possibilism is the view that
the physical environment provides the opportunity for a range of possible human responses and that people have considerable discretion to choose between them (Dictionary of Human Geography 3rd edition, 1994). Possibilism removes the absolutist causal approach found in Determinism and maintains human agency. Infrastructures as both parts of the physical and social environment provide a range of human responses.
The determinist has strongly argued that the environment influences more human livelihood, health, culture, civilization, politics, intelligence, religion, etc. Therefore, human action is determined by the physical environment. Whereas, the possiblists also clearly mentioned that things are changed by human decisions and attitudes. Moreover, the writer claims that both factors are equally important in the activity of human beings. However, the possibilist believed that man cannot be entirely free from the influence of the environment, but there is also room for the man to control his activities in the form of technology, attitude, habits, and values.
Advocates of Idealism:
Nomothetic and Idiographic Approach
The nomothetic position holds that results in science are of value only when they are general, applying equally at all locations in space and time. For example, Mendeleev’s Periodic Table would be far less significant if the elements behaved differently during leap years, and Newton’s Laws of Motion would be far less significant if they applied only in the State of Minnesota.
In favor of Nomothetic Approach: Bunge,
The idiographic position holds that description has inherent value, particularly if it is conducted according to scientific principles – for example, using generally agreed terms, and methods that are described in sufficient detail to be replicable by others