On the Heterodoxy of Explanation: A Review of David Harvey's Explanation in Geography1
Stephen J. Gale · Geographical Analysis · 1972
Once in a while, in every academic discipline, there appears a book or two which is of real general scope and importance.Sometimes these volumes are philosophic treatises which present retrospective accounts of the development of the discipline and the usual prescriptions for the future.Often they are collections of some "great man's" papers with an introductory reflective essay.With the recent coming of age of the philosophy of science as a discipline in its own right, there is now also a trend toward metascientific inquiries which attempt to codify and integrate the work of a profession from a somewhat more general perspective.The importance of such books is only rarely directly related to the ongoing research in the discipline.There are usually no "new results" or findings nor are there likely to be reports of major discoveries.Their importance lies rather in a combination of the breadth of the inquiry and the framework within which it is placed.Whether the argument is correct or incorrect is not the main question; it is the way the issues are presented which makes them of potential interest.In the past several years, social scientists have become particularly sensitive to the methodological problems of their respective disciplines.Whereas many of the disputes of the past often seem trivial in retrospect, a variety of quite basic issues concerned with developing standards for answering certain classes of questions have grown in importance.In a sense, meth-'Explanation in Geography, by David Harvey.