Human Geography

Definition of Geography
Geography, a science that deals with the description, distribution, and interaction of
the diverse physical, biological, and cultural features of the earth's surfac e.
The word ‘geography’ originates from two Greek words. The first is ‘geo’ which means ‘the
earth’ and the second Greek word is “graph” which means ‘to write’.
It is the study of the physical features of the earth and its atmosphere, and of human activity as
it affects and is affected by these, including the distribution of populations and resources and
political and economic activities.
"To provide accurate, orderly, and rational description and interpretation of the variable
character of the earth surface." - Richard Hartshorne, 1959
“Geography is concerned with the description and explanation of the areal
differentiation/spatial organization of human activity.” – David Harvey, 1969
Laws of Geography
The First Law of Geography
According to Waldo Tobler, is "everything is related to everything else, but near things are
more related than distant things."
This first law is the foundation of the fundamental concepts of spatial dependence and spatial
autocorrelation and is utilized specifically for the inverse distance weighting method
for interpolation and to support the regionalized variable theory for kriging.
The 'first law' is not a law, it is an observation, namely that while everything is related to
everything else, near things tend to be more related than distant things. This observation is
fundamental to the analysis of geographic data. It foreshadows autocorrelation. More
fundamentally it is what makes geography (and hence spatial data) worth studying at all! If the
law were not generally true, then there would be no particular spatial pattern to phenomena,
and the geographic study of patterns would be pointless.
Tobler first presented his seminal idea during a meeting of the International Geographical
Union's Commission on Qualitative Methods held in 1969 and later published by him in 1970.
Though simple in its presentation, this idea is profound. Without it, "the full range of conditions
anywhere on the Earth's surface could in principle be found packed within any small area.
There would be no regions of approximately homogeneous conditions to be described by giving
attributes to area objects. Topographic surfaces would vary chaotically, with slopes that were
everywhere infinite, and the contours of such surfaces would be infinitely dense and contorted.
Spatial analysis, and indeed life itself, would be impossible."
Less well known is his second law, which complements the first: "The phenomenon external
to an area of interest affects what goes on inside".
The theory is based upon the concept of the friction of distance "where distance itself hinders
interaction between places. The farther two places are apart, the greater the hindrance", or cost.
For example, one is less likely to travel across town to purchase a sandwich than walk to the
corner store for the same sandwich. In this example hindrance, or cost, can readily be counted
in time and transportation costs which are added to the price of the purchase and thus result in
high levels of friction. The friction of distance and the increase in cost combine causing
the distance decay effect.
The four traditions of Geography
WILLIAM D. PATTISON
In 1905, one year after professional geography in this country achieved full social identity
through the founding of the Association of American Geographers, William Morris Davis
responded to a familiar suspicion that geography is simply an undisciplined “omnium-
gatherum” by describing an approach that as he saw it imparts a “geographical quality” to some
knowledge and accounts for the absence of the quality elsewhere. These traditions are all of
great age and have passed into American geography as parts of a general legacy of Western
thought. They are shared today by geographers of other nations. There are four traditions whose
identification provides an alternative to the competing monistic definitions that have been the
geographer’s lot. The resulting pluralistic basis for judgment promises, by full accommodation
of what geographers do and by plain-spoken representation thereof, to greatly expedite the task
of maintaining an alliance between professional geography and pedagogical geography and at
the same time to promote communication with laymen. The following discussion treats the
traditions in this order: (1) a spatial tradition, (2) an area studies tradition, (3) a man land
tradition and (4) an earth science tradition.
Spatial Tradition
Entrenched in Western thought is a belief in the importance of spatial analysis, of the act of
separating from the happenings of experience such aspects as distance, form, direction and
position. It was not until the 17th century that philosopher’s concentrated attention on these
aspects by asking whether or not they were properties of things-in-themselves. Later, when the
18th century writings of Immanuel Kant had become generally circulated, the notion of space
as a category including all of these aspects came into widespread use. However, it is evident
that particular spatial questions were the subject of highly organized answering attempts long
before the time of any of these cogitations. To confirm this point, one need only be reminded
of the compilation of elaborate records concerning the location of things in ancient Greece.
These were records of sailing distances, of coastlines and of landmarks that grew until they
formed the raw material for the great Geographia of Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century A.D.
A review of American professional geography from the time of its formal organization shows
that the spatial tradition of thought had made a deep penetration from the very beginning. For
Davis, for Henry Gannett and for most if not all of the 44 other men of the original AAG, the
determination and display of spatial aspects of reality through mapping were of undoubted
importance, whether contemporary definitions of geography happened to acknowledge this fact
or not. One can go further and, by probing beneath the art of mapping, recognize in the behavior
of geographers of that time an active interest in the true essentials of the spatial tradition -
geometry and movement. One can trace a basic favoring of movement as a subject of study
from the turn-of-the-century work of Emory R. Johnson, writing as professor of transportation
at the University of Pennsylvania, through the highly influential theoretical and substantive
work of Edward L. Ullman during the past 20 years and thence to an article by a younger
geographer on railroad freight traffic on the U.S. and Canada in the Annals of the AAG for
September 1963.4 One can trace a deep attachment to geometry, or positioning-and-layout,
from articles on boundaries and population densities in early 20th century volumes of the
Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, through a controversial pronouncement of
Joseph Schaefer in 1953 that granted geographical legitimacy only to studies on spatial
patterns5 and so onward to a recent Annals report on electronic scanning of cropland patterns
in Pennsylvania.6 One might inquire, is discussion of the spatial tradition, after the manner of
the remarks just made, likely to bring people within geography closer to an understanding of
one another and people outside geography closer to an understanding of geographers? There
seem to be at least two reasons for being hopeful. First, an appreciation of this tradition allows
one to see a bond of fellowship uniting the elementary school teacher, who attempts the most
rudimentary instruction in directions and mapping, with the contemporary research geographer,
who dedicates himself to an exploration of central place theory. One cannot only open the eyes
of many teachers to the potentialities of their own instruction, through proper exposition of the
spatial tradition, but one can also “hang a bell” on research quantifiers in geography, who are
often thought to have wandered so far in their intellectual adventures as to have become lost
from the rest. Looking outside geography, one may anticipate benefits from the readiness of
countless persons to associate the name “geography” with maps. Latent within this readiness
is a willingness to recognize as geography, too, what maps are about - and that is the geometry
of and the movement of what is mapped.
Area Studies Tradition
The area studies tradition, like the spatial tradition, is quite strikingly represented in classical
antiquity by a practitioner to whose surviving work we can point. He is Strabo, celebrated for
his Geography which is a massive production addressed to the statesmen of Augustan Rome
and intended to sum up and regularize knowledge not of the location of places and associated
cartographic facts, as in the somewhat later case of Ptolemy, but of the nature of places, their
character and their differentiation. Strabo exhibits interesting attributes of the area-studies
tradition that can hardly be overemphasized. They are a pronounced tendency toward
subscription primarily to literary standards, an almost omnivorous appetite for information and
a self-conscious companionship with history. It is an extreme good fortune to have in the ranks
of modern American geography the scholar Richard Hartshorne, who has pondered the
meaning of the area studies tradition with a legal acuteness that few persons would challenge.
In his Nature of Geography, his 1939 monograph already cited,7 he scrutinizes exhaustively
the implications of the “interesting attributes” identified in connection with Strabo, even though
his concern is with quite other and much later authors, largely German. The major literary
problem of unities or wholes he considers from every angle. The Gargantuan appetite for
miscellaneous information he accepts and rationalizes. The companionship between area
studies and history he clarifies by appraising the so-called idiographic content of both and by
affirming the tie of both of what he and Sauer have called “naively given reality.” The area-
studies tradition (otherwise known as the chorographic tradition) tended to be excluded from
early American professional geography. Today it is beset by certain champions of the spatial
tradition who would have one believe that somehow the area-studies way of organizing
knowledge is only a sub department of spatialism. Still, area-studies as a method of presentation
lives and prospers in its own right. One can turn today for reassurance on this score to
practically any issue of the Geographical Review, just as earlier readers could turn at the
opening of the century to that magazine’s forerunner. What is gained by singling out this
tradition? It helps toward restoring the faith of many teachers who, being accustomed to
administering learning in the area-studies style, have begun to wonder if by doing so they really
were keeping in touch with professional geography. (Their doubts are owed all too much to the
obscuring effect of technical words attributable to the very professionals who have been intent,
ironically, upon protecting that tradition.) Among persons outside the classroom the geographer
stands to gain greatly in intelligibility. The title “area-studies” itself carries an understood
message in the United States today wherever there is contact with the usages of the academic
community. The purpose of characterizing a place, be it neighborhood or nation-state, is readily
grasped. Furthermore, recognition of the right of a geographer to be unspecialized may be
expected to be forthcoming from people generally, if application for such recognition is made
on the merits of this tradition, explicitly.
Man-Land Tradition
That geographers are much given to exploring man-land questions is especially evident to
anyone who examines geographic output, not only in this country but also abroad. O. H. K.
Spate, taking an international view, has felt justified by his observations in nominating as the
most significant ancient precursor of today’s geography neither Ptolemy nor Strabo nor writers
typified in their outlook by the geographies of either of these two men, but rather Hippocrates,
Greek physician of the5th century B.C. who left to posterity an extended essay, On Airs, Waters
and Places.8In this work, made up of reflections on human health and conditions of external
nature, the questions asked are such as to confine thought almost altogether to presumed
influence passing from the latter to the former, questions largely about the effects of winds,
drinking water and seasonal changes upon man. Understandable though this uni-directional
concern may have been for Hippocrates as medical commentator, and defensible as may be the
attraction that this same approach held for students of the condition of man for many, many
centuries thereafter, one can only regret that this narrowed version of the man-land tradition,
combining all too easily with social Darwinism of the late 19th century, practically
overpowered American professional geography in the first generation of its history.9 The
premises of this version governed scores of studies by American geographers in interpreting
the rise and fall of nations, the strategy of battles and the construction of public improvements.
Eventually this special bias, known as environmentalism, came to be confused with the whole
of the man-land tradition in the minds of many people. One can see now, looking back to the
years after the ascendancy of environmentalism, that although the spatial tradition was
asserting itself with varying degrees of forwardness, and that although the area-studies tradition
was also making itself felt, perhaps the most interesting chapters in the story of American
professional geography were being written by academicians who were reacting against
environmentalism while deliberately remaining within the broad man land tradition. The rise
of culture historians during the last 30 years has meant the dropping of a curtain of culture
between land and man, though which it is asserted all influence must pass. Furthermore work
of both culture historians and other geographers has exhibited a reversal of the direction of the
effects in Hippocrates, man appearing as an independent agent, and the land as a sufferer from
action. This trend as presented in published research has reached a high point in the collection
of papers titled Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth. Finally, books and articles can
be called to mind that have addressed themselves to the most difficult task of all, a balanced
tracing out of interaction between man and environment. Some chapters in the book mentioned
above undertake just this. In fact the separateness of this approach is discerned only with
difficulty in many places; however, its significance as a general research design that rises above
environmentalism, while refusing to abandon the man-land tradition, cannot be mistaken. The
NCGE seems to have associated itself with the man-land tradition, from the time of founding
to the present day, more than with any other tradition, although all four of the traditions are
amply represented in its official magazine, THE JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHY and in the
proceedings of its annual meetings. This apparent preference on the part of the NCGE members
for defining geography in terms of the man-land tradition is strong evidence of the appeal that
man-land ideas, separately stated, have for persons whose main job is teaching. It should be
noted, too, that this inclination reflects a proven acceptance by the general public of learning
that centers on resource use and conservation.
Earth Science Tradition
The earth science tradition, embracing study of the earth, the waters of the earth, the atmosphere
surrounding the earth and the association between earth and sun, confronts one with a paradox.
On the one hand one is assured by professional geographers that their participation in this
tradition has declined precipitously in the course of the past few decades, while on the other
one knows that college departments of geography across the nation rely substantially, for
justification of their role in general education, upon curricular content springing directly from
this tradition. From all the reasons that combine to account for this state of affairs, one may, by
selecting only two, go far toward achieving an understanding of this tradition. First, there is the
fact that American college geography, growing out of departments of geology in many crucial
instances, was at one time greatly over weighted in favor of earth science, thus rendering the
field unusually liable to a sense of loss as better balance came into being. Second, here alone
in earth science does one encounter subject matter in the normal sense of the term as one
reviews geographic traditions. The spatial tradition abstracts certain aspects of reality; area
studies is distinguished by a point of view; the man-land tradition dwells upon relationships;
but earth science is identifiable through concrete objects. Historians, sociologists and other
academicians tend not only to accept but also to ask for help from this part of geography. They
readily appreciate earth science as something physically associated with their subjects of study,
yet generally beyond their competence to treat. From this appreciation comes strength for
geography-as-earth science in the curriculum. Only by granting full stature to the earth science
tradition can one make sense out of the oft-repeated adage, “Geography is the mother of
sciences.” This is the tradition that emerged in ancient Greece, most clearly in the work of
Aristotle, as a wide ranging study of natural processes in and near the surface of the earth. This
is the tradition that was rejuvenated by Varenius in the 17th century as “Geographia Generalis.”
This is the tradition that has been subjected to subdivision as the development of science has
approached the present day, yielding mineralogy, paleontology, glaciology, meterology and
other specialized fields of learning. Readers who are acquainted with American junior high
schools may want to make a challenge at this point, being aware that a current revival of earth
sciences is being sponsored in those schools by the field of geology. Belatedly, geography has
joined in support of this revival.10 it may be said that in this connection and in others, American
professional geography may have faltered in its adherence to the earth science tradition but not
given it up. In describing geography, there would appear to be some advantages attached to
isolating this final tradition. Separation improves the geographer’s chances of successfully
explaining to educators why geography has extreme difficulty in accommodating itself to social
studies programs. Again, separate attention allows one to make understanding contact with
members of the American public for whom surrounding nature is known as the geographic
environment. And finally, specific reference to the geographer’s earth science tradition brings
into the open the basis of what is, almost without a doubt, morally the most significant concept
in the entire geographic heritage, that of the earth as a unity, the single common habitat of man.
Philosophy of geography
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such
as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language.
Philosophy of geography is that subfield of philosophy which deals with epistemological,
metaphysical, and axiological issues in geography, with geographic methodology in general,
and with more broadly related issues such as the perception and representation of space and
place.
1. Ethics
Ethics, or "moral philosophy", studies and considers what is good and bad conduct, right
and wrong values, and good and evil. Its primary investigations include how to live a good life
and identifying standards of morality. It also includes meta-investigations about whether a best
way to live or related standards exists. The study of ethics often concerns what we ought to do
and what it would be best to do. In philosophy, ethical behavior is that which is "good" or
"right".
2. Metaphysics
Metaphysics is the study of the most general features of reality, such
as existence, time, objects and their properties, wholes and their parts, events, processes
and causation and the relationship between mind and body. Metaphysics is the branch of
philosophy concerned with the study of "first principles" and "being" (ontology). In other
words, Metaphysics is the study of the most general aspects of reality, pertaining to subjects
such as substance, identity, the nature of the mind, and free will. In other words it is a study of
nature and the nature of the world in which man lives.it includes cosmology, ontology, concept
of god, concept of self-etc.
3. Epistemology
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge.
Epistemology studies the nature of knowledge, justification, and the rationality of belief. Much
of the debate in epistemology centers on four areas:-
(1) The philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and how it relates to such concepts
as truth, belief, and justification;
(2) Various problems of skepticism;
(3) The sources and scope of knowledge and justified belief;
(4) The criteria for knowledge and justification.
4. Logic
Logic is the study of reasoning and argument. An argument is "a connected series of statements
intended to establish a proposition." The connected series of statements are "premises" and the
proposition is the conclusion.
Methodology of Geography
Methodology is the systematic, theoretical analysis of the methods applied to a field of study.
It comprises the theoretical analysis of the body of methods and principles associated with a
branch of knowledge. Typically, it encompasses concepts such as paradigm, theoretical model,
phases and quantitative or qualitative techniques.
A methodology does not set out to provide solutions - it is, therefore, not the same as a method.
Instead, a methodology offers the theoretical underpinning for understanding which method,
set of methods, or best practices can be applied to specific case, for example, to calculate a
specific result.

It has been defined also as follows:-

(1) The analysis of the principles of methods, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline;
(2) The systematic study of methods that are, can be, or have been applied within a discipline;
(3) The study or description of methods.
The Geographic methodology consists of a five-step inquiry process: Ask, Acquire, Examine,
Analyze, and Act. Those are given below:-

1. Ask
The first step to approaching a problem geographically involves framing the question from a
location-based perspective. What is the problem you are trying to solve or analyze with this
project and where is it located? Being as specific as possible about the question you’re trying
to answer will help you with the later stages of The Geographic Approach such as how to
structure the analysis, which analytical methods to use, how to present the results, and who will
use the results.

2. Acquire

After clearly defining the problem you wish to solve, it is necessary to determine the data
needed to complete your analysis and then ascertain where that data can be found. The type of
data and coverage or map features needed for your project will help direct your methods of
data collection and analysis. Conversely, if the method of analysis requires detailed and/or high
level information, it may be necessary to create or calculate the data used.

3. Examine

You will not know for certain if the data you have acquired is appropriate for your study until
you actually examine it. The data ultimately selected for your analysis depends on your original
question or questions as well as the results that you are seeking and how those results will be
used. This in turn is dependent on how precise the data must be to answer the original questions.
The acquisition of unique data can sometimes be both expensive and time consuming. More
detailed data can be more expensive and require greater processing, but can also provide more
precise results.

4. Analyze

In this step the data is processed and analyzed based on the method of examination or analysis
you have chosen, which is dependent on the results you hope to achieve. An understanding of
the effects of parameters you have established for the analysis is critical, as well as the
algorithms being implemented so that you can correctly interpret the results. Do not
underestimate the power of ‘eyeballing’ the data. Looking at the results can help you decide
whether the information is valid or useful, or whether you should rerun the analysis using
different parameters or even a different method. GIS makes it relatively easy to make these
iterative changes and create new output.

5. Act

The results and presentation of the analysis is an important part of The Geographic Approach.
The results can be shared through reports, maps, tables, charts, or on the web. You need to
decide the best method to present your analysis. You can also compare the results from different
analyses and see which method presents the information most accurately.

Three Key Concept of Geography

• All human activity takes place in response to the demand for the satisfaction of human
desires and needs. In supplying their material needs, human groups in world generally
follow different occupations in which their geographic surroundings and their degree
of progress give them the greatest chance of success.
• Two different views are identified in the study of the interrelationship between man and
his environment.

1. to maintain the absolute nature of the relationship, which has been labeled
Environmentalism or Geographical Determinism.
2. Geographical Voluntarism or Possibilism; means the will of man is a basic actor both
in his own conduct and in his fundamental activities thus denying the influence, if any,
of the natural elements on man.
3. The relationship between environment, society, and determinism has been central to
geography throughout its early development (e.g., Montesquieu, Ratzel, Semple,
Febvre, Videl de la Blache, Huntington, Boas/Sauer etc.) and remained central through
the mid-twentieth century.
4. In the first half of this century it can realise that a simple rule-of-thumb explains the
varying fates of the human race: the weather.
5. ''As a rule, people do their best thinking and planning, their minds are most alert and
inventive, and they have the best judgment when the thermometer out of doors falls
toward freezing at night and rises toward 50 degrees or 55 degrees by day,'' declares
Ellsworth Huntington in ''Principles of Human Geography.'' ''In an invigorating climate''
-- like that of Europe and the northern United States -- ''it may also be easier to be honest
and sober and self-controlled than in a more enervating one.''

Approaches to study human-environment relationships

• The post Darwinian period has witnessed several new approaches adapted to examine
this relationship.
• Determinism: environmental control on human action. Accordingly, history, culture,
life-style and stage of development of a social group, society or nation are exclusively
or largely governed by the physical factors (like, terrain, climate, fauna and flora) of
the environment.
• The approach consider humans as passive agents, influenced by the environmental
factors, which determine their attitude, decision making and life style.
• The first attempts to explain the physical features and the traits of various ethnic groups
and their cultures with reference to the influence of natural conditions were made by
the Greek and the Roman scholars including Hippocrates, Aristotle, Herodotus and
Strabo.

Determinism
• Determinism is the doctrine which stubbornly postulates that all events are the
inevitable result of antecedent conditions and that the human being, in acts of apparent
choice is the mechanical expression of his hereditary and past environment.
• Determinism emphasizes the dominant influence of physical forces in shaping man's
characteristics and his modes of thought and life. According to this view, the mode of
life of different people is enforced upon them by the character of their habitat.
• Nature determines the kind of work and the mode of life of any people. Man is given
only a passive role. Ratzel was responsible for the development of the concepts of
determinism, which was further expanded by Huntington.
• The deterministic concept in geographic literature on human geography continued
through the works of scholars, such as Al-Masudi, Al-Idrisi and Ibn-Khaldun, Kant,
Humboldt, Ritter, and Ratzel well up to the early twentieth century. This concept grew
widespread particularly in the United States from the writings of E.C. Semple and
Ellsworth Huntington, who were considered its great exponents.
• Ritter and Ratzel were among the first who considered man as an agent who brings
change in the landscape.
• Febvre placed emphasis on the fact that human beings are an element of the ‘landscape’
– an element whose activity is incorporated in it, a modifying agent of the environment
which ‘humanizes’ it.
• In geography, according to Febvre, “we deal with man’s work, man’s calculations,
man’s movement, the perpetual ebb and flow of humanity; man not the soil or the
climate- is ever in the forefront”.

Environmental Determinism

• Environmental determinism (ED) claim that environmental features directly determine

features of human behavior (and hence of society)
• ED takes various forms:

a) Strong claim (environment accounts for most social variation) vs. more moderate one
(environment affects some aspects)

b) Various environmental factors might be emphasized (e.g., climate; topography; foodstuffs)

• ED was one alternative to racial determinism, and in tune with views on the "psychic
unity of mankind" (i.e., notion that thought processes of people everywhere are
fundamentally the same, so that diffs. must be due to history of their surroundings rather
than being innate)
• ED describe direct effects of climate on human social variation: e.g., hot climates lead
to passionate, lazy people who fail to build culture; extremely cold, dark climates lead
to morose peoples, while temperate environments are most conducive to elaboration of
civilization, etc.
• The philosophy of determinism was attacked mainly on two grounds.

First- it had become clear under definite conditions and circumstances that similar physical
environments do not produce the same responses. For example, the Greek and the Roman
civilisations flourished in the Mediterranean climate. But similar civilisation did not develop
in similar climatic conditions in Australia, South Africa, Chile or California.

Second, although environment influences humans, they also influence the environment, and
the cause and effect relationship of determinism is too simple to explain this.

Consequently the idea that humans are controlled by nature was rejected and other geographers
stressed the fact that humans were free to choose. When the emphasis is firmly placed on
humans rather than nature, and humans are seen as an active force rather than a passive one,
the approach is that of possibilism.
Lucian Febvre, the first to use the word possibilism, wrote that “there is no necessities, but
every where possibilities; and man as master of these possibilities is the judge of their use”.

Possiblisim
• Vidal de La Blache, reflecting on this, often spoke of environmental possibilities,
which led to possibilism.
• Febvre was the propounder of the concept of possibilism. This concept indicates that
physical environment is passive and man is the active Agent at liberty to choose
between a wide range of environmental possibilities.
• According to possibilism, the pattern of human activity is the result of the initiative and
mobility of man operating within the natural framework. Nowadays the role of natural
elements in conditioning, though not controlling human activities, is often lost sight of.
• Vidal de La Blache opined that the life styles of people were the product and
reflections of a civilisation, representing the integrated result of physical, historical and
social influences governing human’s relations with his habitat.
• He tried to explain differences between groups in identical or similar environment and
pointed out that these differences were not the product of the dictates of physical
environment but the outcome of other factors, such as variations in attitudes, values and
habits.
• This concept became the basic philosophy of the school of possibilism.
• The people begin to understand their environment and the forces of nature with the
passage of time. With social and cultural development, humans develop better and more
efficient technology. They move from a state of necessity to a state of freedom. They
create possibilities with the resources obtained from the environment.
• The human activities create cultural landscape. The imprints of human activities are
created everywhere; health resorts on highlands, huge urban sprawls, fields, orchards
and pastures in plains and rolling hills, ports on the coasts, oceanic routes on the oceanic
surface and satellites in the space.
• Nature provides opportunities and human being make use of these and slowly nature
gets humanised and starts bearing the imprints of human endeavour.
• To counteract this degrading tendency and to rebuild the old Determinism on a newer
footing, some leading geographers are preaching the determinists doctrines in an altered
form, which approximates very closely to possibilism.
• It is the stop and Go-Determinism propagated by Griffith Taylor, which means one
should regulate one's activity as Red light acts for traffic regulations.

Neodeterminism or Stop and Go determinism

• A geographer, Griffith Taylor introduced a concept which reflects a middle path
between the two ideas of environmental determinism and possibilism.
• He termed it as Neodeterminism or stop and go determinism.
• The concept shows that neither is there a situation of absolute necessity (environmental
determinism) nor is there a condition of absolute freedom (possibilism). It means that
human beings can conquer nature by obeying it. They have to respond to the red signals
and can proceed in their pursuits of development when nature permits the
modifications. It means that possibilities can be created within the limits which do not
damage the environment and there is no free run without accidents.
• The neo-determinism conceptually attempts to bring a balance nullifying the ‘either’
‘or’ dichotomy.