Geography is a science that, like any other, is in a constant process of transformation. Since its emergence and systematization, geographic science has gone – and still goes through – different approaches according to its different currents.
Pragmatic Geography, also known as Quantitative Geography or New Geography, is a current of thought that emerged in the 1950s and promoted major changes in the methodological approach of Geography. Based on logical neopositivism, this new geographic trend emerged with the need for accuracy, through more theoretical concepts and supported by a mathematical-statistical explanation.
The main characteristics of this geographic current are:
- All knowledge is based on experience (empiricism);
- There must be a common language among all sciences;
- Refusal of a scientific dualism between the natural sciences and the social sciences.
- Greater rigor in the application of scientific methodology;
- The use of statistical and mathematical techniques;
- Scientific research and its results must be expressed in a clear way, which requires the use of mathematical language and logic.
It was used as a strong instrument of state power, as it manipulated data through statistical results. It predominated in Great Britain and the United States, mainly in the 1960s to the mid-1970s.
From the 1960s onwards, Pragmatic Geography began to suffer harsh criticism, one of the main ones being the fact that it did not consider the peculiarities of the phenomena, as the mathematical method explains what happens at certain times, but does not explain the intervals between them, in addition to presenting data considering the "whole" in a homogeneous way, therefore disregarding the particularities.
With the increasingly scathing criticisms against the Pragmatic Geography of foundation neopositivist, emerges in the 1970s, the Critical Geography, based on materialism dialectical-historical. This Geography tries to break not only with Pragmatic Geography, but with part of Contemporary Geography.
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By Wagner de Cerqueira and Francisco
Graduated in Geography
Brazil School Team
General geography - geography - Brazil School
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
FRANCISCO, Wagner de Cerqueira e. "Pragmatic Geography"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/geografia/geografia-pragmatica.htm. Accessed on June 29, 2021.
