Abstract
In this chapter we want to refer to one of the most prominent philosophers: Immanuel Kant. In a cartographic context his contributions to the field of geography and the concepts of space and time are very important. For Kant, space as well as time are only “a priori” concepts to understand phenomena, similar to intuition. Kant postulates that space and time are not real, but only a sensible projection of the sense of symmetry of our own corporality and of our own sense of change with the objective to put all phenomena into an order. Further, two great philosophers of logical positivism are analysed: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Karl Popper. We are going to ask how cartography grasps epistemological aspects of knowledge construction. Neither Wittgenstein nor Popper wrote explicitly about cartography and mapping, but their legacy has an important impact on our understanding of maps. The evolution of contemporary cartography from an epistemological point of view can be considered to be equivalent to Wittgenstein’s trajectory (his First and Second Philosophy). On the other hand, cartographic products and the different stages of map creation can be linked to Popper’s Three World Theory.
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Notes
- 1.
A proxy is generally understood as a person who represents another person. In other words a person authorised to act for another (Thesaurus Dictionary year?). This analogy is applied here to the relationship between language and world.
- 2.
Bertrand Russell conceives logical atomism as the view that reality consists of a great many ultimate constituents or “atoms”. “Logical” atomism is an attempt to arrive through reason at what must be the ultimate constituents and forms constituting reality (Carey 2008).
- 3.
The numbers at the beginning of the listings correspond to the respective chapter and subchapter classification in the Tractatus logico-philosophicus (cf. Wittgenstein 1921, 1922, 2005).
- 4.
Postmodernism is a term that designates a wide number of artistic, cultural, literary, and philosophical movements of the twentieth century which are critical and in conflict with the modernist period.
- 5.
Semantics deals with the meaning of the symbols (relationships between the sign and vehicle or referent); syntactic/syntax deals with the formal proprieties of signs and symbols (relationships sign-vehicle/sign-vehicle); and pragmatics deals with all the psychological, biological, and sociological phenomena that surround the functioning of cartographic signs (relationships between the sign and vehicle or interpreter). Referent is the object. Interpreter implies the concept (thought or reference). Extracted from Freitag (2001), Kavouras and Kokla (2008), and Gartner (2009).
- 6.
Social theory refers to the use of abstract and often complex theoretical frameworks to describe, explain, and analyse the social world (New World Encyclopaedia).
- 7.
Critical cartography aspects will be analysed in the section of this book called “Critical Cartography in the Context of Post-Modernism”.
- 8.
These perspectives belong to the postmodern period. Post-structuralism and Deconstructionism will be analysed in the following chapters of this section and in the section “Critical Cartography in the Context of Post-Modernism”.
- 9.
Imprint ‘1935’, actually already published in 1934.
- 10.
A noumenon may, according to Wikipeadia [include reference], be described as a posited object or event as it appears in itself independent of perception by the senses. Noumenon is the thing in itself, reality per se (it remains unknowable). According to the Theory of Knowledge of Immanuel Kant, presented in his Criticism of the Pure Reason, the intellect does not know the things as they are in themselves (noumena) but as they construct themselves (phenomena).
- 11.
Elements that belong to World 1 are for instance: stars and planets, atoms and molecules, tables and chairs, trees and animals, etc. To World 2 belong feelings, emotions, thoughts, pains, joys, wishes, etc. According to Gattei (2009); among others, words and prepositions; books and symphonies; laws; numbers and triangles (also problems, theories, and arguments) belong to World. 3. Indeed, elements of World 3 (e.g., a symphony) can have a physical presence in World 1 (a symphony recorded on a compact disc); it still belongs, however, to World 3.
- 12.
“Es decir, es una ausencia visual y no una ausencia del objeto. Pero la representación del objeto es una imagen que no sólo preexiste al objeto sino que, al constituirse en una mediación permanente, lo reemplaza: la representación construye al objeto.” (Lois 2009, digital text: no pagination).
- 13.
In this case, we consider map image equivalent to “mental map” or “cognitive map”.
- 14.
Mapping in the Western World has seen the following technical advances: manual, magnetic, mechanical, optical, photo-chemical, and electronic technologies (Robinson et al. 1995). All these technologies had impacts on the map as a tangible device belonging to Popper’s World 1.
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Azócar Fernández, P.I., Buchroithner, M.F. (2014). A Philosophical Framework Applied to Cartography. In: Paradigms in Cartography. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38893-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38893-4_2
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