Nature - autonomous learning

the dis/unity of geography 217Figure 4.8 The complex relationship between causes and effects. Here the samecause can have either different effects or similar effects depending on theintervening variables (black circles). Adapted from Inkpen (2004)elements of the surrounding landscape? As soon as the investigator decideson the object of their analysis they have already presupposed that it can bestudied as an object – one relatively autonomous from other objects or otherscales of analysis.This introduces the possibility that physical geographersare putting false boundaries around phenomena whose proper analysisrequire a different scale of investigation (see Lane 2001: 249–53; Church1996).Finally, the problem of closure shades into the debate over whetherphysical geographers study so-called ‘nominal kinds’. Nominal kinds arethe opposite of the natural kinds discussed in the previous subsection.Theyare creations of the analyst not ‘real’ things. For instance, one might arguethat the Canadian shield is a nominal kind.Though it undoubtedly exists,it is arguably a composite phenomena that consists of multiple processes,landforms, water courses, soil types, vegetative communities and so on,interacting over wide spans of time and space. It is thus not a thing ‘in itself’and nor can it be readily separated from global biophysical systems likethe atmosphere. In this sense, some have argued that physical geographersin effect create their objects of analysis. For instance,Vic Baker (1999) hasargued that he and his colleagues are really pragmatists (or idealists).Pragmatism, in the sense Baker means it, is a philosophical approach similarin spirit to that animating this book. It argues that we use words, concepts