Epistemology

Pauline R Couper, Geography, School of Humanities, York St John University, York, United Kingdom
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Glossary
Epistemology the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of knowledge.
Ontology the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of existence and what it means to exist.
Positivism an epistemological position prioritizing empirical evidence as the only legitimate source of knowledge, and
mathematical analysis of data to reveal patterns and infer causal relations.
Phenomenology a philosophical movement paying attention to human perception and experience.
Standpoint epistemology emphasizes that knowledge is socially situated, and that the social position of marginalized groups
offers greater insight into social relations than that of dominant groups.
Poststructuralism and postmodernism a group of theories emerging from France in the 1960s, poststructuralists understand
meaning as relational, and knowledge and power as closely connected. Rather than having any underlying “foundation,”
knowledge is social, embedded in the relations, representations and practices of society.

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy focused on knowledge. The word stems from the Greek: “episteme,” or knowledge; and
“logos,” the study of. Epistemology thus deals with questions such as: what is knowledge? How do we know something? What does
it mean “to know?” Such questions are of concern to human geographers for two key reasons. First, human geographers, like
researchers in any subject, must take interest in the reliability of knowledge they generate. Developing arguments, testing theories,
making claims to knowledge, and critically assessing others’ claims to knowledge all entail making assumptionsdwhether inten-
tionally or unintentionallydabout what counts as knowledge and how we can know anything. Here, philosophers’ ideas regarding
epistemology can be applied to better understand the production of knowledge in human geography. Second, human geographers’
focal concerns relate to society, culture, and people’s understanding of the world and of their own lives. How knowledge is
embedded within and circulates among communities, shaping people’s experiences is part of human geographers’ subject of
interest. In this realm of “social epistemology,” human geographers contribute to understandings of epistemology, as well as
drawing on the ideas of others (e.g., philosophers and social theorists). Epistemology, then, can be relevant both to research prac-
tices and research focus in human geography.
Overlapping with both of these dimensions, questions about knowledge and how we know should also be important to us as
citizens. In 2016, Oxford Dictionaries announced that it had designated “posttruth” as its international word of the year. It defines
posttruth as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than
appeals to emotion and personal belief.” While the term had existed for some years before this, it rose rapidly in prominence
through 2016, not least because of controversies around the campaigns for the US presidential election and the UK referendum
on withdrawal from the EU. Increasingly, posttruth and “fake news” have come to dominate public discourse: the place of knowl-
edge in public life is at stake.
These controversies focus on a particular form of knowledge, known as propositional knowledge, or “knowledge that” something is
(or is not) the case. This is also predominantly the form of knowledge produced through research in human geography and reported
in journal articles. It is not the only form of knowledge, however, and not the only form of knowledge relevant to human geography.
A second form of knowledge is “knowing how.” Everyday examples of this kind of knowledge include knowing how to ride a bicycle
or drive a car; or knowing how to behave on public transport. This is procedural knowledge. Knowing how to implement a particular
research method, such as textual analysis, is another example of procedural knowledge. Different again is the case of “knowing”
some people and placesdsuch as your friends and your hometown or citydparticularly well. This is acquaintance knowledge. There
is still some philosophical debate regarding the exact nature of differences between these different forms of knowledge. This article
will begin with propositional knowledge, outlining some basic concepts of epistemology. It will then consider different epistemo-
logical positions that human geographers have taken since the mid-20th Centurydin other words, exploring different answers to
the question “how do we know?” in human geography.

Propositional Knowledge in Human Geography

Arguably, the primary goal of research in human geography is to develop propositional knowledge; to be able to say we “know that
.” about some aspect of the world. Epistemologists have also largely focused on propositional knowledge, in their attempts to
characterize knowledge in general; to define what knowledge is and how we can know something. Their “traditional analysis” of

International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2nd edition, Volume 4 https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-102295-5.10640-7 275

276 Epistemology

knowledge (developed during the late 20th Century) suggests that three conditions are necessary, and together sufficient, for some-
thing to count as knowledge.
The first condition is belief. As a mental state, knowledge is a form of belief. To know that you are 20 years old (or 30, or 40) you
must believe it; if you do not believe it, you cannot know it. But believing something is alone not sufficient for that belief to count as
knowledge. After all, we can be mistaken in our beliefs. You may believe that it will rain later today, but then it does not; in such
circumstances you did not know that it would rain. In seeking knowledge we are aiming to achieve a match between our beliefs and
the world, and so knowledge must be true belief. Truth is the second condition for knowledge. The third condition is justification.
The achievement of true belief should not just be down to a lucky guess. The knower must have some justification for believing the
proposition to be true. The traditional analysis is, then, that propositional knowledge is “justified true belief,” which is known as
“the JTB analysis.”
The JTB analysis is still debated by philosophers, some of whom have proposed a variety of supplementary conditions or caveats.
Some even question whether it is possible to analyze knowledge in terms of more “fundamental” concepts in this way, arguing that
knowledge is fundamental; we simply cannot get “beneath” it to something else, as we always end up coming back to knowledge.
For the purposes of this article, the notion that knowledge is justified true belief is sufficient to begin to develop an understanding of
epistemology in (or for) human geography. It gives rise to a key question: under what conditions are we justified in believing that
a proposition in human geography is true? You might spot that this is a longer version of the question, “how do we know?” A
common response among human geographers to that question would surely be to make some reference to evidence. Indeed,
this would be a common response among geographers in general (and among scientists and social scientists even more generally).
Since the mid-20th Century, human geographers have collectively expanded their understanding of what constitutes appropriate
evidence within the discipline. The aim from here is to examine (some of) these shifts, identifying the epistemological arguments
at work.

Positivist Spatial Science

Histories of geography are always partial, and so contextualizing any epistemological position within a history of geography is also
partial. An academic discipline is a complex endeavor, comprising multiple people in multiple institutions with a variety of research
interests and foci, in a variety of places. Nevertheless, it can be argued that a regional approach to geography dominated Anglophone
and European geographies of the early 20th Century. Observation, description, and synthesis led to detailed understandings of the
specificities of particular parts of the world, and those geographers working in universities would often specialize in their chosen
region. By the middle of the 20th Century the value of the regional approach was under question, not least because of a sense
that geography needed to become more scientific. The methodological shift that occurred was associated with the promotion of
a broadly positivist epistemology within geography.
Positivism has its origins in the work of French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857). Disturbed by the social and political
turmoil of Europe following the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Comte sought to develop a political philosophy that would
give rise to a stable and just society. The functioning of nature was determined by natural laws, and so Comte argued that there must
be comparable “social laws” by which society should function. If we could identify those, it would be possible to organize society in
a way that was consistent with them, and the resulting society would be stable. Comte turned his attention to articulating how
knowledge of such social laws should be achieved. He first explained how science works, in order to then explain how social science
should work, and so positivism is commonly viewed as a philosophy of science. Others later developed, adapted, refined, critiqued,
and built on Comte’s ideas, most notably the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle (philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians
based at the University of Vienna in the 1920s and 1930s). What is presented here is a general overview of positivist epistemology,
rather than a detailed account of its Comtean and subsequent configurations.
A fundamental tenet of positivism is that it takes observation (or “sense data”) as the only source of knowledge: it is an empiricist
epistemology. In the 1700s philosopher Immanuel Kant distinguished between “noumena” or things as they exist in themselves,
and “phenomena,” or things as we perceive them. According to positivism, we cannot know “reality”; we can only know the result-
ing sense data. Positivism is therefore an epistemological position: strictly speaking, it says nothing about the existence of things or
what it means for things to exist (ontology), focusing only on how we know (epistemology). Through a combination of empirical
evidence and reason we can identify constant patterns or relations between observed phenomena. From these patterns or relations
we can construct generally applicable theories. Our theories are always subordinate to the facts of empirical data, and thus the result-
ing knowledge is objective. No matter who the observer is, or who has developed the theories, the empirical facts provide the crite-
rion by which truth is judged. Here it is worth noting that the generally applicable theories (or “laws”) do not provide any
explanation of phenomena. They tell us nothing about causation. Rather than explanation, the identification of laws enables predic-
tion of phenomena.
Comtean positivism, in particular, was significant in establishing and promoting the idea that society could be studied through
the methods of the natural sciences (a “naturalist” position). Perhaps this aspect contributed to the take-up of positivism within
geography. As a discipline that combined the study of natural and human phenomena, it would be convenient to have a common
approach to both. It would be problematic, however, to claim a direct influence of Comte on geography (although the audience for
Comte’s lectures did include one Alexander von Humboldt, now considered a key figure in geography of his era). The commonly
told story is that geography’s turn to positivist approaches occurred in the middle of the 20th Century, in a shift that has sometimes
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been referred to as the “quantitative revolution” or the “spatial-quantitative revolution.” In practice this was more a gradual diffu-
sion of ideas and methodological approaches than the term “revolution” might seem to imply. Nevertheless, through this period
there was a significant shift in geography, moving away from description of regions (emphasizing the particular) to a more scientific,
systematic geography focused on gathering empirical data and developing generalizations, with emphasis on quantitative data
analysis.
For human geography, William Bunge’s Theoretical Geography (1962) was influential in encouraging this shift. In Bunge’s view
Geography was awash with empirical descriptions of the particularities of place, and what the discipline really needed was theory.
Geographers should use geometry (the mathematical description of spatial forms) to identify the morphological laws of the distri-
bution of phenomena, and thereby develop spatial theory. Bunge thus redefined geography as the science of location, with the
mathematical study of spatial relations as its core remit. One advantage of this approach was that it provided for coherence across
the discipline. The same geometric forms could be found arising from both social and physical processes; the geometry of north–
south highways around the city of Seattle resembled the geometry of the shifting river channel of the lower Mississippi, for example.
Bunge thus clearly distinguished geography, with its focus on spatial analysis, from other sciences, yet at the same time offered
a means of positioning geography as equivalent to them. Problems of defining a systematic, replicable basis for regional classifica-
tion paralleled problems of classification in other sciences. And the identification of generally applicable spatial relations meant
possibilities for prediction in geography.
One field of human geography in which this spatial science approach took hold was that of electoral geography, with the work of
Kevin Cox from the late 1960s and early 1970s providing a key example. In a 1968 paper (published in Annals of the Association of
American Geographers), Cox sought to identify spatial patterns in voting behaviors within the London Metropolitan area during the
general elections of 1950 and 1951 (held just 20 months apart). Electoral geographers working in the United States had found that
voters in city suburbs tended towards right-wing politics while those in the city tended towards left-wing politics. Cox sought to
identify whether similar patterns were at work in London. He worked with two “dependent variables”: the proportion of the total
vote for the (right wing) Conservative Party; and the proportion of the electorate actually voting in the election. Two sets of “inde-
pendent variables” related to the individual characteristics of the voter (such as sex, age, and social class) and the characteristics of
the “community context.” The latter focused on defining communities along a spectrum from suburban to metropolitan, using 20
quantitative indicators to represent: population (e.g., population density, population change by migration, percent of the popula-
tion aged 65 and over); economic occupations (such as the proportion of occupied males in service industries); and the distance of
the constituency to the Central Business District of the city. All of these are observable, quantifiable phenomena. Statistical analysis
of the data then enabled identification of the “principal factors” among the independent variables that accounted for variation in
the dependent variablesdin other words, identifying the patterns at work. Cox then explored the theoretical (generalizable) impli-
cations of his findings. We can see here, then, characteristic themes of a positivist epistemology: a focus on observable phenomena;
use of quantitative analysis; and an aim to formulate generalizable theory. In a later (1969) paper Cox further developed that theory
to provide a framework for analyzing spatial variation in voting behaviors.
Through the mid-20th Century geography thus shifted towards a “spatial science,” in which space was viewed as a surface on
which relations between empirical phenomena could be identified. As the name suggests, this was accompanied by a proliferation
of quantitative methods, often involving statistical analysis of large datasets. Geographers began to think in terms of hypotheses that
could be empirically verified or tested. If our answer to the question “how do we know?” is to make reference to evidence, then
clearly epistemology is connected to methodology, as defining the means by which we generate that evidence.
Some suggest that these changes in geography were not understood as “positivist” until much later. An epistemological shift had
happened, but rather than being driven by philosophical debates, this shift was probably rather more influenced by pragmatic
concerns. Academics and policymakers (and so funders) tended to equate knowledge with science. It follows that if geography
were seen as a science, its place in universities and its funding would be more secure. The mid-20th Century also saw significant
developments in computing technologies, introducing the possibility of new analytical techniques. It seems likely, then, that
a number of societal factors contributed to the take-up of a broadly positivist epistemology within the discipline.
Significant as the quantitative revolution was, it was not long before the spatial science approach to human geography was ques-
tioned. The establishment of laws based on observed patterns of empirical phenomena places emphasis on the most common
phenomena. Perhaps particularly when those phenomena involve people, this matters. From the 1970s, two key developments
entailed the take-up of alternative philosophical and theoretical positions, entailing some different epistemological assumptions.
These can be understood in terms of two critiques of positivist approaches, in that the search for generalizations: 1) ignored human
individuality, experience, and agency; and 2) ignored difference, reproducing the aims and values of the majority. Developments
addressing these shortcomings will be explored in turn through the next three sections.

Humanistic Geography and Phenomenology

Humanistic geography of the 1970s specifically sought to “put the human back” into human geography. The assumption that it was
possible to use empirical data to objectively identify “universal laws” that would describe or predict human behavior leaves little
room for acknowledging individual experience and agency. Humanistic geographers thus actively focused on the conditions and
experiences of being human; a move which had consequences for the kinds of knowledge produced (the kinds of questions asked
within geography) as well as for how knowledge was produced. They drew on a range of literature from other disciplines, including
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cognitive psychology, art, history and other humanities subjects, and some turned to philosophy. Phenomenology, and particularly
existential phenomenology, was a key influence here, although it would be misleading to suggest that all humanistic geography was
necessarily phenomenological.
Phenomenology is itself quite difficult to pin down, being interpreted as both a branch of philosophy and a movement within
the history of philosophy. Accounts of phenomenology commonly begin with philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859–1938). We
have seen that a positivist epistemology considers observable phenomenador, more specifically, sense datadto be the foundation
for knowledge. Husserl was dissatisfied with positivist science, arguing that its focus on “objects” left it incapable of dealing with
important questions of value, meaning, and morality. He pointed out that the positivist emphasis on sense data failed to acknowl-
edge that the very existence of “sense data” depends upon human consciousness. Without consciousness there are no sense data,
and yet positivist science focuses solely on the sense data and pays no attention to consciousness. Husserl sought to address this
gap by explaining the structures underlying our conscious experience of phenomena. Strictly speaking, then, phenomenology is
not an epistemological position; it is the study (logos) of phenomena (things as they appear to us, or as we experience them).
Clearly there is connection with epistemology, in clarifying the perceptual experiences that provide the foundation for knowledge.
So a key starting point for phenomenology is consciousness. How do you know you are conscious? It is likely that the answer you
offer to that question will make some reference to the things you are conscious of: perceptions (such as the room being light or
dark); feelings (the chair beneath you being hard or soft; feeling hungry); memories (remembering that you have not always
been sitting where you are now); emotions (the frustration at struggling to understand epistemology). We only know we are
conscious because we are conscious of things. Consciousness is thus always directed at something, always pointing at something.
Husserl referred to this directedness as “intentionality.”
Equally, if we think about the objects of our perception, they are always objects for us. They have some meaning for us, otherwise
we would not be conscious of them as objects. Whether we describe something as useful, useless, hard, soft, light, dark, friendly, or
unfriendly, our perception of it is always through its meaning for us. The objects of our perception are “intentional objects” (objects
of intentionality). So whether we begin by thinking about consciousness, or begin by thinking about objects, intentionality is
present. Husserl’s thinking thus presented a challenge to the Cartesian notion that knowledge is internal to a person (as “subject”)
and reality is external (as “object”). We have no means of checking that the mental content of knowledge matches external reality. To
understand meaning, Husserl argued that we should bracket belief in existence (paying no attention to it) and focus on perceptual
experience.
Husserl provides a starting point for understanding phenomenology, but it is probably the work of later existential phenome-
nologists Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martin Heidegger that had more impact on human geography. Merleau-Ponty’s phenome-
nology emphasized the body, in that we understand the world through our bodies and, equally, understand our bodies through
the world. Our body is thus central to perception, consciousness, intentionality, and understanding. Similarly, for Heidegger, we
are always already in the world, understanding existence only through existing. Our being-in-the-world is thus foundational to
all knowing. Heidegger’s concept of “dwelling” foregrounds the practices, actions, and meaningful relations through which we exist;
not as an isolated self-encountering an external world, but as an agent-in-its-environment. Dwelling is inherently geographical,
characterizing human relations to, and understandings of, location and space.
Such ideas were taken up in humanistic geography to develop alternative understandings of environment, place, and landscape.
For Yi-Fu Tuan and Edward Relph, “place” was defined by meanings, values, and the familiarity of association and repeated encoun-
ters. This claim directly contrasted with the positivist-inspired understanding of space as objective, an empty surface across which
geography was spread. Humanistic geographers turned attention to the everyday, concrete, lived experiences of people.
Yi-Fu Tuan’s (1977) Space and Place is a key example, now considered a classic text in geography. In developing an extended
consideration of space and place from a humanistic perspective, Tuan drew on a multidisciplinary body of literature, encompassing
art, geography, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, history, biology, architecture, and linguistics. A key theme throughout the
book is “experience,” understanding the world in terms of how we experience it. The only direct reference to Merleau-Ponty is on
page 45, but attention to our embodied being-in-the-world can be seen throughout the work. An early discussion of space (on page
12), for example, points out that our awareness of space is shaped by our bodily movements; we experience space as room to move.
Similarly, a sense of direction is developed through bodily mobility, moving from one place to another.
Our bodies are thus central to our consciousness of spacedindeed, our very means of knowing space. Tuan goes on to explain
how human organization of space can be understood through relation to our own bodies, specifically through: posture (upright or
prone, shaping our understanding of high and low); structure (front, back, left, right); and relations (close, distant) to other
humans. He points out how often we organize spaces to have a front and back: rooms being asymmetrically furnished to have
a (front) focal point, for example, or buildings having front and back regions. We organize and understand the world through refer-
ence to our way of being-in-the world.
Tuan pointed out that humanistic geography required a broader conception of knowledge. While scientific (propositional)
knowledge is largely held to have highest value in Western society, in our everyday lives all kinds of knowing are at work. Much
of our learning is subconscious and much of our knowing is knowing-in-practice, requiring little analytical thought. Understanding
human experience of, and agency in, the world requires a different epistemologyda different evidence base”dfrom positivist geog-
raphy. In epistemological terms, this entails extending the source of knowledge from empirical evidence (perception) and reason to
also encompass introspection and memory. Humanistic geography thus prompted a significant expansion in notions of what can
constitute evidence in geography. Where positivist approaches emphasized quantitative analysis of large datasets as a basis for
theory-building, humanistic geography required rich, detailed descriptions of human experience to interpret. Such descriptions
 Epistemology 279

of human experience may derive from researchers’ own experiences, participant observation, ethnographies, diaries, interviews,
analysis of cultural and artistic artifacts; all reveal something of our human lives.
In emphasizing the particularities of experience, humanistic geographers also countered the positivist notion that research could
be objective. If we only understand the world through existing in it, then human experience and concerns will always influence
geographical research. From choosing a research topic (identifying it as important or worthy of attention) through defining meth-
odology, carrying out data collection, categorization, analysis and interpretation, who we are shapes our values and actions. In this
sense, perhaps humanistic geography opened the door for the more social epistemologies that were to follow.
It is important to acknowledge that humanistic geography was itself subject to criticism. Where positivist spatial science focused
on objective knowledge of regularities, humanistic geography was open to the charge of being too subjective, with little rigor to its
methods. They each serve a different purpose, but dominant notions that “scientific” (universalized, fact-based) knowledge was
“best” were difficult to overcomedindeed, they still persist today in many quarters. Humanistic geographers struggled to (or
perhaps were even reluctant to) challenge this claim, and so their aims were often described in terms of uncovering universal rela-
tionships or essences. Attempting to make general claims from the particularities of individuals’ experiences then led to criticism
that humanistic geographers universalized and essentialized the experiences of a few: generally male, middle class, often white.
People’s lives are shaped by social context, by societal norms and power relations, yet humanistic geographers of the 1970s paid
little attention to this. Nevertheless, it had lasting influence: in opening geography to consideration of the complexities and subjec-
tivities of human experience; in expanding ideas of what might constitute evidence in geography; and in pointing out that research is
shaped by researchers. The latter two of these recur later on.

Testimony: Social Epistemology 1

As a discipline that straddles the social sciences and humanities, the aims of research in human geography are often focused on
understanding people’s experiences, views, values, and actions. If we return to the question, “under what conditions are we justified
in believing that a proposition in human geography is true?” this focus on understanding human phenomena gives rise to some
particular epistemological considerations.
Epistemology has traditionally been an “individualist” discipline, in that its attempts to identify what counts as knowledge and
how we can know tend to focus on individual knowledge. Considerable weight has been given to perception (the evidence of the
senses), introspection, memory and reasoning. None of these can offer much insight into other people’s experiences, other people’s
perceptions, and other people’s memories. A key source of knowledge for human geography (and other social sciences), then, is the
testimony of others: the spoken or written accounts that research participants provide. “Testimony” is a key area of debate in “social
epistemology,” the branch of epistemology that seeks to examine social dimensions of knowledge.
Returning to the idea that knowledge is “justified true belief,” we can see that much knowledge in human geographydmuch of
human geographers’ “beliefdis only justified if we can have confidence in the truth of the testimony. Again, epistemologists tend to
consider this in an individualistic manner, where the knowledge of one individual is based on the testimony of another. An imme-
diate example is you reading this article; any knowledge you derive from it is reliant upon my testimony as author. The question of
whether we can reliably base knowledge on testimony is addressed in different ways by epistemologists. Some consider it in
“global” terms (i.e., in all cases): are we justified in relying on testimony at all? Others consider it in “local” terms, where the
key question is how to identify whether we are justified in relying on the testimony of a particular individual in a particular context.
An issue running through both is whether we need separate (independent) evidence of the reliability of testimony, or whether testi-
mony itself provides evidence of the truth of whatever is being asserted. Clearly, for human geography research involving interviews,
diaries, questionnaire responses, etc., this is an important question.
A key (and perhaps obvious) issue is that of relevance; the need to identify participants who are able to provide testimony rele-
vant to the aims of the research. Relevance may mean that participants are in some way “representative” of the group of interest (for
example, they have tried to access a particular service that is of interest). Or it may be that they are a “key informant,” such as
a member of a particular decision-making body. They underlying question here is: how well placed are they to provide testimony
on the issue at hand? The question of whether testimony itself provides evidence of the truth of a claim, or whether some separate
evidence of truth is required, may also depend on the nature of the research. If testimony is sought about an event or process
“external” to the participant, then we may wish to combine it with testimony from others. But if testimony relates to participants’
own feelings or experiences of a situation, there can be no independent corroboration that would be relevant. With these issues we
can see that we have quickly moved from questions of epistemology to questions of methodology. In effect, epistemology is the
theoretical counterpart of methodology.
Epistemologists also query whether testimony can only “transmit” knowledge, or whether it can “generate” knowledge. If some-
body tells you something about their daily routes through the city, for example, then you know that person’s routes through the city
and nothing more. They have transmitted knowledge to you, and some epistemologists argue that this is the limit of testimony. For
social research, though, it seems this cannot be the limit of testimony. The researcher may come to know things the research partic-
ipant does not, as they are “receiving” the testimony with different contextual knowledge, from theory and from others’ testimony.
The same person’s explanation of their routes through the city, when combined with others’ testimony on their own daily
commutes, may provide insight into the significance of social identities on people’s route-making decisions, for example. Collective
testimony, at least, must surely enable knowledge generation.
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The “social epistemology” question of testimony, then, is of direct interest to human geographers as it raises useful questions
about methodology and the nature of evidence. A second form of social epistemology treats knowledge as a product of social
context, and it is this that we move to next.

Knowledge as a Product of Social Context: Social Epistemology 2

From the 1960s a number of researchers across different fields (though perhaps particularly the field that has come to be known as
“science and technology studies” or “sociology of scientific knowledge”) began to consider knowledge as defined and shaped by
social groups. There is some debate among epistemologists whether this constitutes “real” epistemology. This form of social epis-
temology has been so central to much human geography research over the last four decades that in some respects the answer to that
question hardly matters here; however, the existence of the debate is worth noting as it highlights a key shift in attitude towards
knowledge. Traditional epistemology, as discussed above, treats knowledge as factive, aiming to understand the truth and justifi-
cation goals of knowledge. In contrast, understanding knowledge as a product of social context entails questioning the very notion
of “truth.” This point pushes us to understand knowledge and how it functions in society in different ways, leading to very different
kinds of questions being asked in/of human geography research. We look here at two branches of this kind of social epistemology:
standpoint epistemology, and postmodern/poststructuralist epistemology.

Standpoint Epistemology
The university student knows their university through a range of activities and experiences: attending lectures; participating in
student societies, sports teams, or social events; juggling study with paid work; worrying about money; accessing resources from
the virtual learning environment; and the pressure of deadlines for submission of assessments. The university professor knows their
university through a different range of activities and experiences: attending meetings; juggling research and writing with teaching;
preparing lectures (and so meeting deadlines); finding resources to add to the Virtual Learning Environment. The existence of each
(in their role of lecturer or student) is dependent on the other, as professors need somebody to teach and students need somebody
to learn from, and yet they know the university differently. They may use university systems differently. They are likely to be familiar
with different spaces and to establish different social relations within the university. Their knowledge of the university is shaped by
their position in society, and this is a key argument of standpoint epistemology.
More specifically, standpoint epistemology argues that the social position of marginalized groups provides a better starting point
for the development of knowledge than that of dominant groups. This position can be traced back to philosopher Georg Hegel
(1770–1831), who paid attention to the social relations of master and slave. He highlighted that the oppression and injustice of
the slave social system will be better understood from the slave’s point of view than from the master’s. The master is unlikely to
be fully cognizant of the hardships of the slave experience and the degree to which the slave’s life is determined by slave–master
relation. This idea was taken up and developed by Karl Marx (1818–83) and Friedrich Engels (1820–95), and later György (Georg)
Lukács (1885–1971), in the context of the hierarchical class structure of capitalist societies. They argued that a better understanding
of capitalist society could be achieved from the standpoint of the proletariatdthe workers whose labor produced capitaldthan
from the position of those owning and controlling capital.
Marxist philosophy is of course much more complex than it can be portrayed here. It is a materialist position, taking society to be
shaped by the material conditions of existence, but dialectical: the material world (concrete-real) exists but can only ever be under-
stood through our concepts (thought-concrete); our concepts then shape our material interactions in the world (changing the
concrete-real), which in turn shapes our concepts (changing thought-concrete). Think of this dialectic in terms of society: social rela-
tions shape ideas, and ideas change social relations. Marx was thus critical of the empiricist notion that theories (based on empirical
evidence and reasoning) correspond to reality, in a singular notion of “truth.” Rather, different conceptual frameworks result in
different knowledges.
Marx and Engels focused on the unequal division of labor between classes. Feminist thinkers then turned attention to the
unequal division of labor between the sexes. Western society’s notions of gender had long positioned women as responsible for
labor that is necessary yet treated as inconsequential. Examples include child-rearing, preparing food, or caring for the elderly;
all are essential, yet are either unpaid or poorly paid. In the same way that the proletariat would be better positioned to understand
the social relations of capitalism than those controlling capital, a feminist standpoint epistemology claims that the subordinate
position of women in society provides a privileged epistemological position.
Feminists such as Sarah Harding and Donna Haraway argued that if knowledge production is principally the domain of the
dominant group in society, then the knowledge produced will only ever reflect (and so reproduce) the interests and values of
that group. In failing to interrogate the advantage of their social situation, they are blind to their position in society and how it
may shape knowledge. This means that supposedly objective knowledge is not objective at all. An illustration is provided by US
educator/author/film-maker Jackson Katz, who has pointed out a “blind spot” in the ways that violence against women (including
rape) is measured, monitored, and discussed. We see measures of the numbers of women raped, rather than numbers of men who
raped women; numbers of girls harassed in the street, rather than numbers of boys harassing. The phrase “violence against women”
is passive, positioning violence as a thing that just “happens to” women, rather than an act for which somebody is responsible. In
each case, the males who commit the harassment or violence are rendered invisible. Katz argues that the consequence is that such
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violence is seen as a “women’s issue” rather than an issue that should concern everybody; the interests, status, and responsibilities of
men are left unchallenged.
The objectivity of scientific knowledgedwhat Haraway termed the “God trick,” purporting to see everywhere from nowheredis
thus a false objectivity. The position of those in dominant groups sets limits on what they can understand about society. In contrast,
the experiences and lives of those in marginalized groups (whether marginalized by class, gender, race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality
etc.) will give rise to different questions, different research problems, and different insights. Standpoint epistemology thus argues
that knowledge is always situated, always produced by somebody, somewhere, and will always shape the knowledge produced. This
point leads to a different notion of objectivity, in which the acknowledgment of a researcher’s positionality (their social situation
and how it impacts on the research) is central. It is only through such acknowledgment that we can recognize the limits and
partiality of the claims to knowledge made. In sum, standpoint epistemology is a social epistemology in that: i) the social position
of the researcher is of epistemic consequence; and ii) it demands a critical perspective on the social structures within which knowl-
edge is generated.
Marxist and feminist thought both had major impact on human geography in the last decades of the 20th Century. In the late
1960s a small group of geographers that included David Harvey and Richard Peet were beginning to become critical of the distinc-
tion between fact and value that was characteristic of science (and positivist spatial science). They argued that geographical knowl-
edge served to reinforce the existing state rather than challenge it, and that Marxist thought offered potential for a new direction. In
the first issue of the radical/critical geography journal Antipode, Peet argued that geography should “take an entirely different set of
premises and build new theories of the way things should be.” The first major example of this new style of geography was Harvey’s
(1973) book Social Justice and the City, which used Marxist thought to examine the causes of social problems in cities. He followed
with The Limits to Capital (1982). Here Harvey explains how the risk of economic crisis in capitalist societies can be temporarily
reduced by investing capital, removing it from circulation for a period of time. This he called the “temporal fix.” But Harvey revealed
how this temporary removal of capital from circulation can also be spatial: investment in material infrastructure (factories, shop-
ping malls, transport systems) also removes capital from circulation. This kind of infrastructure can be costly to replace, and so it
becomes more economical to invest elsewhere, in less developed or more run-down areas. This “spatial fix” means that spatial
inequality is as inherent to capitalist societies as social inequality. Harvey had extended Marxist theory geographically. At the
same time, these developments began to shift geographers’ understanding of space. Rather than being a surface or container on/
in which other things existed, space is shaped by social processes, and social processes are shaped by space. A key contribution
of Harvey’s work was that space can be theorized. While not all research in Marxist geographies necessarily explicitly “begins
with the lives of the marginalized” (in a sense of acquiring testimony from marginalized groups, for example), a recognition of
the existence of inequality is embedded within it. A standpoint epistemology provides a different starting point for knowledge
generation, requiring different questions to be asked.
In the same year that Harvey’s The Limits to Capital was published, geographers Jan Monk and Susan Hanson published a paper in
The Professional Geographer titled “On not excluding half of the human in human geography.” Geography in universities at the time
was dominated by men, and Monk and Hanson argued that the knowledge they were producing excluded women in content,
method, and purpose. Content focused on the domains of men, neglecting the domestic spaces most commonly occupied by
women. Households were characterized in terms of a man’s occupation. Geographers’ knowledge reflected and reproduced the
interests of the dominant group. Just 3 years later (1984) saw publication of the first feminist geography book, Geography and
Gender, written by the Women and Geography Study Group (now the Gender and Feminist Geographies Research Group). This
collection set out arguments for studying feminist geography and demonstrated how feminist perspectives challenged geographers’
existing ideas on themes such as urban spatial structure, employment, and industry, access to services, and development.
A prominent example of feminist geography from this period is Gill Valentine’s paper on “The geography of women’s fear”
(published in Area). Based on her doctoral research, in which she interviewed 80 women of varying ages in the town of Reading,
UK, Valentine explains how women’s use of public space is restricted both spatially and temporally by fear of male violence. Her
research revealed that women avoided large open spaces such as parks, woodlands, waste ground, canals, and rivers, and closed
spaces with restricted access such as subways, alleyways, or multistorey car parks. But the women expressed fear of all public space
at night, not just because of the limited visibility of nighttime, also because of a shift in the people present in public space at this
time of day. In the women’s lives, town centers and public transport during the day were full of women, children, and the elderly.
As evening fell, these groups reduced in number, to be replaced by (often young) men. Public spaces become threatening.
Valentine explains how a woman’s relationship with a man (boyfriend, husband) provides protection from such threat, but
thendthrough the responsibilities of family, for exampledcontributes to the limited presence of women in public space at night.
In turn, women’s sense that these spaces are unsafe is perpetuated. Valentine thus argues that women’s fear is both a product and
producer of male patriarchy, with spatial consequences. Crucially here, this point would never have been apparent from men’s
perspectives.
A few paragraphs can never do justice to the complexities and multiplicities of either Marxist or feminist geographies. Feminism,
for example, is not restricted to a standpoint epistemology. Indeed, much of the early feminist geography was empiricist, using
established approaches to analyze spatial differences in men’s and women’s lives. Nevertheless, standpoint epistemologies had
significant impact on human geography through the 1970s and 1980s. The insight that the social position of the knower (or
researcher) has epistemic significance is also taken up in postmodern/poststructuralist epistemology (discussed below). Between
them, then, these modes of thinking have ensured that discussion of positionality and reflexivity is now the norm in human
geography.
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Postmodern/Poststructuralist Epistemology
If Science and Technology Studies (or Sociology of Scientific Knowledge) was a key field in which ideas of social epistemology devel-
oped, one of its earlydand highly influentialdexamples was Thomas Kuhn’s (1962) book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Prior to Kuhn’s work, science was understood as a continuous progression towards the truth, achieved through accumulation of
ever more facts and theories. From this perspective, science focuses on “factive” knowledge, and the traditional understanding of
knowledge as Justified True Belief applies. Kuhn argued that the practice of science is somewhat different.
Examining historic developments in science, Kuhn suggested that any science progresses through a cyclical pattern of develop-
ment. The early stages are characterized by a variety of competing approaches to making sense of the facts gathered. Gradually one
such approach becomes dominant. This then provides a frame of reference, defining what kinds of problems and methods are
considered legitimate. Kuhn referred to this as a “paradigm.” For much of the time, science progresses by solving puzzles within
the frame of reference provided by the paradigm, incrementally adding to the stock of knowledge. But occasionally scientists
come across a problem that cannot be solved within the paradigm. Gradually, enough of these anomalies are found that they
lead to a crisis; the paradigm is clearly inadequate, and this opens the way for alternative theories (alternative frames of reference)
to be proposed. Ultimately, revolution occurs, a new paradigm being established. The key point here is that the paradigm is estab-
lished socially, through agreement. There may be little elsedlittle “foundation”dto decide between paradigms. Students are then
taught to see their science through the frame of reference of the paradigm, which shapes their sense of what problems are worthy of
study, and what approaches to studying them are legitimate. The paradigm determines what counts as a justified belief, a point that
challenges the very notion that objective truth is achievable.
Kuhn’s notion of paradigms was much criticized, and he acknowledged himself that the first edition of his book used the word in
a multitude of ways. Nevertheless, geographers took up the idea with some enthusiasm. A variety of geographical paradigms
through history were proposed, including exploration, environmental determinism, regional geography, spatial science, humanistic
geography, and structural geography. Yet somehow geographers could never quite agree on geography’s paradigms. Perhaps partic-
ularly in human geography, new ideas are taken up within the discipline but old approaches are not necessarily discarded; rather
than “revolution,” geography seems more prone to evolution and diversification.
Postmodernism and poststructuralism took this social understanding of knowledge further. These ideas emerged from
a group of French philosophers and theorists from the late 1960s; particularly Derrida (1930–2004), Foucault (1926–84), Bau-
drillard (1929–2007), Lyotard (1924–88). In the late 1980s geographers began to take up ideas of postmodernism, particularly
through the work of Edward Soja and Michael Dear in urban geography. Engagement with poststructuralist ideas quickly fol-
lowed, and the result was a significant epistemological shift for the discipline. Postmodernism and poststructuralism can be
difficult to distinguish; if there is boundary between them, it is flexible and porous rather than distinct, and different authors
divide the two in different ways. Rather than attempt to provide an account of each, I here pick out two key themes relevant
to epistemology.
The first of these key themes is that meaning is relational. Derrida argued that there is no direct connection between the word we
use for something (signifier) and the thing we are referring to (signified). Rather, the meaning of a word is determined only by its
relation to (difference from) other words, other signs, in the same sign system. Within the sign system of the English language, for
example, when speaking and listening we understand the word “town” as distinct from “gown,” “brown,” “clown,” or “frown”d-
words that are close in sound, but clearly not the same. But then in terms of meaning, we understand “town” as distinct from “city”
or “village.” These too are related but not the same. The meaning of words, then, is not defined by a correspondence with an actual
thing-in-the-world, but through an endless series of relations with other meanings. The most striking example is the binaries that are
prevalent throughout Western thinking: we understand “dark” only through its contrast with “light”; “small” has meaning only
through its difference from “large”; to describe something as “hard” is instantly to define it as not “soft.” Derrida highlighted
that these kinds of binaries are also associated with an asymmetry of value, one side of the binary being valued more than the other.
We associate “light” with “good” and “dark” with “bad.” Bigger is better. But because we understand meanings relationally in this
way, to speak of one implicitly brings the other into conversation, through its absence or exclusion: to speak of light is also to say
something about darkness. Any text thus carries multiple messages and implicit value positions.
This brings us to the second key theme, which is that knowledge and power are closely connected. Our knowledge on any subject
is expressed through language, and so knowledge is constrained by language, shaped by the concepts (and their meanings) available
to us in the language. This means there is a close association between our language and how we understand the world. Crucially, our
understanding of the worlddour concepts and ideasdshapes how we act, and provides our sense of the possibilities for action.
Foucault’s notion of discourse captures this connection between language, knowledge, and action, highlighting that knowledge
is closely entwined with social control. He produced a large body of work tracing the development of ideas of mental and physical
ill health, criminality, and sexuality throughout European history. Foucault demonstrated how concepts or knowledge in these
fields convey something of society’s ideas about what constitutes “normal” behavior and what is considered different (abnormal
or Other). These concepts then effect control in two senses. First, individuals not fitting the norm can legitimately be restrained:
those with a diagnosis of mental ill health were labeled insane and hospitalized; those committing deviant behavior are labeled
criminal and imprisoned. Second, the majority of people self-regulate their own behavior. The discourse of gender, for example,
conditions us to behave “as males” or “as females.” These rules of behavior are not imposed from some higher authority. Rather,
we produce and reproduce them ourselves through our everyday social practices. Concepts thus produce identities, and power is
diffuse, distributed throughout society rather than located in a single source.
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Epistemologically, a postmodern and poststructuralist understanding of knowledge is “antifoundational.” There is no under-

lying foundation, no “truth” against which to judge our claims to knowledge, or overarching system for deciding that one represen-
tation (or theoretical perspective, or discourse) should take priority over another. Knowledge is social, and knowledge (concepts,
representations, practices) is also embedded within society. To understand society is thus to understand knowledge and its effects.
The take-up of postmodernism and poststructuralism within geography had profound impact. Geographers turned their atten-
tion to language and representations (and so knowledge) in society, examining the productive work of concepts: understanding
places and identities as discursively produced; identifying inclusions and exclusions; deconstructing binaries; reimagining cate-
gories. In contrast with humanist geographers’ attention to the individual, or structuralist geographers’ attention to political–
economic structures underlying the social order, the “new cultural geographies” focused on the everyday practices and representa-
tions of our social lives. At the same time, geographers became more attuned to the power relations at work in, and (re)produced by,
the production of geographical knowledge.
A classic example of such work is J.B. Harley’s (1989) paper, “Deconstructing the map” (published in the journal Cartographica).
Harley argued that the history of cartography, as a disciplinary field, had been too accepting of cartographers’ claims to scientific
accuracy in map-making. Drawing on Derrida and Foucault, he illustrated that maps are a form of discourse, embedded within
a social context; products and producers of power relations. Harley argued that the scientific rules of cartography were a form of
legitimation and exclusion, defining a norm against which other maps were judged as “noncartography.” This judgment allowed
the maps of other cultures, other societies, to be dismissed as inferior. Maps are also reproducers of social order. Many (although
not all) maps were ethnocentric, societies placing their own territories at the center of the map. But within any society, maps also
articulated hierarchies in/of space. The buildings of the ruling classes, such as palaces and churches for example, are often given
more prominence on the map than the private dwellings of ordinary people. Such decisions of representation then shape how
we view the world. Anything not on the map is unacknowledged, unrecognized. A particular understanding of the world is thus
normalized. (In a town of two universities, for example, it is not many years ago that the location map for visitors to one university
omitted the other university entirely.) Harley thus demonstrated that as forms of communication, conveying, and creating knowl-
edge, maps are anything but innocent. They have rhetorical and metaphorical dimensions, conveying a particular sense of the world.
In arguing for a different (social) epistemological understanding of maps, Harley pushed towards a different appreciation of their
social role, prompting the development of a more critical understanding of cartography.
More recently geographers have taken up the ideas of Gilles Deleuze, extending from the early poststructuralist geography’s
emphasis on representations to better understanding performativity, and the everyday “doings” that bring the stuff of life (identities,
categories, definitions, concepts, places) into being. This extension is evident, for example, in nonrepresentational (or more-than-
representational) and hybrid geographies. We can understand these approaches as an increased attention to nonpropositional
knowledge, taking interest in procedural and acquaintance knowledges (and haptic and tacit knowledges) that are at work in all
facets of our daily lives. In this respect, geographers have drawn together elements of phenomenological and poststructuralist
thinking to again extend the epistemological possibilities for doing human geography research.
This kind of social epistemology, then, presents a clear challenge to the JTB analysis of knowledge. It argues against the existence
of a singular “truth” against which a proposition is to be judged. There are only multiple truths judged as such through multiple
frames of reference. Combined with a critical attention to the power relations of knowledge, this has drawn attention to the domi-
nance of particular groups and/or cultures in knowledge production, for human geography and other disciplines. Non-Western
ways of knowing the world (sometimes referred to as “Indigenous knowledge,” although this term is contested) have begun to
gain greater presence in geography, for example, in work with Indigenous groups in Alaska and New Zealand, and Bawaka Country
in northern Australia. There is also increasing recognition of the dominant role of the English language in global knowledge produc-
tion, and discussion of the implications for geography. If language and knowledge are closely intertwined, the dominance of a single
language must surely constrain possibilities for knowing.

Conclusion

Epistemology can often seem somewhat removed from geographers’ concerns to make sense of the world around us. As a branch of
philosophy the field has all the complex debates and technical nuances of any academic field. Developing some understanding of
epistemology clearly has value for geographers. If our goal is to develop knowledge (and to critically understand the knowledge
developed by others), we need to pay attention to the assumptions we make about what constitutes legitimate knowledge and
about how we know.
Human geographers have taken up different epistemological positions at different times through the last seven decades: from the
positivist (or broadly positivist) approaches of quantitative spatial science; the phenomenological approaches of humanistic geog-
raphy; Marxist and feminist standpoints that provide for a different starting point for knowledge, asking different questions; to post-
modern and poststructuralist understandings of knowledge as embedded in society and social processes. But rather than “rejecting”
earlier positions wholesale, we retain them. Some geographers still work with a broadly positivist epistemology (and examples of
quantitative spatial science undertaken by those with different disciplinary backgrounds are not hard to come by). Geographers still
use insights of standpoint epistemology. Postmodern/poststructuralist epistemologies have had profound impact on the discipline.
“In practice” the questions geographers have been asking have diversified, the objects of study have diversified, and the methods
used to study them have diversified. Epistemologists may debate which epistemological theories are “right” or “best.” Perhaps
284 Epistemology

for human geography, it is that diversity that is the real source of richness; rather than deciding which approach is “right,” 21st
Century geography has access to a multiplicity of ways of knowing the world.

See Also: Feminism/Feminist Geography; Feminist Methodologies; History of Geography; Knowledge Communities; Marxist Geography; Philosophy
and Human Geography; Positivism/Positivist Geography; Post-Marxist Geographies; Postcolonialism; Poststructuralism/Poststructuralist Geographies;
Quantitative Revolution; Radical Geography; Scientific Knowledge; Spatial Science.

Further Reading

Aitken, S.C., Valentine, G., 2015. Approaches to Human Geography: Philosophies, Theories, People and Practices, second ed. SAGE, London.
Couper, P.R., 2015. A Student’s Introduction to Geographical Thought: Theories, Philosophies, Methodologies. SAGE, London.
Creswell, T., 2013. Geographic Thought: A Critical Introduction. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford.
Dear, M., 1988. The postmodern challenge: reconstructing human geography. Transac. Inst. Br. Geogr. NS 12, 262–274.
Haddock, A., Millar, A. and Pritchard, D. (eds.) Social Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haraway, D., 1988. Situated knowledges: the science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Fem. Stud. 14 (3), 575–599.
Harding, S., 1992. Rethinking standpoint epistemology: what is ‘strong objectivity’? Centen. Rev. 36 (3), 437–470.
Holt-Jensen, A., 2018. Geography: History and Concepts, fifth ed. SAGE, London.
Hubbard, P., Kitchin, R., 2011. Key Thinkers on Space and Place, second ed. SAGE, London.
Hubbard, P., Kitchin, R., Valentine, G., 2008. Key Texts in Human Geography. SAGE, London.
Martin, R.M., 2010. Epistemology: A Beginner’s Guide. Oneworld Publications, Oxford.
Moser, P.K., 2002. The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology. Open University Press, Oxford.

Relevant Websites

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://www.iep.utm.edu/.