ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews several of the central criticisms of positivism advanced through the historical materialist and humanistic perspectives. The value of the criticisms outlined by historical materialist and humanistic geographers emphasizes the distance between quantitative researches. From the historical materialist perspective, the relationship between theory and empirical research is generally taken to be defined by a realist philosophy of science. It has been argued that statistical inference and quantification are not susceptible to several of the criticisms that have been directed toward them by historical materialist and humanistic geographers. At the same time, the value of the criticisms outlined by historical materialist and humanistic geographers is that they emphasize the distance between quantitative research appropriate to these perspectives and that conducted within a positivist philosophical framework. They draw attention to the fact that statistical analysis cannot subsume theoretical development, that theoretically uninformed quantitative research is of little interest and of little use in explaining social processes.
