ABSTRACT
Before starting on our survey of premodern, modern and postmodern environments and environmental issues, it is necessary to give some attention to the changing philosophies of the natural and social sciences that play a key role in the representation of nature and environment and shape the changing purpose, content and methodologies of geography. This chapter introduces the range of philosophical frameworks which geographers use to research, write and teach about the relations between nature and society, and by advocating an approach based in dialectical materialism, critical realism and critical theory, it further develops the arguments introduced in Chapter 1.
