ABSTRACT
Context is important for understanding. Geography, according to my PhD supervisor at Lund University, the famous Swedish geographer Torsten Hägerstrand, is about doing contextual analysis as opposed to compositional analysis, which is the task of other scientific disciplines (Hägerstrand 1974). This distinction corresponds to the one the German philosopher Immanuel Kant used when classifying sciences either as physically or logically defined. Geography and history understood as chorology and chronology respectively constitute the physically defined sciences, while other disciplines are logically defined based on their respective objects of study. Geography and history are synthetic (i.e. empirical based) sciences, while the logically defined are analytical. These distinctions are in my view fundamental in understanding the raison d’être of geography as well as its place and position in the division of labour with other disciplines.
