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Here is an essay on the ‘Philosophy of Possibilism’ for class 10, 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short essays on the ‘Philosophy of Possibilism’ especially written for school and college students.
Essay Contents:
- Essay on the Rise of Possibilism
- Essay on Possibilism in Nineteenth Century
- Essay on Possibilism in Twentieth Century
- Essay on the Critique of Possibilism
Essay # 1. Rise of Possibilism:
The possibilist paradigm views that the physical environment tends to provide the opportunity for a range of possible human responses and that people have considerable discretion to choose between them through their creative genius and creativity.
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Plato (428-348 B.C.), who was the master of deductive reasoning, said that the observable things on the Earth were only poor copies of ideas, or perfect predicates from which observable things had degenerated or were in the process of degeneration.
Proceeding from general to the particular, Plato sought to infer that men tended to make changes in the land they occupied; and soil erosion and land destruction were parts of their material culture. It was he who formulated the idea of man as an agent of change on the Earth’s surface.
This deduction based on a priori theory became a legitimate basis for enquiries in the subsequent centuries. The view expressed by Plato about capabilities of man was very close to the philosophy of possibilism. It can, therefore, be said that a philosophy resembling possibilism had its origin in the classical antiquity, but Plato did not express it clearly.
The idea of Plato went into obscurity for thousands of years after him, but the contrasting idea of determinism continued to grow and flourish upto the eighteenth century when Montesquieu (1689-1755) developed a philosophy highly resembling the nineteenth/twentieth century paradigm of possibilism.
It is interesting to note that Montesquieu, who had also developed the idea of climatic determinism, sought for an alternative explanation to recognise what he called the ‘esprit general’, or the general spirit of a nation. The interplay of ‘physical’ and ‘moral’ causes was extended to be the factor which established the character of a society or nation which guided the choice of the society or nation to operate freely in the environment.
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In fact, Montesquieu held the view that man did possess free will and was able to make, consciously or subconsciously, choices from among a series of avenues of escape or adaptation. He also held that even though the physical environment remained relatively static, man was growing in ability and becoming more complex. ‘Montesquieu’s views of man’s freedom vis-a-vis the physical environment were too crypto-possibilistic to allow easy assimilation by later readers.
In these lights, it is understandable that Montesquieu could have been jogged out of a position in the lineage of possibilistic thought. However, his views formed a large part of the fabric of later French political and social thought’.
Another eighteenth century French scholar who strongly and clearly believed in the creative power of man was Comte de Buffon (1707- 1788). Buffon believed that man was commanded to conquer the Earth and transform it. He thought that man changed the face of the Earth in the process of developing a civilisation.
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He conceived of man as an agent of change and man did possess free will to make desired changes on the landscape. Buffon insisted that man could adjust to any climate on the Earth. ‘Man was not compelled to react to any climate the way uncivilized native people would react. With proper clothing he could protect his skin colour’.
Buffon also speculated on climatic changes mostly as a result of man-made changes in the landscape and suggested that the removal of forests and the drainage of marshes might lead to temperature increase. In fact, he insisted on the conservation of forests.
Comparing Montesquieu with Buffon, it can be said that the former was certainly less of a geographer and conservationist than the latter, whose works considered the physical changes brought about by human agency in more detail than anyone prior to his time.
Montesquieu-Buffon’s crypto-possibilistic hypothesis could not make much headway with the contemporary geographical scholars because the great majority of them strictly adhered to the philosophy of determinism and Darwinism. Darwinism provided a scientific basis to the idea of determinism, but the crypto-possibilistic philosophy necessarily lacked it.
Immanuel Kant who believed in the ‘organising freedom of (human being) bounded by the realities of the mechanisms of natural realm’ was rather ambiguous in his approach to the creative power of man otherwise he would have been explicitly known as a possibilist. However, this view of Kant emerged in Germany in the closing decades of the nineteenth century which is known as ‘neo- Kantian’—a philosophy attributed to the possibilism of French School of human geography.
Essay # 2. Possibilism in Nineteenth Century:
Though the great majority of scholars, including geographers, political scientists and other social scientists strictly subscribed to the paradigm of determinism and others were seeking for its empirical validation, a very small group of people, nevertheless, were attempting to develop a hypothesis contradictory to the paradigm of determinism.
George Perkins Marsh (1864) of America was one of them. Of course, he never studied geography as such, but he developed a novel approach to the study of the relations of man to the land. He was conscious of man’s power and action. He elaborated the view of man’s effect on nature, to the modifications of the organic and inorganic parts of the habitat that resulted from human action.
Almost at the same time, in Germany, Alfred Kirchoff (1838-1907) was attempting an Anti-Ratzelian approach to the study of human geography. Instead of describing the influence of the physical Earth on human affairs, he focused on man himself. Human societies were studied in relation to the physical features, but greater attention was given to the culture of human groups rather than to the physical Earth. This was the method adopted by Ratzel.
It was not until 1899 that a new dimension to the philosophy of possibilism was added by Paul Vidal de La Blache (1845-1918). As opposed to the ‘environmental determinism’ of the Darwinian-Ratzelian heritage, Blache set forth a conceptual framework of ‘possibilism’ which was later fully developed by a critical historian Lucien Febvre. However, it is from Ratzel’s and Kirchoff’s works that he is believed to have formulated the paradigm of possibilism.
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‘Nature’, Blache insisted, ‘set limits and offered possibilities for human settlement, but the way man reacts or adjusts to these given conditions depends on his own traditional way of living.’ What Blache meant to say was that the physical environment provided a range of possibilities which man turned to his use according to his needs, wishes and capacities, in creating his habitat.
He also said that in an area of human settlement, nature changed significantly because of the presence of man, and these changes were greatest where the level of material culture of the community was highest. He added further that through his occupation and imprint on the land, man created distinctive countries, be they states or minor unit areas.
Blache emphasised the concept of a way of living (genre de vie) in supporting and furthering his philosophy of possibilism. The ‘genre de vie’ refers to the inherited traits that members of a human community learn—what may be called a culture.
Blache pointed out that the same environment has different meanings for people with different genre de vie – the genre de vie is a basic factor in determining which of the various possibilities offered by nature a particular human group will select. In fact, this was the idea which Ratzel had ultimately found to have some relevance.
He made special note of cases where cultural differences were more important than differences in the physical character of the land. In a regional geography of Germany, in 1898, he pointed out the great contrast in the way people may use the land in two places that are physically very much alike.
The two places are the low mountain regions on either side of the middle Rhine valley the Vosage Mountains in France and the Scharzwald in Germany. The differences to be observed in these two regions are related to the contrast in ‘genre de vie’ between the French and the German communities.
The idea of possibilism, in the closing years of the nineteenth century, thus started on a sound philosophical and methodological foundation, with Blache seeking for an empirical validation of it. It, somehow, weakened the importance of contemporary Darwinian heritage of determinism. The philosophy of possibilism continued with Blache who carried it to the twentieth century with many more scholars subscribing to it.
Essay # 3. Possibilism in Twentieth Century:
Blache who provided a new dimension to the philosophy of possibilism in the closing years of the nineteenth century, and carried it to the next at the expense of the Darwinian paradigm of determinism, said in an article in the Annals in 1913- ‘Geography seeks to measure and localise the great part that man plays in modifying the face of the Earth’.
Blache’s book was published posthumously in 1921 and its English translation was published in 1926. He makes the following observations in support of the philosophy of possibilism- ‘Nature provides man with materials which have their inherent requirements, their special aptitudes— also their limitations—which lead them to certain uses rather than to others. To this extent nature does make suggestions, and at times restrictions…. Nature is never more than an advisor…. Isolation and lack of fresh incentives seem to be a primary obstacle to such a conception of progress. Indeed, those human societies which have been isolated by geographical conditions either on islands or in mountain fastnesses, or in forest clearings, seem to be cursed with stagnation and incapacity to move’.
Blache (1899, 101) observes- ‘Civilisation has appropriated the favourite crops. From the original plant countless varieties have been perfected to suit the requirements of different climates, with the result that its importance is often greater in regions where it has been acclimatized, than in those where it originated. For instance, wheat does not today have the largest yield in regions where it was first cultivated; the harvests of Mediterranean countries cannot be compared with those of the plains of Central Europe.
The largest ears of corn are no longer grown on tropical plateaux, but in the United States, on the prairies of the Middle West…. With regard to social groups, the types which become dominant in the march of progress and continue to develop are those which originally resulted from the collaboration of nature and man, and gradually became more and more emancipated from the direct influence of environment’.
Analysing the above statements of Blache, it can be said that he conceived of man not as a passive being, but as an active force, who is able to make consciously choices from among a series of avenues of escape or adaptation. He also sought to generalise his philosophy with examples through a regionalist historical approach.
Jean Brunhes not only carried forward Blache’s philosophy of possibilism and spread it through France, but also transmitted it to other countries. He seems to have put the philosophy of possibilism into a sacred philosophical and methodological framework. In 1910, he published the first edition of his great work which was translated into English in 1920 by I. C. Le Compte and edited by Boman and Dodge.
Brunhes divided the essential facts of human geography into three categories:
(i) The facts of the unproductive occupation of soil- houses and roads (including rural habitations, urban agglomerations and circulation pattern);
(ii) The facts of plant and animal conquests: the cultivation of plants and the raising of animals; and
(iii) The-facts of destructive exploitation: plant and animal devastation, mineral exploitation.
However, Brunhes’s, interest seems to be focused on the facts of human exploitation of the Earth, irrespective of whether they show environmental influences or not. In the second part of his book, the link between the Earth and man is examined; it is not influences that are sought, but ‘geographical relations between physical facts and human destinies’. His approach, therefore, seems to be more conducive to unbiased research.
On the power of natural agents, he said- ‘The unrelenting power of natural agents begins in the physical world alone. Human geography is a field of compromise, nothing is absolute or definitive for the human species on the Earth except these general laws, and those fundamental conditions which determine the limits beyond which all life is excluded; and if men are not able to push back indefinitely all these limits in altitude, latitude, depth, etc. they are at least able to force or modify some few of them…. Although in a large number of cases we seem to dominate nature, she still keeps her right of pre-eminence, for at all points of the Earth; she imposes upon our activity restrictive conditions.
On the power of man, Brunhes remarked- ‘The power and means which man has at his disposal are limited and he meets in nature bounds which he cannot cross. Human activity can within certain limits vary its play and its movement, but it cannot do away with its environment; it can often modify it, but it can never suppress it and will always be conditioned by it…. The forces of physical nature are bound to each other in their consequences, in their relations, and in the consequences of these relations. Man does not escape the common law, his activity included in the network of terrestrial phenomena. But if human activity is thus circumscribed, it does not follow that it is fatally determined’.
The limits set by nature to man’s action vary from place to place on the Earth’s surface and from one historical period to another. In marginal environments, such as the hot and cold deserts, and at low stages of culture, man’s choice may be extremely restricted.
In the more favourable areas of the warm and cool temperate zones, and in periods when man’s techniques are highly developed, the possibilities are numerous. But, however many skills man acquires, he can never free himself entirely from nature’s control. This is emphasised over and over again by the possibilities.
It may be noted that Montesquieu’s views on the fruits of labour were echoed by Brunhes who said- ‘Through a form of work adapted to the natural ‘conditions and through the collective training that results, societies of herdsmen or fishermen, groups of miners or planters, etc. are really modified and in the long run show definite tendencies.’
It seems that to Brunhes, labour involved in the modification of some aspect of the physical environment was able to produce far-reaching consequences. However, at this point Brunhes’s movement from specific to general, from labour as the mediator between man and nature, is a departure from Montesquieuan heritage. This departure does not involve the terminology that Montesquieu and the possibilists were using.
To Brunhes (1910), ‘everything on the surface of the globe is for men a matter of habit, of sound understanding, of physical facts, and of skilful adaptations to these facts. Moreover, the adaptations take place promptly and at the right time, preceded, prepared for, and brought about by exact scientific investigations…. These investigations should also tend to moderate our ambitions and turn us away sometimes from undertakings that would mean such bold opposition to the forces of Nature that man would run the risk of seeing sooner or later his patient work annihilated at a single stroke.
The more imposing and glorious man’s conquest, the more cruel the revenge of the thwarted physical facts.’ Brunhes explains it with the example of the drainage of coastal lowlands causing the land to sink and to be re-flooded by the sea, or the busting of dykes, etc.
The critical French historian Lucien Febvre, in his Geographical Introduction to History, published in 1922 and English edition in 1924, is credited with having first termed this approach/ philosophy as ‘possibilism’. Like Brunhes, he also endorsed the Vidalienne tradition of possibilism and carried forward the ‘heritage’ in more neo- Kantian way. To him, man is not a passive being but an active force.
‘Through centuries and centuries, by his accumulated labours and the boldness and decision of his undertakings, he appears to us as one of the most powerful agents in the modification of terrestrial surface…. And this action of man on his environment is the part which man plays in geography…. There are no necessities, but everywhere possibilities; and man as master of these possibilities is the judge of their use. This by the reversal which it involves puts man in the first place, man and no longer the Earth, nor the influence of climate, nor the determinant conditions of localities’.
Febvre, probably the most caustic of the possibilists, discussing the matter of uniform regions of physical and human geography within which everything had identical, or merely identical, characteristics enunciated the possibilist viewpoint- ‘And this is a Ratzelian dogma. If the space is limited and not greatly differentiated, the physical and human types found there are monotonous. Our contention is quite otherwise. We admit regional frames in a general sense, but in the collection of physical features it represents we see only possibilities of action’.
Having set down, in the context of regional geography, the fundamental difference between possibilism and environmental determinism, Febvre relaxed somewhat and made a modest concession. He stated that any of his contemporary determinists, who agree that all of the possibilities of establishing a human society which a region offered did not inevitably exert their influence at the same time or with the same force, were worthy of commendation only.
Febvre, speaking for the possibilists, stated their case that a homogeneous region did not necessarily produce, for all time, a homogeneous society. The inhabitants of any region were able to choose, from time to time and in quantity they desired, some of the benefits or chances for benefit which the region possessed. However, the number of choices or opportunities for choice was not infinite in each region; each region had an upper limit.
American geographer, Isaiah Bowman was a staunch admirer of the French possibilist paradigm. In his Geography and the Social Sciences, Bowman stated. ‘As knowledge of the world spread the association of event or condition with place widened, they became more complex, they had less or more significance with respect to mankind. The potato and maize plants were unknown to pre-Columbian Europe. Their discovery raised the questions, “Are they useful to the rest of humanity and where can they be grown?” The whole known world was in a sense resurveyed by the rough processes of trial and error and the result has been astounding. These two plants largely changed the economy of Europe. The soil had not changed man; man had gained a little more knowledge through a new plant. An element of one environment had been added to the elements, long fixed of many other environments…. The geographical elements of environment are fixed only in the narrow and special sense of the word. The moment we give them human association they are as changeful as human itself. That is why modern geography has so definitely steered away from determinism and towards a study of types of actually working regional combinations of human and environmental conditions’.
Notwithstanding his firm belief in the possibilist paradigm, Bowman was emphatical in his assertion with regard to man’s variable responses to the physical laws- ‘While the physical laws to which mankind responds are variable in their application and in degree of effect, yet this is also true that all men everywhere are affected to some degree by physical conditions’.
In a significant paragraph of his paper ‘The Pioneer Fringe’, Bowman referred to the part habits of thought used to play in precipitating crisis in civilization- ‘It may be shown that there has never been a civilisation that declined because it exhausted the possibilities of the land. No nation has ever fully developed its frontier. The Earth has never gone back on man, but man has found himself entangled in the unpredictable efforts of his own system. What really happens is that knowledge at the moment of strain, is not great enough to control the forces of nature and of systems of government combined’.
Carl O. Sauer (1924) was an activist of the possibilist movement in the United States during the inter-war period. He was, perhaps, more influenced by the German geographer Otto Schluter who focused on the study of the human habitat as the creation and work-place of human groups whose relations are conditioned by their group habitat and heritage. Sauer called for such field studies which aimed at exposing the areal expression of man’s activities.
Man, behaving in accordance with the norms of his culture, performs works on the physical and biotic features of his natural surroundings and transforms them into the cultural landscape. The design of the landscape includes the features of the natural area, and the forms superimposed on the physical landscape by the activities of man, the cultural landscape. To him, Man is the Latest agent in the fashioning of the landscape.
Sauer’s landscape paradigm ‘appears to be an intrinsic part of the possibilist philosophy, the focus of which was the study of on-going processes leading to landscape change up to and including the present and the beginning at the pre-human stage of occupance. The human geographer must be obliged to make cultural procesess the base of his thinking and observation’.
Physical environment should not be conceived as the principal source of explanation for the condition of the humanised cultural landscape, but rather as the setting and environmental patterning upon which agents sculpt their peculiar ideas in ways conditioned by their cultural make-up.
He approached the human use of the Earth ecologically and while he was critical of the paradigm of determinism represented in the United States by Ellen Semple, he himself was strongly influenced by ecological concepts of culture traceable to the same biological sources.
Voskanyan Whittlesey’s concept of ‘sequent occupance’—the view which establishes the genetics of each stage in terms of its predecessor— represents an antithesis of environmental determinism. In a sense, this concept manifests a ‘realistic’ approach to the French concept of genre de vie.
‘Sequent occupance’ tends to recognise the fact that any change in the genre de vie (way of living) of a region inevitably leads to the reappraisal of the significance of resource base. It studies the ways in which each material culture uses a region in its own ways. This is demonstrated in America where most regions experienced a sudden change from the Indian to European culture, and in many parts of Europe which proceeded from agrarian to industrial cultures.
Sequent occupance emphasises the ‘stages in the development of a region not through studies of local differentiation as a result of the long continued and largely undisturbed interplay of man and nature over centuries (as in the France of Blache), but by emphasising how easily shifts in regional character can take place.
Essay # 4. Critique of Possibilism:
The philosophy of possibilism could still be legitimately regarded as a qualification rather than a negation of environmental determinism. Yet, its philosophy became so distorted that by the 1950s it could be seen as a threat to the scientific status of geography as an autonomous discipline.
First, the philosophy sought to hold science to depend on determinism and human geography required ‘laws’ similar in stringency to those of physical science. But this could be met by the recognition that the traditional emphasis on ‘contingence’ and ‘probabilite’ was consistent with modern physics.
Second, the distinctiveness of geography was held to depend on (and be defined by) the relation between society and nature, in which the physical foundation must in large part control the superstructure; ‘logical end of possibilism is economic geography with a scatter of place-names’.
But this was countered by a neo-determinism (probabilism) and then overtaken by the quantitative revolution and its redefinition of geography as spatial science.
More recently, this redefinition itself has been challenged by the supposed revivification of the Vidalian tradition through the rise of humanistic geography. But this often overlooks Vidal’s materialism and relegates the physical environment to a secondary role in the society- nature relationship, rather than the equal role which possibilism originally envisaged.