Geosophy
Encyclopedia
Geosophy is a concept introduced to geography
by J.K. Wright
in 1947. The word is a compound of ‘ge’ (Greek for earth) and ‘sophia’ (Greek for wisdom). Wright defined it thus:
This has been summarised as:
Belief systems as they relate to human interaction with the Earth's environments.
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
by J.K. Wright
John Kirtland Wright
John Kirtland Wright was an American geographer, notable for his cartography, geosophy, and study of the history of geographical thought. He was the son of classical scholar John Henry Wright and novelist Mary Tappan Wright, and the brother of legal scholar and utopian novelist Austin Tappan...
in 1947. The word is a compound of ‘ge’ (Greek for earth) and ‘sophia’ (Greek for wisdom). Wright defined it thus:
- Geosophy ... is the study of geographical knowledge from any or all points of view. It is to geography what historiography is to history; it deals with the nature and expression of geographical knowledge both past and present—with what Whittlesey has called ‘man’s sense of [terrestrial] space’. Thus it extends far beyond the core area of scientific geographical knowledge or of geographical knowledge as otherwise systematized by geographers. Taking into account the whole peripheral realm, it covers the geographical ideas, both true and false, of all manner of people—not only geographers, but farmers and fishermen, business executives and poets, novelists and painters, Bedouins and Hottentots—and for this reason it necessarily has to do in large degree with subjective conceptions.
This has been summarised as:
- the study of the world as people conceive of and imagine it
Belief systems as they relate to human interaction with the Earth's environments.
- (attributed to Professor Innes Park 1995)