48 PHILOSOPHY AND HUMAN GEOGRAPHY
world - is but one of a very large number: from this, Chapman (1977)
argues that a system is a set of objects for which a large number of ~otential
states is feasible, and that the task for a human geographer mvolves
identifying the nature of that feasibleset and the likelihood o~ the observ~d
situation arising. This approach has been taken furthest by Wilson (1970) m
his work on traffic flows, which uses certain information about the system
(where the workers live, where the jobs are, what the transport links are~ to
provide a best-estimate of 'unknowns' about the system (the ~o~mutmg
flows). His model is thus a prediction which can be tested. If it is a weak
prediction (again, the problems of what is_ a satis~actory veri~cation ~re
paramount) he returns to the model and recalibrates it t~ try. and improve its
fit. (Other applications of this procedure now have estimatmg unmeas~red
attributes of a population from those that are known: Johnston, 19850.)
The systems approach makes more explicit the naturalistic a~sumption
underlying the positivist conception _of social science. Systems o~ :nter~st to
human geographers are treated as ij they were machines, compnsmg linked
working parts which have little or no independent existence and. whose
positions in the system are predetermined. This is associated with the
structural-functionalist approach to sociology advanced by Merton (1957).
According to this, a system (e.g. a society, or a component of a socie~ysuch
as an individual organization) comprises a set of elements, each of which has
a fixed place and function related to the system's goals: The nat~re o~ t~e
system is fixed, therefore, and should be dissected readily. Also fixed is its
dynamic of change. The relationship between elements may not be
unalterable. The changes that occur result from the operations of the system
itself (which may be exceedingly complex, as recent mathematical work in
human geography has indicated: Wilson, 1981), however, so t~at :han.ge
results from the operation of internal, not external, forces, which implies
teleology. Identification of the forces for change provides a basis for even
more sophisticated systems' control, and is the goal of work on the research
frontier.
Positivism, empiricism and empirical research
In human geography (as in other social sciences: Platt, 1981) the term
positivism has been used pejoratively by some,, to .a:t~c~ tho:e w~ose
research - according to the critics - adopted the positrvisnc attitude . In
particular, quantification has sometimes been. eq~:.ltedwith positivism (a~,
implicitly, in Sayer, 1984), so that guantlt;t1ve ~ese~rch (some of '.t
undertaken by those who call themselves quantltanve geographers :
Bennett, 1985) has been a focus of the anti-positivist critique. The response
to this has been to stress that although much empirical analysis is indeed
rigorous in its use of certain methodological procedures derived from the
POSITIVIST APPROACHES 49
natural sciences it does not promote the search for universal laws. In the
terms of Giddens' (1974) definition of the 'positivistic attitude' (seep. 18),
therefore, the first supposition (basically the assumption of realism; p. 28) is
accepted; the second (the formulation of law-like generalizations) is not;
and the third (the assumption of social engineering) may be.
A strong case can be made in support of this counter to the anti-positivist
critique, if its foundation is a misplaced equation of quantification with
positivism (johnston, 1986b). Quantification is a tool that can be used in
any of the approaches discussed in this book, as illustrated by Ley's (1974)
humanistic study of a Philadelphia neighbourhood and Archer and Taylor's
(1981) realist analysis of United States presidential elections. As Taylor
(1981) expresses it with regard to factor analysis, it is
best considered as simply a measurement technique ... any research employing
this tool is ultimately to be assessednot on technical grounds but in terms of the
overall social model underlying the research (p. 251).
Indeed, Chouinard, Fincher and Webber (1984) argue that there is a great
deal of similarity in the empirical research procedures of both positivist and
realist approaches (see p. 111 ); each produces hypotheses regarding the
empirical worid being studied, and may evaluate those hypotheses using
statistical procedures, but only the former applies the results of such
evaluation in a law-building procedure.
Those who defend quantitative research against the charge that it is
necessarily positivist argue that such a simplified representation involves a
gross distortion of much empirical work. That some of it was indeed set in a
positivist mould is not denied: Bennett (1981a), for example, admits that it
consciously sought objectivity, technical expertise, spatial description and
inductive approaches directed towards revealing universal laws which might be
used to plan and control (p. 13).
His own case is that objectivity, technical expertise and applied use are
desirable aspects of human geography (hence his call for an 'applied
quantitative geography': Bennett, 1985), but that the search for laws is not.
But if there are no laws - or generalizations - how can the results of the
technical expertise be applied?
A similar, eventually paradoxical, argument has been presented by
Golledge. In responding to a critique of behavioural geography by Bunting
and Guelke (1979), he argued (Golledge, 1981) that
there are substantial differences between the philosophy of logical positivism and
a positivist philosophy. The latter, although entrenched firmly in scientific
procedures is nowhere as epistemologically constrained as logical positivism
(p. 1333).