Geosophy as a scientific discipline: issues of methodology and metatheory

Abstract

Today is characterized by a dialectical combination of opposite processes in the development of science - differentiation, expressed in the emergence of new analytical, sectoral disciplines, and integration, which consists of the design of synthetic, complex disciplines mainly at the frontiers of science. One of the relatively young synthetic geographic disciplines is geosophy, which originated about a hundred years ago at the boundary of geography and philosophy. The object of geophysical research is human space, that is, space perceived and conceived by man. For a hundred years, this scientific discipline has undergone a difficult path of development, due to both internal, expressed in the nature of the discipline itself, and external (ideological, geopolitical, etc.) factors. Nowadays, post-non-classical methodological approaches are becoming more widely used in geosophy - besides geosophical, it is noospheric, synergistic, eco-evolutionary and passionate. They are based on a fundamentally new relationship between the subject and the research object, qualitatively different from what has traditionally been recognized as classical and non-classical geography. One feature of post-non-classical approaches is subject-object convergence. In particular, the content of the geophysical approach is to consider geographical features as totals that represent the interpenetrating unity of the mineral, organic and human components. Possibilities of its application exist in almost all sections of geography. A special place among the theoretical and methodological foundations of science is metatheoretical provisions - scientific developments that substantially go beyond this science. An essential feature of metatheory as an important attribute of science is its integrating role, both internally (enhancing systemic links between particular branches of science) and external (establishing and strengthening interdisciplinary links between the sciences of one cycle). Formation of metatheory involves the use of theoretical foundations, methods, approaches, evidence of other sciences, which has a verifiable, reflective, integrative and ideological significance. One of the main ones in all geography is the category of landscape. The ambiguity of its interpretation attests to the fundamental importance of this concept, its exceptional role in the knowledge of the Earth’s surface as a multidimensional reality. From the diversity of landscape understandings, two basic concepts stand out. The content of one of them, dating back to the 19th century, is to see the landscape as a general picture of the terrain, which from the point of view is interpreted as totality. From other positions, designed in the early twentieth century, the landscape is understood as a real existing natural material object, characterized by genetic homogeneity, the presence of vertical and horizontal structure and clearly defined boundaries. The coexistence of the aforementioned landscape concepts and the search for possibilities of combining them is one of the important theoretical problems of modern geography, in particular, geosophy.