GEO 466/566: The Profession of Geography
Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Ritter
The end of geography's ancient period, and indeed the beginning of the modern era, came in the mid-1800s with the work of two men:
- Alexander von Humboldt
- Carl Ritter
They were both incredible scholars in the classical sense.
- they both pursued knowledge at a level that is unattainable
today, at a universal level
- they were likely two of the last such individuals
Alexander von Humboldt
The first of these two scholars—Alexander von Humboldt—was a major individual
in the history of geography
- his views of geography were remarkably advanced and ahead of their time
-first, he viewed the earth as an inseparable organic whole, all parts
of which were mutually interdependent, including man
-he also firmly believed in scientific procedure, stressing inductive reasoning in the tradition of Aristotle
-though he began first with particulars and moved towards
generalizations, his objective was never simply to
measure one kind of phenomenon in nature
-instead, his aim was to illustrate the manner in which
the many phenomena of nature interact with each
other at different places on the earth
-he thus firmly believed that only by understanding the
interconnections of phenomena could you evaluate
any one of them
-clearly in the category of geography was his stress on the distribution
of phenomena in nature over mere classification of forms
-also in the geographical category, von Humboldt was a regionalist in
the area studies tradition
- who was von Humboldt? what was his background?
-he was born in Berlin to aristocratic Prussian parents in 1769
-as his father died when he was young, von Humboldt was raised by
his mother
-in 1789, he began attending the University of Göttingen
-there he studied physics and archaeology
-there he also met Georg Forster, who played an important role in von Humboldt's development
-he had travelled around the world with James
Cook on his 2nd voyage
-from his perspective, he encouraged von
Humboldt to study geography
-he also took Alexander on a trip to the Rhineland,
the Netherlands, England, and France
-combining his new-found interests in botany and field work,
Humboldt planned a trip to Egypt with the eminent
French botanist, Aimé Bonpland in 1796, shortly after the
death of his mother
-when this trip failed to materialize, the two scholars journeyed
overland to Spain, specifically Madrid
-plans for another trip formulated when von Humboldt met with
the Spanish prime minister
-because of his aristocratic background and his obvious
intellect, von Humboldt was granted permission to
visit the Spanish colonies in America
Travels in America
The travels of von Humboldt and Bonpland were some of the most remarkable—
and important—in history
- the two left Spain in 1799, arriving in Venezuela later that year
- they began exploring the area around Caracas
- in 1800, they undertook an incredible exploration of the Orinoco River
-they traced the river all the way to its headwaters deep in the Amazon
rainforest
-they proved that the Rio Negro, a tributary of the Amazon, was in the
process of "capturing" these headwaters
- after a trip to Cuba, von Humboldt and Bonpland returned to South America
to Cartegena, Colombia
- in 1801, they began their equally impressive exploration of the northern
Andes Mountains
-they lugged numerous scientific instruments with them with which
von Humboldt methodically measured and recorded the:
-longitude and latitude
-elevation
-temperature
-his observations were numerous and diverse, but especially concerned
vegetation and agriculture
-out of his accurate observations of vegetation and his equally accurate
measurements of altitude, Humboldt recognized a remarkable
plant distribution in the Andes
-von Humboldt also investigated the many volcanoes of the
northern Andes, especially thos of Ecuador
- from Lima, Peru, von Humboldt and Bonpland continued their journey
up the South American coast to Mexico, which they reached in 1803
-there, von Humboldt studied Mexican population statistics
- after yet another stop over in Cuba, the pair visited the United States before
returning to France in 1804
- on the basis of the findings of his 5 year trip in the Americas, von Humboldt
wrote 30 volumes between 1805 and 1834
Travels in Russia
Von Humboldt's travels were not limited to Europe and the Americas; he also
travelled widely in Russia.
- in 1829, he began a journey from Russia well into Siberia, even as far as
Mongolia
-visited the Urals and the mountains of Central Asia
-visited the Caspian Sea
- all the while he recorded temperatures
-he noted that temperatures varied at the same latitude in accordance
with distance from the ocean
-as temperature data was collected from a series of Russian weather
stations, von Humboldt constructed a world map of temperature
- from this he developed the theory of continentality
The Kosmos
In the last years of his life, von Humboldt wrote the work he is probably most
famous for—The Kosmos.
- as the name implies, it was a treatise on the universe as it was known in the
mid-1800s
- it was the most sophisticated scientific work ever produced up to that time
-it covered virtually every discovery about the earth that was known
to von Humboldt
-most important to geography, it covered every aspect of physical
geography then known, laying the foundation for this branch
of our discipline
Carl Ritter
Another great scholar of that very same age was Carl Ritter.
- he was also very important to geography
- he may even have been a greater synthesizer than von Humboldt
Background:
- Ritter was born in 1779, ten years after von Humboldt
- like von Humboldt, Ritter lost his father at an early age and was raised by his
mother
- unlike von Humboldt, Ritter's family was neither aristocratic nor wealthy
-this fact might have prevented Ritter from receiving an education, or
at least a good one
-fortunately for geography and scholarship at large, Ritter did receive a
good education as part of an experiment with new teaching
methods
-much of Ritter's instruction was carried out by a geographer,
who encouraged Ritter to draw conclusions based on his
observations
-as a result of his education, Ritter decided on a career as a
geography teacher
- as he learned about the world, he began writing
-in 1817, we wrote a volume on Africa that became an overnight
phenomenon
- in 1820, on the strength of this book, he was appointed to the first university
position in geography in Germany, at the University of Berlin
-in this regard, he was very much unlike von Humboldt, who never held a university teaching position
Views of geography:
- "unity in diversity"
-from an early age, Ritter had made repeated observations of nature
-from these observations, he developed the idea of unity in diversity
-he, like von Humboldt, recognized the great complexity of
nature
-within this complexity, however, there was unity because of
the interconnectedness of phenomena
-Ritter once wrote the following:
"The earth and its inhabitants stand in the closest
mutual relations, and one element cannot
be seen in all its phases without the others."
-again, these ideas are very much like those of von Humboldt
- "new scientific geography"
-to pursue studies of unity in diversity, Ritter advocated the study of
geography
-however, he did not recommend the "old" geography
-he disliked mere description and summaries of facts as an
end unto themselves
-instead, he called for a "new" geography
-by this he meant understanding interconnections and
interrelations in nature—again, unity in diversity
- inductive studies
-Ritter firmly believed that to pursue the new geography, one had to
use induction
-by this he meant that geographers should make observation
after observation after observation until general laws
became apparent
-he despised deductive studies, in which students made
observations of nature as a result of or to try to prove
preconceived notions
-in this manner, he was very much like von Humboldt, following in
the tradition of Aristotle
-strangely, however, Ritter formulated few laws in his writings
- regionalism
- teleology
-if Ritter's work has received one major criticism, it is that it was
teleological, meaning that nature existed for some specific
purpose or reason
-Ritter was a highly religious person, and this influence his
scholarship
-not only did he feel, as did von Humboldt, that nature was an
organic whole—again, unity—but also that it had a divine
arrangement or plan given by God
-as part of this plan, Ritter felt that the earth had been created by
God as the home of man
-this was different than von Humboldt, as von Humboldt did not
consider the role of God in nature
Die Erdkunde
The culmination of Ritter's work was Die Erdkunde.
- this was intended to be a comparative geography of the world's major
regions
Observations on Ritter
To make some observations of Ritter's work, we can say that:
- he was not a field researcher
-travelled very little outside of Europe, nowhere near what von
Humboldt did
-instead, he relied more heavily on other people's observations
- he was mainly a human geographer, again in contrast to von Humboldt
-man occupied the center of his studies, while man was only one of the
many objects of study to von Humboldt
-because of this, Ritter believed in close ties between geography
and history
-he did not, however, ignore physical geography, just as von Humboldt
did not ignore human geography
-Ritter mainly used physical geography to identify habitats of
humans or to delineate regions of settlement
- he was more influencial as a teacher than von Humboldt, and thus had
a more direct influence on the growth of German geography
-he received the first chair in geography in any German university
-after his death, it was several years before another position that
we can identify as a chair in geography was filled
-as a result of his teaching, he had many students
-as these students matured, the ideas they received from Ritter
shaped the overall character of the German geographical
tradition
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Created by JTK; last revised on 14 October 1996.