By words alone shall we know

Abstract

Some of the most important geographical concepts—geopolitics, region, and territory—are often decoded according to the norms of the history of ideas, broadly construed. By this, I mean that their ‘genealogies’ as ideas are regarded as providing the key to unlocking their current meaning in relation to how the world works. As such they are thought of as constituting the world as we know it. Practice is seen as deriving from the meaning ascribed to the concept. In certain circumstances, an empirical case can be made for this. But it cannot be presumed to be the case. This idealist epistemology is a rather inadequate basis for the spatial ontology that is more our focus as geographers. We are not primarily interested in the history of ideas/concepts per se, only in how they help us understand real-world phenomena. After a brief review of the dilemma using Ian Hacking’s approach, I question thinking about the three geographical concepts mentioned at the outset to suggest some limitations to the infatuation with the history of ideas.