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| THE PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE OF YI-FU TUAN'S HUMANISTIC GEOGRAPHY |
| LI Xi |
| College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Peking University, Beijing 200871, China |
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Abstract As a humanistic geographer, Yi-fu Tuan was influenced by the development of philosophy in the 20th century very deeply. The article focuses on three fields that made big impact on his ideas:pragmatism,phenomenology and semiotics. William James, on behalf of Pragmatists, inspired his ideas on "everyday experience" with its coherence and relevance. Pragmatist ideas tend to describe the creature as an organism which unite the "many" into one that every parts are connected and interacted with each other. Tuan admits that our knowledge about geography actually originates in everyday life which varies and correlative in generating the "Topophilia". Susanne Langer provided the semiologic perspective in reading architecture and urban in the cultural background. She defined the "image" (or a sign) as a visual form in our sentimental world,instead of the physical objects. Both Langer and Tuan emphasized the correspondence of the visual sign with its maternal culture in the classical civilization, and they also pointed out the correspondence has collapsed in the modern time. Phenomenology plays a more significant role in his views, which are mainly reflected not only in the critique on the "digitalized methods" in geographical science, but his core concept "sense of place" with his concerns on the issues of time and human perception. Thus, his main task in humanistic geography is how to shift the study of pure space into "Place" with thick humanistic characteristics. Within his research, the idea of "home", enlightened by Gaston Bachelard, locates in the core of both the cosmological construction and human spirit. Furthermore, the way of description and induction he employs to present the human experience derives from phonological assumption. The article at last mentions his connection with Chinese wisdom, and tend to demonstrate that his blending of eastern and western thoughts have made effects on his creative and original theory in humanistic geography.
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Received: 10 May 2014
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2014, Vol. 29 
