1. GEO 502 Introduction to Human Geography
Week 3: Determinism, Possibilism and Neo Determinism
Dr. Mukesh Verma
Department of Geography
FNU Lautoka Campus

2. Introduction
All human activity takes place in response to the demand for the satisfaction of human desires and needs. In supplying their material needs, human groups in world generally follow different occupations in which their geographic surroundings and their degree of progress give them the greatest chance of success.
Two different views are identified in the study of the interrelationship between man and his environment.
to maintain the absolute nature of the relationship, which has been labeled Environmentalism or Geographical Determinism.
Geographical Voluntarism or Possibilism; means the will of man is a basic actor both in his own conduct and in his fundamental activities thus denying the influence, if any, of the natural elements on man.

3. The relationship between environment, society, and determinism has been central to geography throughout its early development (e.g., Montesquieu, Ratzel, Semple, Febvre, Videl de la Blache, Huntington, Boas/Sauer etc.) and remained central through the mid-twentieth century.
In the first half of this century it can realise that a simple rule-of-thumb explains the varying fates of the human race: the weather.

4. ''As a rule, people do their best thinking and planning, their minds are most alert and inventive, and they have the best judgment when the thermometer out of doors falls toward freezing at night and rises toward 50 degrees or 55 degrees by day,'' declares Ellsworth Huntington in ''Principles of Human Geography.'' ''In an invigorating climate'' -- like that of Europe and the northern United States -- ''it may also be easier to be honest and sober and self-controlled than in a more enervating one.''

5. Approaches to study human-environment relationships
The post Darwinian period has witnessed several new approaches adapted to examine this relationship.
Determinism: environmental control on human action. Accordingly, history, culture, life-style and stage of development of a social group, society or nation are exclusively or largely governed by the physical factors (like, terrain, climate, fauna and flora) of the environment.
The approach consider humans as passive agents, influenced by the environmental factors, which determine their attitude, decision making and life style.
The first attempts to explain the physical features and the traits of various ethnic groups and their cultures with reference to the influence of natural conditions were made by the Greek and the Roman scholars including Hippocrates, Aristotle, Herodotus and Strabo.

6. Determinism
Determinism is the doctrine which stubbornly postulates that all events are the inevitable result of antecedent conditions and that the human being, in acts of apparent choice is the mechanical expression of his hereditary and past environment.
Determinism emphasizes the dominant influence of physical forces in shaping man's characteristics and his modes of thought and life. According to this view, the mode of life of different people is enforced upon them by the character of their habitat.
Nature determines the kind of work and the mode of life of any people. Man is given only a passive role. Ratzel was responsible for the development of the concepts of determinism, which was further expanded by Huntington.

7. The deterministic concept in geographic literature on human geography continued through the works of scholars, such as Al-Masudi, Al-Idrisi and Ibn-Khaldun, Kant, Humboldt, Ritter, and Ratzel well up to the early twentieth century. This concept grew widespread particularly in the United States from the writings of E.C. Semple and Ellsworth Huntington, who were considered its great exponents.
Ritter and Ratzel were among the first who considered man as an agent who brings change in the landscape.
Febvre placed emphasis on the fact that human beings are an element of the ‘landscape’ – an element whose activity is incorporated in it, a modifying agent of the environment which ‘humanizes’ it.
In geography, according to Febvre, “we deal with man’s work, man’s calculations, man’s movement, the perpetual ebb and flow of humanity; man not the soil or the climate- is ever in the forefront”.

8. Environmental Determinism
Environmental determinism (ED) claim that environmental features directly determine features of human behavior (and hence of society)
ED takes various forms: 
a) Strong claim (environment accounts for most social variation) vs. more moderate one (environment affects some aspects)
b) Various environmental factors might be emphasized (e.g., climate; topography; foodstuffs)
ED was one alternative to racial determinism, and in tune with views on the "psychic unity of mankind" (i.e., notion that thought processes of people everywhere are fundamentally the same, so that diffs. must be due to history of their surroundings rather than being innate)

9. The philosophy of determinism was attacked mainly on two grounds.
ED describe direct effects of climate on human social variation: e.g., hot climates lead to passionate, lazy people who fail to build culture; extremely cold, dark climates lead to morose peoples, while temperate environments are most conducive to elaboration of civilization, etc.
The philosophy of determinism was attacked mainly on two grounds.
First- it had become clear under definite conditions and circumstances that similar physical environments do not produce the same responses. For example, the Greek and the Roman civilisations flourished in the Mediterranean climate. But similar civilisation did not develop in similar climatic conditions in Australia, South Africa, Chile or California.

10. Second, although environment influences humans, they also influence the environment, and the cause and effect relationship of determinism is too simple to explain this. Consequently the idea that humans are controlled by nature was rejected and other geographers stressed the fact that humans were free to choose. When the emphasis is firmly placed on humans rather than nature, and humans are seen as an active force rather than a passive one, the approach is that of possibilism. Lucian Febvre, the first to use the word possibilism, wrote that “there is no necessities, but every where possibilities; and man as master of these possibilities is the judge of their use”.

11. Possiblisim
Vidal de La Blache, reflecting on this, often spoke of environmental possibilities, which led to possibilism.
Febvre was the propounder of the concept of possibilism. This concept indicates that physical environment is passive and man is the active Agent at liberty to choose between a wide range of environmental possibilities.
According to possibilism, the pattern of human activity is the result of the initiative and mobility of man operating within the natural framework. Nowadays the role of natural elements in conditioning, though not controlling human activities, is often lost sight of.

12. Vidal de La Blache opined that the life styles of people were the product and reflections of a civilisation, representing the integrated result of physical, historical and social influences governing human’s relations with his habitat.
He tried to explain differences between groups in identical or similar environment and pointed out that these differences were not the product of the dictates of physical environment but the outcome of other factors, such as variations in attitudes, values and habits.
This concept became the basic philosophy of the school of possibilism.

13. The people begin to understand their environment and the forces of nature with the passage of time. With social and cultural development, humans develop better and more efficient technology. They move from a state of necessity to a state of freedom. They create possibilities with the resources obtained from the environment.
The human activities create cultural landscape. The imprints of human activities are created everywhere; health resorts on highlands, huge urban sprawls, fields, orchards and pastures in plains and rolling hills, ports on the coasts, oceanic routes on the oceanic surface and satellites in the space.
Nature provides opportunities and human being make use of these and slowly nature gets humanised and starts bearing the imprints of human endeavour.

14. To counteract this degrading tendency and to rebuild the old Determinism on a newer footing, some leading geographers are preaching the determinists doctrines in an altered form, which approximates very closely to possibilism.
It is the stop and Go-Determinism propagated by Griffith Taylor, which means one should regulate one's activity as Red light acts for traffic regulations.

15. Neodeterminism or Stop and Go determinism
A geographer, Griffith Taylor introduced a concept which reflects a middle path between the two ideas of environmental determinism and possibilism.
He termed it as Neodeterminism or stop and go determinism.
The concept shows that neither is there a situation of absolute necessity (environmental determinism) nor is there a condition of absolute freedom (possibilism). It means that human beings can conquer nature by obeying it. They have to respond to the red signals and can proceed in their pursuits of development when nature permits the modifications. It means that possibilities can be created within the limits which do not damage the environment and there is no free run without accidents.
The neo-determinism conceptually attempts to bring a balance nullifying the ‘either’ ‘or’ dichotomy.

16. RECENT CHANGES
The post World War II period has witnessed rapid developments in all fields. Human geography has responded by way of addressing the contemporary problems and issues concerning the human society and its welfare.
The new approaches like Positivism appeared as a new approach in the 1950’s, gave emphasis on the use of quantitative techniques to induce greater objectivity in analysing the geographical pattern of various phenomena under study.

17. Scholars such as B.J.L. Berry, David Harvey and William Bunge are among some of the proponents of this approach. This approach was later on criticised for laying excessive emphasis on so called “sterile” quantitative techniques rather than analysing such aspects of people, such as decision-making, beliefs and fears.
As a reaction of positivism emerged behavioural approach, a concept borrowed from psychology. In this approach emphasis was placed on cognitive power of human beings.
The growing inequalities among different regions of the world and within countries along with different social groups especially under the impact of capitalism led to the emergence of welfare approach in human geography.

18. Issues like poverty, regional inequalities in development, urban slums, and deprivation became the focus of geographical studies. D. M. Smith and David Harvey are some of the well known advocates of this approach. The focus of the welfare approach is on ‘‘who gets what, where and how’’?
The “who” refers to the area under review, “what” refers to the various goods (and bads) enjoyed or endured by the population in the form of commodity, services, environmental quality and so on. The “where” reflects the fact that living standards differ according to area of residence. The “how” refers to the process whereby the observed differences arise. The welfare approach now has merged with other lines of inquiry.

19. Conclusion
Humanism is yet another approach in human geography that lays emphasis on the central and active role of humans in terms of human awareness, human agency, human consciousness and human creativity.
The rapid emergence of new approaches in human geography in the last four decades is mainly due to a dramatic shift in human geography from description of the pattern of human phenomena to the understanding of the processes working behind these patterns. In the process human geography has become more humane.

21. THE END Thank you & really