地理学第一定律之争及其对地理学理论建设的启示

The enlightenment of geographical theories construction from the First Law of Geography and its debates

地理学理论尤其是定律的争论,实质上反映着不同时代背景下地理学认识的发展,TFL(Tobler's First Law of Geography)之争就是一个典型案例。在这场争论中,地理学理论的建设超出了传统的以科学哲学为基础的理论思考,出现了科学社会学对地理学理论的反思这一新的视角。以TFL的合理性为基础,地理学家论证了TFL在匀质空间和非匀质空间中的合理性,并强化了地理学的时间和空间维度。在论证过程中,早期的例外论之争、计量革命和理论革命都被提及,而其关联的基础之一是GIS和GISscience的发展及其对现代空间的表述和解读。而且,TFL之争以"邻近"为核心,在理论上与研究维度、尺度及其转换和时间地理学结合起来,构建了以"邻近"为核心的"维度—尺度—地域"关系体系。

Debates about geographical theories reflected the different backgrounds in geographical practice,and they explained,demonstrated,and contributed to the development of geographical theories.The debate about Tobler＇s First Law of Geography（TFL hereafter） is a typical case.According to Waldo Tobler,everything is related to something else,but close things are more related to each other than distant things.However,along with the development of GIS and GISscience since the 1960s,whether TFL was still right,especially as the First Law of Geography,was one main subject under discussion in the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers in 2003.In this meeting,some geographers demonstrated the rationality of TFL in homogeneity space,strengthened the time dimension,and the transformation of dimensions of space and scale in time and space.Some geographers also demonstrated the rationality of TFL in heterogeneity space.At the same time,there were other debates such as criticism on exceptionalism,quantitative revolution and theoretical revolution,which emerged in the background of the development of GIS and GISscience.On the other hand,these debates were useful to construct geographical theories from new perspectives that showed concern on dimension,scale and time geography.What＇s more,there emerged a new scientific view about geographical theories construction,i.e.the view of sociology of science,which is different from the conventional philosophy of science.With these two interweaving perspectives,the views about the construction of geographical theories became more complex.This paper is not only a comment or an introduction to TFL,but the dialogues between those who follow closely to this question,including scholars and authors,which are also emphasized in order to make the debate go further.The purpose of this paper is to reveal the TFL debate and the relationship among this debate and the previous debates on geographical theories,with the current focus on the reconstruction of geographical theories.On the basis of the above,with ＂proximity＂ as the core,this paper constructs the relationship among dimension,scale and scale transformation,time geography,namely the relationship system of ＂dimension-scale-areas＂.