William Bunge

William Wheeler Bunge Jr. (born 1928, La Crosse, Wisconsin; died October 31, 2013, Canada) was an American geographer active mainly as a quantitative geographer and spatial theorist. He also became a radical geographer and anti-war activist in the US and Canada.

Quotes

• There are two particularly bothersome problems in treating geography as a science. The first problem is concerned with the role of description in geography and the second with the predictability of geographic phenomena.
  • From Bunge's 1962 book "Theoretical Geography"

• Some take the position that description is non-scientific. This position cannot stand.
  • From Bunge's 1962 book "Theoretical Geography"

• The question of predictability is crucial since it is the basic assumption of all theory. The predictability of geographic phenomena depends in turn on the answer to a question: Are geographic phenomena unique or general? If they are unique, they are not predictable and theory cannot be constructed. If they are general, they are predictable and theory can be constructed.
  • From Bunge's 1962 book "Theoretical Geography"

• Science is diametrically opposed to the doctrine of uniqueness. It is willing to sacrifice the extreme accuracy obtainable under the uniqueness point of view in order to gain the efficencies of generalization.
  • From Bunge's 1962 book "Theoretical Geography"

• In order to produce aerial classifications of identical sort no matter what differentiating characteristics are considered, it is necessary that there exist a perfect aerial correlation between all phenomena of human significance. This condition is not met on the earth's surface.
  • From Bunge's 1962 book "Theoretical Geography"

• As an alternative attempt to preserve the region as a concrete unit object, it is possible, but absurd, to insist on some one arbitrary areal classification as sacred and immutable.
  • From Bunge's 1962 book "Theoretical Geography"

• Unlike most other phrases of cartography, metacartography is not directly concerned with the preparation of maps or their psychological impact; rather metacartogrpahy attempts to stand back from the subject to see how maps perform as a device in portraying spatial properties in competition with other devices, such as photogrpahs, pictures, graphs, language, and mathematics.
  • From Bunge's 1962 book "Theoretical Geography"