On The Influences In The Training of The Physical Geographer From The Contributions of An Anglo-Saxon Geographical Matrix

Abstract

Brazilian physical geography, especially after the diffusion of a mathematical and statistical approach, whether upon a systems theoretical standpoint or the direct search for causal relationships, assisted by the growing support of digital modeling, has come close, deliberately or not, to the Anglo-Saxon, highly empirical, geographical tradition. A landmark of this affiliation was the emergence of a long-standing diatribe between the appreciation of time over other elements involved in the spatial explanation. Its overcoming, in favor of surficial processes of different operational magnitudes, following the second half of the 20th Century, was linked to important changes in social history and their reverberations on Science and its final aims. Contemporarily, a revival of time as a significant variable is accompanied by its adjustment to the thematic necessities of the geographical studies, therefore not a taken for granted a priori category.  Physical geography of Anglo-Saxon derivation is highly dependent on technique, and lately reflects, as do other historical sciences with experimental interfaces, a dependence on the scientific method and the rise of problem situations.