Geography, Marx and the Concept of Nature

Abstract

An understanding of is fundamental to the manner in which science sees and conducts itself, yet the concept is generally taken for granted. Nature is constituted as an external repository of facts that live according to autonomous natural laws. The nature of natural science is deemed autonomous from human activity while that of social science is seen as socially created. Geography has been particularly resistant to simplistic, contradictory concepts of nature. Mainly concerned with the relationship between human kind and nature, geographers have generally been more sensitive to the complexity of nature and less willing to see it in simple dualistic terms. Nature separate from society had no meaning for Marx; is always related to societal activity. He meant this materially as well as ideally; the entire earth bears on its face the stamp of human activity. Under capitalism, the relation with is a use-value relation only in the most subordinate sense.