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from Barnes (2002), critical geographers are
better at the ‘explanatory-diagnostic’ than the
‘anticipatory-utopian’. Critical geography, for
Barnes, needs ‘an imaginative capacity to
reconfigure the world and our place within it’
(p. 12). This should not entail enforced polit-
ical conformity, of course. However, too often,
the politics that informs critical geography
remains implicit and inchoate. More generally,
what are the assumptions implicit to critical
scholarship? Agger (1998), in a supportive
critique of critical social science, raises con-
cerns that it posits a view of human capacity
that is predicated on ‘an inflated conception of
the powers of human reason and will’ (p. 9).
Another important question concerns the
institutionalization of critical geography. While
critical geographers like to think of themselves
as rebels and outsiders (and were certainly trea-
ted as such by the disciplinary establishment
fifteen years ago), critical enquiry has become
pervasive in geography (Byles, 2001). Critical
geography, Castree (2000, p. 958) notes ‘has
insinuated itself into the very heart of the dis-
cipline’. While this may reflect its analytical
strengths and insights, others worry that insti-
tutionalization has entailed co-optation. Has
critical enquiry lost not only its verve, but also
its commitment to political change?
Such charges have come, in part, from crit-
ical geographers outside the Anglophone
world. For it should be noted that critical geog-
raphy is practiced (often in distinct ways)
across the globe. The particular insights of, for
example, Hungarian (Timar, 2003) or Japanese
(Mizuoka, Mizuuchi, Hisatake, Tsutsumi and
Fujita, 2005) critical geography needs to be
better acknowledged (Bialasiewicz, 2003).
Better linkages should also be forged with
critical scholars in other disciplines.
On this point, the formation of the
International Critical Geography group should
be noted. This is a loose network of like-
minded geographers from Europe, Asia and
North America who embrace internationalism
and critical enquiry (Desbiens and Smith,
1999). A series of innovative workshops and
conferences have been held, beginning with a
gathering in Vancouver in 1998. nkbSuggested reading
Blunt and Wills (2000); Castree and Gregory
(2006).critical rationalism Aphilosophyofscience
developed by Karl Popper (1902–94), asserting
the progressive growth in knowledge through
continued rational criticism. Nothing should besacrosanct; everything should be open to scru-
tiny. While Popper believed that knowledge in
the traditional sense of certainty, or justified
true belief, was unobtainable, sustained rational
criticism would allow us to get ‘nearer to the
truth’ (Popper, 1945, vol. 2, p. 237).
Popper ranged enormously in his philo-
sophical interests over a long life, but two are
particularly germane for critical rationalism.
First, his thesis offalsificationwas devel-
oped in opposition to the verifiability principle
oflogical positivism. Verification, Popper
argued, required that the truthfulness of a sci-
entific statement be unambiguously proven for
every conceivable instance: past, present and
future. This could never happen, said Popper
(1959). Instead, he proposed that scientific
statements are defined by their potential to
be falsified. Science advances not by knowing
what is true, but by knowing what is false.
Second, we have Popper’s ideas about the
growth of human knowledge: he claimed that
scientists begin work not with bare facts (again
logical positivism’s contention), but with
problems to be solved. The starting points
arehypotheses, hunches, conjectures about
potential solutions and then comparisons with
existing theory (Popper, 1963). Should the
new conjecture remain unfalsified and possess
greater ‘empirical content’ than the old theory,
the new should replace the old. By greater
empirical content Popper meant the ability
of the hypothesis to account for hitherto
anomalous results, solve as yet unsolvable
problems or make (correct) predictions about
phenomena not so far predicted. When
Einstein’s theory of relativity was conjectured,
for example, it could not be falsified and
made correct predictions that went beyond
Newton’s old theory. Consequently, the cos-
mos became Einsteinian, science progressed
and human knowledge grew. Behind the latter
lay the strategy of critical rationalism:critical
in that any theory demonstrably false was
eliminated; andrationalin that the best theory,
the one with the most explanatory force and
predictive power, was chosen among those
that remained. There was qualified progress,
but progress nonetheless.
It is odd that critical rationalism, and
Popper’s writings more generally, were only
barely taken up ingeography. Popper’s belief
in realism, rationality and progress, as well as
in the importance of critique, conjecture and
scepticism about ultimate truth, were made
for the discipline at least in its guise as science
during thequantitative revolution. Instead,
geographers clung to various forms ofGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_C Final Proof page 124 31.3.2009 9:45pmCRITICAL RATIONALISM