A natureza da geografia e seus métodos em Alfred Hettner

Abstract

Since Humboldt, Ritter, Ratzel and others, until Hettner, German geography investigated and theorized important geographical issues and brought great contributions to the history of geographical thought. In this study, the work of Hettner is the focus of our analysis, particularly regarding to the methodological contributions of this author. We investigate the conjuncture of the History of Geographical Thought in the second half of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century in Germany and we also discuss the main geographical concepts developed by Germans. Aside, this work aims to contribute to the clarifying of the geographical thought, especially the thought of an author unknown in Brazil, as Alfred Hettner. We believe that what stands out in Hettner s proposal is an absence of a dichotomy in the relationship between men and nature and the definition of geography as an autonomic science, which has land as its historically defined object of study. Inserted in the classification of Comte as concrete science, according to Hettner, geography is a chorological and systematical science, which directs our attention to things in space. His thought not only was spread out through Germany, but also through France and United States of America, and becoming a theoretical basis in the history of geographical thought, which was later on assimilated by important authors, such as Richard Hartshorne