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Theoretical Knowledge Classification and Position of Geography in the Sciences System

https://doi.org/10.7868/S2658697526020049

Abstract

The aim of the research is to integrate scientific knowledge with the justification of its position in classification and the definition of its generally significant meaning and semantic significance by means of hermeneutics. This will help us to discover new scientific laws and patterns by starting from a meta-theoretical level of generalization. The use of mathematical research methods, such as differential geometry, allows us to apply hermeneutic ideas to all fields of knowledge. This offers mathematical tools for systematic analysis and statistical data processing. In this context, geography can be seen as a quantitative form of hermeneutics that has analogues in qualitative (conceptual) and mathematical interpretations of knowledge. In all its forms, hermeneutics acts as a metageographic framework that establishes the rules for the development and formation of scientific geography. It is a set of theories, models, and methods borrowed from other disciplines to study the states and changes in spatial systems, including natural, economic, and social systems. The new classification of scientific knowledge presents a hierarchical structure, or pyramid, starting with meta-science and mathematics at the top, followed by philosophical, empirical, and mathematical hermeneutics. Geography is included as a specific case within these sectors. This includes various special system theories and conceptual and mathematical models, based on reliable data from field studies, statistical analysis, and computer calculations. This is how the entire range of geographical work is carried out, starting with the collection of primary information and its final hermeneutic interpretation in the form of knowledge maps about the current state of the geographical environment, including geographical maps of territories.

About the Author

A. K. Cherkashin
Sochava Institute of Geography, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Federation

Irkutsk



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Cherkashin A.K. Theoretical Knowledge Classification and Position of Geography in the Sciences System. Izvestiya Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk. Seriya Geograficheskaya. 2026;90(2):316–330. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.7868/S2658697526020049

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