Contents • • • • Determinism Philosophy of Determinism is based upon the interaction between primitive human society and strong forces of nature. This is an older philosophy which persisted till World War II. It says that the strong forces of environment control the course of human action. This implies that the history, culture, mode of life, and the level of development of the societal groups and countries are exclusively or largely controlled by the physical environment. • According to Determinism, man is a passive agent, and nature is active agent, which controls and determines the action and decision-making processes of man. • As per determinism, the human actions can be explained as a response to the natural environment.
The controversy between geographical possibilism and determinism might be considered as one of (at least) three dominant epistemologic controversies of contemporary geography.
Environmental determinism This philosophy says that aspects of physical geography, particularly climate, influenced the psychological mind-set of individuals, which in turn defined the behaviour and culture of the society that those individuals formed. For example, tropical climates were said to cause laziness, relaxed attitudes and promiscuity, while the frequent variability in the weather of the middle latitudes led to more determined and driven work ethics. • The core philosophy is that the supreme achievements of civilisation in any region were always bound up with a particular type of climate and variation in climate led to pulsations in the history and culture of the people. These geographers who propound this theory say that the civilisations of Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Indus-valley, disappeared because of the climatic changes. The attacks of the central Asian nomads in different directions in the 13 th century were also attributed to the drying up of their pastures directions of climatic change. Possibilism Possibilism is reaction to determinism and environmental determinism.
It is based upon the assumption that environment sets certain constraints or limitations, but culture is otherwise determined by social conditions. This theory says that the true and only geographical problem is that to utilisation of possibilities. Essence of Possibilism is that: • Nature provides possibilities and man utilises them according to his culture, traditions, and levels of socioeconomic development. • People are not just the products of their environment or just pawn of natural environment. • Nature is never more than an adviser. • There are not necessities but everywhere possibilities.
• The range of possibilities in every region is limited more by the price man is willing to pay of what he wants than by the dictates of environment. For instance, man through his technical skill can grow banana, rice and rubber plants in tundra, Greenland, and Antarctica, but he has to take into consideration the input cost. • The prohibitive cost of production of these crops in the extremely cold conditions of these areas will compel man not to grow them in the tundra climate. This approach has been criticised on several accounts. For example, despite numerous possibilities, man, has not been able to get rid of the obstacles set by the physical forces. The possibilities may be many in the temperate regions but they are very limited in the deserts, equatorial, tundra, and high mountainous regions. Neo-determinism Australian geographer Griffith Taylor, in 1920 argued that the limit of agricultural settlements in Australia has been set by factors of the physical environment such a distribution of rainfall.
He further said that the best economic programme for a country to follow has in large part been determined by nature,and it is the geographer’s duty to interpret this programme. Man is able to accelerate, slow, or stop the progress of a country’s regions development. But he should not, if he is wise, depart from directions as indicated by natural environment. He is like the traffic controller in a large city who alters the rate but not the direction of progress. • This theory is also called ‘’stop and go determinism’’. • It says that man follows nature’s plan only if he is wise, presuming he can act foolishly,which admits the possible contention that within broad limits set by environment, man can choose at the very least. But wisdom and folly are human concepts.
The nature knows nothing of them. • This theory says that in no environment are the possibilities limitless and for every choice a price must be paid. 
Man makes his choice and man himself judges its relative wisdom or folly by reference to goals he himself has established.
Environmental Determinism and Possibilism: Shaping and Reshaping Life Since the Beginning of Time Possibilism and Environmental Determinism, both completely different in theory, and yet so very linked in purpose. Environmental Determinism is the idea that the environment shapes its inhabitants, and will --or will not-- provide for them to accomplish their goals. While Possibilism is the idea that mankind –for this example it will be routinely mankind and not another species—can accomplish their goal(s) because it is possible or could become possible with assistance, such as training, tools, equipment, specialized environmental gear, etc. These two ideas can be almost as conflict-ridden as Creationism and Evolution, with both sides of the fight drawing lines in the sand and rallying behind them. Hopefully the reader of this essay will find that Environmental determinism and Possibilism may have different theories, but are not so different when considered towards a problems beginning and ultimately its end. Examples of Environmental Determinism could be tropical viruses that cannot flourish outside tropical zones, bananas and their inability to thrive naturally in Vermont, humans not being able to breathe under water, and amusingly: pigs not being able to fly. All of these examples are limited to where and what they can do because they cannot escape their environment, as it has shaped them as much as they it.