THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE: THEIR RELATIONS WITH PHENOMENOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY

Abstract

What are the relations of thought and language with Geography? This theoretical discussion, based on the thinking of philosophers Ernst Cassirer and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, relate the constructions that occur in consciousness with the materiality of human actions that are expressed in space. The argument based on phenomenological thinking breaks with the subject-object dichotomy, and demonstrates, through examples, the imbrications of human consciousness with the world that surrounds it. In this way, thought and language have both a concrete and a symbolic function. Since Geography is the science whose object of study is geographic space, this research demonstrates that space is not only composed of material and concrete objects, but also encompasses immaterialities, composed of imaginations, fantasies, dreams and feelings. Through thought and language we manage to become aware of the world, we establish relationships with space, and appropriate it through consciousness and actions.