Tuesday, November 4, 2014

GIS Tools for Critical Thinking

GIS is a literal and metaphorical set of tools for critical thinking. Taking inspiration from two books (Daniel Dennett's Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking; and Gilles Deleuze's Spinoza) "GIS Tools for Critical Thinking" is a planned Place Memes mini-series.

These short conceptual reflections (of which I have approximately 100 potential sketches listed in my notebook) will go beyond the glossary or dictionary format, towards what Deleuze was doing in Spinoza, namely, adumbrating or outlining a new theory of practice.

My new theory of GIS practice is a radical programme for transforming how we think about GIS.  It is also a radical re-thinking of thought itself using GIS tools to drive the programme.  Dennett's memes are relevant here for deconstructing all-too-easy assumptions about what (we think we know) GIS is in order to transform what GIS can be.

Philosophical and practical implications will be considered without distinguishing between theory and practice.  For example, I would like to begin by examining overlay and proximity metaphors as used not only by John Snow, but also by poets, philosophers and critical geographers.  Stay tuned


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