Abstract
This paper is a part of a larger work (Sugiura, 1987, 1989) rethinking the Quantitative Revolution, with reference to the social environment surrounding the discipline of geography, and focusing on specific geographers. One of them is F. K. Schaefer; who greatly influenced on the development of the Quantitative Revolution. A curious fact is noted concerning citation of the “exceptionalism” paper (Schaefer, 1953): inspection of all the papers published in the major American, geography journals-AAAG, Geogr. Rev., Econ. Geogr., and Prof. Geogr. -during the years from 1954 to 1963 reveals that only Blaut (1961) cited the “exceptionalism” paper, in Prof. Geogr.; the only other citations are those of Hartshorne (1954, 1955, 1958) in AAAG to response to Schaefer (1953). In particular, it is very curious that Schaefer (1953) was never referred to in the heated exchange on the Quantitative Revolution in AAAG, Econ. Geogr., and Prof. Geogr. in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
This paper then aims at investigating the academic mysteries surrounding the “exceptionalism” paper, taking into account the social environment surrounding Schaefer: why did Schaefer, who had published no papers in geography journals, suddenly submit the manuscript on methodology to AAAG?; in spite of its later reputation, why was the “exceptionalism” paper rarely cited before the early 1960s? Bunge's (1968) is one of the previous studies relevant to the purpose of this paper; it traced Schaefer's career and succinctly located his academic achievements in the history of geo-graphic thought. Martin's (1989) is another study which made clear a number of details of the publication of the “exceptionalism” paper and about Schaefer's personality. Together with the facts presented in those studies, this paper tackles the above themes, by 1) comparing Schaefer's view of geography with that of McCarty, his academic colleague and the then chairman of the State University of Iowa Geography Department, 2) investigating Schaefer's papers published before the “exceptionalism” paper, and 3) paying attention to the historical setting.
Schaefer, a political refugee from Germany under the Nazis, was forced to change his life style from political-oriented to academic-oriented when he was hired as a full-time geographer at the State University of Iowa. At that time Schaefer, with an interest in methodology, used in his semi-nar the work of Hartshorne(1939), who ranged over the extensive German literature in geography. On the basis of his own reading of the same literature and through discussion in his seminar with Hartshorne in attendance, however, Schaefer came to doubt Hartshorne's interpretation of the German literature as supporting the tradition of idiographic geography. He decided to write a pa-per attacking Hartshorne's errors, with assistance of Bergmann, a logical positivist who was also a refugee. In the early 1950s, when McCarthyism was sweeping over the whole of America, the so-cialist Schaefer was shadowed by the FBI. Schaefer thought, without reason, that Hartshorne, who had been a high ranking officer in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in World War II, gave information about his leftist views to the authorities out of methodological antagonism against him. This motivated Schaefer to complete the “exceptionalism” paper, which advocated nomothetic geography as a “spatial science”, based on logical positivism, in order to defeat Hartshorne's geography. Schaefer's paranoia seems to have been involved in that aim. Owing to his personality in part, Schaefer, who felt a sense of alienation in his Iowa life, may have thought that the “excep-tionalism” paper would revive his reputation.
