Abstract

David Livingstone is renowned for his work on the history and philosophy of geography and scientific culture. His writing focuses on contextual histories of the sciences and the relationship between science and religion. During the Hettner Lectures 2001 Livingstone developed further his geographical approach to science studies. In "Knowledge, Space and the Geographies of Science," David Livingstone explores how different historical spaces of knowledge production and consumption contribute to the shaping of scientific knowledge claims. He argues that both scientific practice and the interpretation of scientific theories can best be characterised as located performances. Livingstone’s second lecture traces geographical imaginations of the tropics in the Western world. He reconstructs the processes by which European philosophers, travel writers, medical doctors, artists and cartographers shaped the "exotic" character of the concept "tropics". In an inherently hermeneutic encounter, they helped to establish a feeling of superiority over nature and other civilisations. By taking up basic ideas of Hans-Georg Gadamer on hermeneutics, Livingstone contextualises his second Hettner Lecture in Heidelberg.