INTEREST in place and in the meaning of place is universal.
The academic discipline that studies place is geography.
Geographers have approached the study of place from two
main perspectives: place as location, a unit within a hierarchy of
units in space; and place as a unique artifact. Thus we have a
growing literature on "central-place" theory on the one hand, and
on the other a small body of work devoted to depicting the unique
character of individual places, mostly towns and cities. Where we
gain systematic knowledge it is highly abstract and remote from
experience; where we gain complex understanding it is restricted
to particular localities. People's largely unformulated desire to
know more about place remains not entirely assuaged by the offerings
of specialists. In belles-lettres we find indeed eloquent
evocations of place, but these evocations add up to a long gallery
of individual portraits with no hint as to how they might be related.
Is it possible to stay close to experience in the study of place
and yet retain the philosophical ideal of systematic knowledge?
The answer is yes, and the key to such an approach lies in the
nature of experience.
Experience is a cover-all term for the various modes through
which a person knows his world.1 Some sensory modes are more
passive and direct than others. With taste, smell, and touch we feel
as though we are simply registering sensations provoked by external
stimuli. With hearing, and particularly with seeing, we
seem to be actively exploring the world beyond us and getting to
know it objectively. Seeing is thinking, in the sense that it is a
discriminating and constructive activity; it creates patterns of reality
adapted to human purposes. Even taste, smell, and touch are
affected by thought in the above sense: they discriminate among
stimuli and are able to articulate gustatory, olfactory, and tactual
worlds. A wine taster can be said to "think" with his educated
palate; likewise a cloth feeler "thinks" with his sensitive fingers.
There is, however, an important distinction between the passive
and active modes of experience: the sensations of the passive
mode are locked inside individuals and have no public existence.
What we see can be presented in pictures and maps, to which all
have access. Pictures and maps are public. What we think is capable
of embodiment in languages of varying degrees of technicality.
But the special quality of a fragrance, taste, or touch cannot be
projected onto a public stage other than through pictorial and
linguistic means. Artists are admired because, to a degree, they
can objectify intimate feelings in a painting, a sculpture, or in
words. Few people have this skill. Returning from a vacation we
can articulate visual experience with colored slides and incidents
with words, but the exhilarating olfactory and tactile experiences
remain buried in our private selves. Sensitivity cannot be shared
the way thoughts can.