Issues of Ontological Perspective and Formalization in GIS

In the so-called “Digital Age” of the 21^st century we are privy to an ongoing debate between the merits of increased digitization of our world and the idea that this strengthening focus and reliance on computational method has the real potential to dehumanize and pervert our traditional empirical sciences.  Nadine Schuurman argues in her 2006 piece for the Annals of the Association of American Geographers “Formalization Matters: Critical GIS and Ontology Research” that this debate is unnecessarily distracting within the field of GIScience, and that the ontological focus that many feel is required is now being fully integrated within the discipline itself. 

Addressing the issues raised by many traditionalists within the GIScience field regarding the increased need for perspectives critical of the process of formalizing the conceptual, particularly with respect to those processes involving computational algorithms, needs to acknowledge the concept of “Code Space” (Schuurman, 2006, p. 729).  “Code Space” is the necessary intertwining of computer code with virtually every aspect of our day-to-day lives, including those aspects which are affected by spatial models, analysis and decision making.  Those who may be wary of this increased focus on the computational aspects of GIScience, within the discipline of geography in general, need to recognize that this shift is somewhat inevitable, given society’s prevailing and ubiquitous integration of computers and computer code/algorithms.  Schuurman argues that because this shift is common to every area of modern life, including geography’s formalized representation of the real world, it is necessary for those opposed to the paradigm shift to at least recognize the efforts being made at integrating an awareness of ontological and epistemological principles into GIScience (p. 735).

Expressing any kind of natural or human spatial relationship involving the physical environment is a process of abstraction, of formalizing the conceptual, and of necessarily losing some amount of nuance and detail.  Computer code and models exemplify this simplification, regardless of their attempts at complex accuracy, and at times it is completely necessary to purposely compromise the detailed accuracy of spatial analysis and cartographic information, in order to render it more palatable to certain audiences (p. 730).  Whether it is even possible to produce a completely accurate model or representation of these processes and analytics is a debate between Epistemelogical and Ontological Complexity, and is not likely to ever be truly definitively settled.  Schuurman contends, though, that the implicit acknowledgement and recognition of ontological principles is now becoming a dedicated facet of the disciplines of GIScience, GIS and geography (p. 735).  If the mere recognition that formalization with computational methods raise unique and fundamental ontological and epistemological issues can become innate within the formal framework of these disciplines, the traditionalists should have nothing to fear.  As long as the dialectic remains present, address and awareness of potential issues will abide.

 

Reference source:

Schuurman, N. (2006). Formalization Matters: Critical GIS and Ontology Research. Annals Of The Association Of American Geographers, 96(4), 726-739. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8306.2006.00513.x