A map as optics

Abstract

The tradition and practice of both strictly cartographic mapping of reality and techniques of reflecting topography developed on the basis of the humanities and social sciences put the map at the centre of the discourse. In these considerations, the map has been treated as a capacious interpretive optics, ranging from the objective projection of the spatial situation onto a surface according to specific rules, to a critical humanistic narrative, even to assuming non-indifference within reception and documentation of reality. Map as an optics oscillates between the objec- tifying cartometric diagnosis and the personalizing, intentional finding. In both scenarios, the goal is to arrive at the truth (or just probability), to see changes in the gradient of features, and to note differences and similarities. In both cases, it is important to express the regularity and idiomaticity of the world. The reflection on purely cartographic mapping (mainly focused on classification) and humanistic mapping (which takes into account conceptualization and prob- lematisation) was outlined as an attempt to answer three questions: what for? how? who / for whom? One conclusion is that a map is an epistemological medium and ontological evidence.