GEOGRAPHICAL THOUGHT BETWEEN SOCIOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE AND IDEOLOGY

The reflection presented here aims at evaluating modes of thoughts, geographical ones in particular, referred to the Sociology of knowledge as conceived by Mannheim in the way he related to the Marxist notion of ideology. However, it is not just about evaluating but also deals with proposing another form of elucidation for the complex relation between, thought, science and ideology in the domain of Social Sciences and geography is included in it. It starts with the Idea that geographical thought brings "geographical ideologies" or "scientific ideologies" only being put in parenthesis. There is not a non ideological place from where the history could be seen clearly without any kind of ideological veil. Raising doubt on crystallized concepts is a methodological principle in order to proceed to elucidation of what is being proposed, that is, understanding the ideological phenomenon in a criticism hermeneutical perspective and also in dialectics. This principle does not deny the existence of ideology, but it takes into consideration that Brazilian geographical analysis in general, when criticizing ideological dimension, starts from a insufficient standpoint and does not reach the complexity relation between science and ideology, science and reality. So, it entails questioning this way of thinking and even what reasoning is being taking for.