Vagueness and ambiguities in individual perception pose conceptual and technical problems in the study of spatial choice. These problems may be attributed partially to deficiencies in the set-theoretic structures underlying our models of spatial cognition and evaluation. L. Zadeh's theory of fuzzy sets provides an explicit account of such ambiguities. The potential of this account includes applications in the areas of algebraic and probabilistic choice theory, distance perception, and in temporal and population aggregation.NTENSIVE study of spatial patterns and be-I havior in terms of individual decision-making has been under way for more than a decade. Recent preoccupations and results are epitomized in the volume by Golledge and Rushton.' This, and most other recent work in behavioral geography, leans heavily on several crucial assumptions regarding 1 ) the existence or at least the constructability of action-spaces, life-spaces, mental maps, cognitive opportunity sets and the like; and 2) a value-based epistemology integrating these constructs with postulates on preference, utility, and choice. The power of these assumptions is evident: for example they underpin the scaling methodologies which have dominated recent work. The Golledge and Rushton volume, however, juxtaposes such technical analyses with other contributions, such as those of Burnett and Gould, which reveal continuing insecurity in the ontology and epistemology on which these assumptions are based, especially as they pertain to our most conspicuous single theme-spatial preference and choice.2 Geography and the Philosophy of Mind," in Golledge and Rushton, op. cit., footnote 1, pp. 23-48; and P. Gould, "Cultivating the Garden: A Commentary and Critique on SomeIn view of the continuing scrutiny of the foundations of behavioral geography, it is surprising that little attention has been paid to the implications and limitations imposed by the set-theoretic bases of the assumptions mentioned above. The categories of our descriptive terminology are Boolean: the principle of the excluded middle holds. This principle governs our descriptive partitions of geographic space (into opportunity sets, for example), and the partitions we impute to cognitive space (into choice sets, for example). It also governs the descriptive predicates we assign to sites (for example, the attribute dimensions of shopping alternatives) . Our value-based explanatory frameworks, such as choice functions and binary preference algebras, obey a truth-functional language based on the same principle. The salient assumption of traditional set theory is that set assignments are unambiguous, that is, set characteristic functions assume the values 0 or 1. Using sets and their complements this assumption implies that all universes of entities can be partitioned into exhaustive and mutually exclusive sets.Set-assignment problems in the analysis of spatial choice and repetitive travel are wellknown. Examples are the difficulty of establishing classes of destinations or of their attributes, and...

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For Henry David Thoreau, penetrating landscape observation provided an unfailing point of departure for natural description, ecstatic contemplation, and violently paradoxical social commentary. His texts express, question, naturalize, and deploy many presuppositions about geographic order in the landscape. His writing life, ending in 1862, spanned a time when teleological explanations of the landscape were challenged by the gradual "detheologization" of scientific thought. The new views on the ultimate geographic role of Providence all made some room for empirical, proximate explanations of geography's grand theme: the fit between humanity and the earth. The effect of Thoreau's development from transcendental idealism to a penetrating yet fussy empiricism was to dissolve the unity of the human and natural worlds. His odd, shifting, rhetorical appropriation of place, his resistance to unqualified generalization, and his purported aversion to travel (outside of Concord) all contrast with the path geography took during the second-Darwinian-half of the century. Because he was well informed about the science of his time and about Humboldt and Guyot in particular, and because his texts are rich literary contrivances, geographers may fruitfully examine his work in two ways: first, as a register of educated thought about landscape before geography's modern institutionalization as a discipline, and second, as a complex of written landscapes, inscribing and erasing places in varied ways, expressing the contradictions of early modernism.he idea that human geography can profit by attending more closely to literary explorations of place is hardly new. However, fresh impetus has come from several directions, including the new cultural geography, gender and postcolonial studies, and recent work on symbolic, ideological, textual, and discursive practices (e.

Alternative aggregation assumptions are discussed in the context of probabilistic spatial choice models for localized samples and single‐choice data. Three aggregation schemes are treated: sampling randomness, simply‐aggregated intrinsic randomness and randomly‐aggregated intrinsic randomness. The first and the last are consistent with heterogeneous populations, but simple aggregation imposes strong conditions on population homogeneity. Some implications for cognitive‐behavioral geography are considered in reference to the constant and random utility models.