Alexander von Humboldt es hoy reivindicado como el primero que entendió el paisaje geográfico en el sentido moderno y también como un referente importante del pensamiento ecologista. No deja de resultar paradójico el que las concepciones de un naturalista que trabajó entre los siglos XVIII y XIX, del último sabio del nacimiento como algunos le califican por su saber universalista, puedan tener en la actualidad relevancia y coincidir con formulaciones actuales en el terreno de la Geografía y de la Ecología, y que además sus ideas no hayan tenido seguidores en esas disciplinas hasta tiempos recientes. Este trabajo trata de profundizar en esas concepciones humboldtianas y en su procedencia, una labor que se considera previa para valorar realmente su influencia actual.
Alexander von Humboldt is today claimed as the first to understand the geographic landscape in the modern sense and also as an important benchmark of ecological thinking. That the conceptions of a naturalist who worked and lived between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the last wise man of the Renaissance as some have qualified him for his universal knowledge, had relevance today and that his ideas coincided with current formulations in the field of Geography and Ecology, seem was paradoxical. And same it’s, on the other hand, that his ideas wouldn’t have had followers in those disciplines until recent times. This paper attempts to explore the conception of Humboldt and in their origin, a task that is considered previous to truly assess their current influence.
