Abstract

Today anyone intending to integrate the different views that shape modern biogeography must confront the differences inherent to the diverse approaches involved in the discipline. In spite of the attempts to integrate different approaches into one coherent program of synthetical biogeography, the biogeographic arena is getting more and more fragmented due to a plethora of methods, and the ultimate synthesis is getting more and more elusive. The so-called "crisis of biogeography" seems to be related to a more general crisis of reductionistic modern science in its failure to account for the real world problems, as challenged by scientists inspired by postmodern theory. To what extent biogeography assumes and reflects the conflicts, presumptions and challenges inherent to (post)modern science must be kept in mind while analysing the Chilean plant geography.aria.