Making Explicit the Implicit, Idealized Understanding of “Map” and “Cartography”

This paper responds to Mark Denil’s recent exposition in this journal of a conceptual theory of map. Denil advances a universalist position, that there exists an essential character of mapness that characterizes all maps. A key element of Denil’s essay is the dismissal of a strawman anti-universalism. This paper reasserts an anti-universalist understanding of maps and cartography to reveal the flaws in Denil’s essay.