Gardening - Philosophy for Everyone: Cultivating Wisdom

263 Pages·2011·6.36 MB·English

by  Cooper, David E.;O'Brien, Dan;Allhoff, Fritz

Edited by Dan O’Brien
GARDENING
PHILOSOPHY FOR EVERYONE
Cultivating Wisdom
Foreword by David E. Cooper
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
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VOLUME EDITOR
DAN O’BRIEN is a Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes U niversity,
an Honorary Research Fellow at Birmingham University, and an
Associate Lecturer with the Open University. He is the author of
An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge (2006) and Hume’s
“Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding”: A Reader’s Guide
(with Alan Bailey, 2006). In addition, he has recently edited a special
volume of Philosophica on the epistemology of testimony.
SERIES EDITOR
FRITZ ALLHOFF is an Assistant Professor in the Philosophy
Department at Western Michigan University, as well as a Senior
Research Fellow at the Australian National University’s Centre for
Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. In addition to editing the
Philosophy for Everyone series, Allhoff is the volume editor or co-editor
for several titles, including Wine & Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007),
Whiskey & Philosophy (with Marcus P. Adams, Wiley, 2009), and
Food & Philosophy (with Dave Monroe, Wiley-Blackwell, 2007).
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PHILOSOPHY FOR EVERYONE
Series editor: Fritz Allhoff
Not so much a subject matter, philosophy is a way of thinking. Thinking not just
about the Big Questions, but about little ones too. This series invites everyone
to ponder things they care about, big or small, significant, serious … or just
curious.
Running & Philosophy: Cannabis – Philosophy for Everyone:
A Marathon for the Mind What Were We Just Talking About?
Edited by Michael W. Austin Edited by Dale Jacquette
Wine & Philosophy: Porn – Philosophy for Everyone:
A Symposium on Thinking and Drinking How to Think With Kink
Edited by Fritz Allhoff Edited by Dave Monroe
Food & Philosophy: Serial Killers – Philosophy for
Eat, Think and Be Merry Everyone: Being and Killing
Edited by Fritz Allhoff and Dave Monroe Edited by S. Waller
Beer & Philosophy: Dating – Philosophy for Everyone:
The Unexamined Beer Isn’t Worth Flirting With Big Ideas
Drinking Edited by Kristie Miller and Marlene Clark
Edited by Steven D. Hales Gardening – Philosophy for Everyone:
Whiskey & Philosophy: Cultivating Wisdom
A Small Batch of Spirited Ideas Edited by Dan O’Brien
Edited by Fritz Allhoff and Marcus P. Adams Motherhood – Philosophy for
College Sex – Philosophy for Everyone: The Birth of Wisdom
Everyone: Philosophers With Benefits Edited by Sheila Lintott
Edited by Michael Bruce Fatherhood – Philosophy for
and Robert M. Stewart Everyone: The Dao of Daddy
Cycling – Philosophy for Everyone: Edited by Lon S. Nease
A Philosophical Tour de Force and Michael W. Austin
Edited by Jesús Ilundáin-Agurruza
and Michael W. Austin
Forthcoming books in the series:
Climbing – Philosophy for Everyone: Fashion – Philosophy for Everyone
Because It’s There Edited by Jessica Wolfendale
Edited by Stephen E. Schmid and Jeanette Kennett
Hunting – Philosophy for Everyone: Coffee – Philosophy for Everyone
In Search of the Wild Life Edited by Scott Parker
Edited by Nathan Kowalsky and Michael W. Austin
Christmas – Philosophy for Everyone: Blues – Philosophy for Everyone
Better Than a Lump of Coal Edited by Abrol Fairweather
Edited by Scott C. Lowe and Jesse Steinberg
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Edited by Dan O’Brien
GARDENING
PHILOSOPHY FOR EVERYONE
Cultivating Wisdom
Foreword by David E. Cooper
A John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Publication
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This edition fi rst published 2010
© 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd except for editorial material and organization
© 2010 Dan O’Brien
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gardening – philosophy for everyone: cultivating wisdom / edited by Dan O’Brien.
p. cm. – (Philosophy for everyone)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-4443-3021-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Gardening–Philosophy.
2. Gardens–Philosophy. I. O’Brien, Dan, 1968– II. Title: Gardening – p hilosophy
for everyone.
SB454.3.P45G36 2010
635.01–dc22
2010004722
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Set in Plantin 10/12.5pt by SPi Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India
Printed in Singapore
1 2010
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CONTENTS
Foreword viii
David E. Cooper
Acknowledgments xi
Dan O’Brien
Planting the Seed: An Introduction to
Gardening – Philosophy for Everyone 1
Dan O’Brien
PART I THE GOOD LIFE 11
1 The Virtues of Gardening 13
Isis Brook
2 Cultivating the Soul: The Ethics of Gardening
in Ancient Greece and Rome 26
Meghan T. Ray
3 Escaping Eden: Plant Ethics in a Gardener’s World 38
Matthew Hall
4 Food Glorious Food 48
Helene Gammack
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PART II FLOWER POWER 63
5 Plants, Prayers, and Power: The Story of the
First Mediterranean Gardens 65
Jo Day
6 Brussels Sprouts and Empire: Putting Down Roots 79
Michael Moss
7 Transplanting Liberty: Lafayette’s American Garden 93
Laura Auricchio
8 Cockney Plots: Allotments and Grassroots
Political Activism 106
Elizabeth A. Scott
PART III THE FLOWER SHOW 119
9 Hortus Incantans: Gardening as an Art of Enchantment 121
Eric MacDonald
10 Gardens, Music, and Time 135
Ismay Barwell and John Powell
11 The Pragmatic Picturesque: The Philosophy
of Central Park 148
Gary Shapiro
PART IV THE COSMIC GARDEN 161
12 Illusions of Grandeur: A Harmonious Garden
for the Sun King 163
Robert Neuman
13 Time and Temporality in the Garden 178
Mara Miller
14 Cultivating Our Garden: David Hume
and Gardening as Therapy 192
Dan O’Brien
PART V PHILOSOPHERS’ GARDENS 205
15 The Garden of the Aztec Philosopher-King 207
Susan Toby Evans
vi CONTENTS
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16 Epicurus, the Garden, and the Golden Age 220
Gordon Campbell
17 Gardener of Souls: Philosophical Education
in Plato’s Phaedrus 232
Anne Cotton
Notes on Contributors 245
CONTENTS vii
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DAVID E. COOPER
FOREWORD
“From my point of view, as a gardener, I consider the garden fund-
amentally as a spiritual and cognitive experience.”1 So writes the distin-
guished Spanish garden designer – and philosophy graduate of Madrid
University – Fernando Caruncho. Appreciation of the garden, he explains,
requires a maturity of emotion and understanding alike. The implied
contrast is with the experience of the garden simply as a hobby, as a
smallholding, or as a source of pleasing sights, sounds, and smells. The
contributors to Gardening – Philosophy for Everyone write from a viewpoint
similar to Caruncho’s and, like him, they are as much concerned with
gardening, an activity, as with the products of this activity, gardens. Of
the many aspects of the “spiritual and cognitive experience” of gardening
and gardens discussed in their contributions, three are especially salient:
the moral, symbolic, and temporal.
The idea of the garden as a theatre for the cultivation of moral sensibil-
ity goes back at least to Pliny the Younger, whose own gardens afforded
him the promise of “a good life and a serious one,” of “cultivating him-
self” through cultivating them.2 As several essays in this book demon-
strate, it is an idea that, albeit with many permutations, has persisted. It is
attested to, for example, in General Lafayette’s estate near Paris, with its
celebration of liberty and republican virtues, and in the humbler kitchen
gardens or allotments that express an ideal of self-sufficiency. This ethical
tradition, for several contributors, is one that, moreover, deserves to per-
sist, for the garden – as a place that invites the exercise of care and humil-
ity, a regard for the good of plants and creatures, and an appreciation of
nature’s workings – is indeed a source of moral education.
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