14. Cultivating Our Garden
David Hume and Gardening as Therapy
- Dan O'Brien PhD Research Fellow Associate Lecturer
Published Online: 13 AUG 2010
DOI: 10.1002/9781444324563.ch14
Copyright © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Book Title
Gardening - Philosophy for Everyone
Additional Information
How to Cite
O'Brien, D. (2010) Cultivating Our Garden, in Gardening - Philosophy for Everyone (ed D. O'Brien), Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, UK. doi: 10.1002/9781444324563.ch14
Editor Information
Oxford Brookes University, UK
Publication History
- Published Online: 13 AUG 2010
- Published Print: 24 SEP 2010
Book Series:
Book Series Editors:
- Fritz Allhoff
Series Editor Information
Western Michigan University, USA
ISBN Information
Print ISBN: 9781444330212
Online ISBN: 9781444324563
- Summary
- Chapter
Keywords:
- cultivating our garden - David Hume on gardening, a form of therapy;
- gardens, having metaphysical and theological significance;
- English picturesque tradition, rejecting formal approach - laying out of gardens to precise geometric rules;
- Voltaire's Candide - as a parody of religion and of religious apologies, existence of evil in the world;
- Hume, suspicious of metaphysics - hostile towards an organized religion;
- Hume's Natural History of Religion - naturalistic account of religious belief;
- Plato, and the world of experience - akin to shadows on cave walls, as shadows of real things in Platonic Heaven;
- gardening, a sort of pursuit - aiding immersion in common life, inculcating epistemic virtues;
- artisan, sophisticated grasp of induction - kitchen gardener, poor harvest due to cucumber mosaic virus or spider mites;
- gardens and tranquility - relation between garden and tranquility
Summary
This chapter contains sections titled:
Candide
Hume and Common Life
Gardens and Tranquility
Notes