Gardening - Philosophy for Everyone: Cultivating Wisdom

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

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

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