Dr. John Lindsay Falvey
Prologue This book deals with the transition from knowledge to wisdom. Wisdom justifies the use of the word philosophy throughout the text from its etymology of ‘the love of wisdom’, which across millennia has been interpreted as understanding of life. Such understanding is more than knowledge and in order to avoid more esoteric approaches to wisdom philosophy is discussed as integrating all knowledge including the sciences and experiential learning. I acknowledge at the outset that this may be at odds with modern academic approaches to philosophy. To advance the thesis that this embracing definition of philosophy is essential to all worthwhile human endeavour, agriculture and science are used as two major historical developments that unite learning. For that reason, some facts about food and agriculture are first introduced and are then related to a re-defined philosophy. In this wide sense, philosophy requires criticism of modern culturally illiterate prejudices against religion and myth and an open-minded consideration of non-Western philosophies. With that foundation, Western philosophy from Babylonian times until the present is then summarized, acknowledging that for much of that history, religion has housed learning and understanding. In relying on agriculture as a basis to explain the wider role of philosophy the limited agrarian philosophies are contextualized in a manner similar to literalistic religion. To unify the theme it is then acknowledged that all forms of agriculture spawn applied philosophical and especially ethical issues that can only be reconciled by a broad and integrated philosophy of the central matters of life. That overall approach necessarily corrects the modern separation of science from its home in philosophy, especially in terms of its contextual subject of agriculture and agricultural science. To do this, the philosophical insight that humans are part of nature and cannot be holistically discussed separate from nature pervades each li
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