Henk Oosterling is
(1) A very nice chap
(2) An excellent mind
(3) Deeply interested in martial arts and Buddhism
(4) Last but not least, someone who has created the most extraordinary school, sort of Plato's academy for 4 to 12 year olds in a struggling neighborhood of Rotterdam. Earth measuring (geometry) as philosophy, judo and growing things class(es).
Wow.
Anyway--more on that in another post. Here is what we did last night.
'This is why in the end thinking ecologically, doing ecological philosophy, means: we have to drop Nature, we have to drop the idea that things are exactly the same as themselves all the time, and we have to drop agriculture (at least a certain type of agriculture). Since thinking that we can escape the loop is the loop, as every tragedy tells us, this will be difficult but not impossible. Agricultural social space was made, so it can be unmade. Of course it sounds ridiculous. Intellectuals like me - to prove we are members of the intelligent people club - usually have to say something like, "but of course I'm not really advocating that we go back to foraging for nuts and berries! That would be absurd! We must have growth..." and so on. But I think that sometimes philosophy is the art of saying the ridiculous and exploring the ridiculous. Sometimes you have to talk what sounds like nonsense to get at the truth.'
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