AbstractsPhilosophy & Theology

Philosophy is most accurately understood as inquiry into the general features of the world and human experience within it. Human beings are dependent upon and inextricably connected to their environment. In their struggle to attain, restore and uphold a state of equilibrium between themselves and their environment they engage in the process of inquiry. "Inquiry is the controlled or directed transformation of an indeterminate situation into one that is so determinate in its constituent distinctions and relations as to convert the elements of the original situation into a unified whole" (John Dewey, 1938). John Dewey's structure of inquiry will be discussed in an attempt to demonstrate that philosophy can be applied to common everyday practices significant to people, the gardening practice being one of them. It is the aim of this work to explore the prospect that gardening may be a process that has the same structure as Dewey's pattern of inquiry and that gardening itself may be a form of inquiry.