Philosophy Café Zutphen | What is nature in this country today? – a lecture by botanical philosopher Norbert Peeters

The question ‘What is nature in this country these days?’ comes from the famous poem *De Dapperstraat* by J.C. Bloem. Although the question sounds serious at first glance, in the lines that follow it takes on an almost mocking tone. What we call nature turns out to be nothing more than ‘a patch the size of a newspaper’ or ‘a hill with a few little villas on it’.

More than a century later, Bloem’s question has lost none of its relevance. Certainly in the Netherlands, where virtually every square metre is subject to negotiation, planning and development. According to the well-known saying ‘God created the earth, but the Dutch created the Netherlands’, even our landscape seems to have a human rather than a natural origin.

Precisely because nature in the Netherlands has been so strongly shaped and constrained by human intervention, the question becomes all the more pressing: what do we actually mean by ‘nature’? And how does humanity relate to it?

We will explore these questions from the perspective of environmental philosophy, led by botanical philosopher Norbert Peeters.

*Doors open at 7.00 pm