Author Meets Critics: Paul Thompson, The Spirit of the Soil, 2nd Ed

Abstract

Paul Thompson’s Spirit of the Soil was groundbreaking when it appeared in 1995, and has aged remarkably well. The substantially revised new edition is a benefit not only for the field of agriculture and ethics, but also because it provides a new window into the changing ideas of Thompson himself. This is significant because Thompson’s work on this topic has shaped the field so decisively that his views are sometimes recited as common knowledge. As a result of this book and its notoriety, Thompson may have suffered the worst-best fate that can befall a philosopher: Language from this book, and aspects of Thompson’s framework for thinking about central issues in agriculture, have become so standard in the field of sustainable agriculture that people no longer remember where the terms and ideas came from. I sometimes find students reciting as common knowledge what used to be regarded as philosophically interesting claims first made by Paul Thompson. For example, a paper published this month by a former student of mine in the journal Global Environmental Change includes the following: