Leszek Kolakowski, Theorist of Not Gardening Posted on July 24th, 2009 by Lisa Heldke

Image by Mariusz Kubik, http://www.mariuszkubik.pl

The Polish-born philosopher Leszkek Kolakowski died on July 17, at age 81. Kolakowski was a prolific writer whose works examined topics ranging from Spinoza to Bergson to Husserl and Marxism to seventeenth century Christianity.

Here at Phil on Hol, however, he was beloved for a short, satirical work, “The General Theory of Not Gardening,” which was originally published in Harper’s magazine. It inspired Lisa to write “The Theory of Not Dancing,” which originally appeared in Volume 2, Number 3, which is scheduled to be posted here in late August.

But in memory of Professor Kolakowski, we reproduce “Not Dancing” here, now. (Note that Lisa was telling a bald-faced lie when she said she liked to garden.) To mark his passing, we invite you to offer your own general theories–of not gardening, not dancing, or not doing anything else it is that you’d rather not do.