Burrows and Burrs: A Perceptual History

Knowledge has no proper homeland. It is scattered among disciplines and genres. A novel is filled with events, described in a particular manner, which might be translated into objects of scientific worth. Science makes new discoveries that find their way back into literature. Philosophy questions starting points and adds nuance to grey areas between disciplines. Science contributes to philosophy’s repertoire of relevant ideas. This article is an effort to account for the dynamism and complexity of the relationship that exists between differing kinds of knowledge. It uses an essayistic form of narration to pull together contrasting examples that suggest hard and fast distinctions between subject and object tend to provoke misleadingly abstract descriptions of place. The specific place under investigation is a farming property in rural New South Wales. It has played a significant part in the author’s perceptual history. Burrs and burrows are two of its key features.