Despite their conceptual allergy to vegetal life, philosophers have used germination, growth, blossoming, fruition, reproduction, and decay as illustrations of abstract concepts; mentioned plants in passing as the natural backdrops for dialogues, letters, and other compositions; spun elaborate allegories out of flowers, trees, and even grass; and recommended appropriate medicinal, dietary, and aesthetic approaches to select species of plants.
In this book, Michael Marder illuminates the vegetal centerpieces and hidden kernels that have powered theoretical discourse for centuries. Choosing twelve botanical specimens that correspond to twelve significant philosophers, he recasts the development of philosophy through the evolution of human and plant relations. A philosophical history for the postmetaphysical age, The Philosopher’s Plant reclaims the organic heritage of human thought. With the help of vegetal images, examples, and metaphors, the book clears a path through philosophy’s tangled roots and dense undergrowth, opening up the discipline to all readers.
Table of Content
Acknowledgments
Prologue: Herbarium Philosophicum
Part I: Ancient Plant-Souls
1. Plato’s Plane Tree
2. Aristotle’s Wheat
3. Plotinus’ Anonymous ‘Great Plant’
Part II. Medieval Plant-Instruments
4. Augustine’s Pears
5. Avicenna’s Celery
6. Maimonides’ Palm Tree
Part III. Modern Plant-Images
7. Leibniz’s Blades of Grass
8. Kant’s Tulip
9. Hegel’s Grapes
Part IV: Postmodern Plant-Subjects
10. Heidegger’s Apple Tree
11. Derrida’s Sunflowers
12. Irigaray’s Water Lily
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Michael Marder (Ph D, Philosophy, the New School) is IKERBASQUE Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country. He is the author of, among other books, Groundless Existence: The Political Ontology of Carl Schmitt (Continuum, 2012), The Event of the Thing: Derrida’s Post-Deconstructive Realism (Toronto, 2013), Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life (Columbia, 2013), The Philosopher’s Plant: An Intellectual Herbarium (Columbia, 2014), Energy Dreams (Columbia, 2017), and, with Luce Irigaray, Through Vegetal Being: Two Philosophical Perspectives (Columbia, 2016).
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