Vegetal Roots

ABSTRACT. This study is an attempt to open up new ways of thinking about plants. The aim of the thesis is to give attention to the fascinating world of plants, by making a philosophical analysis of the relations between plants and human beings. The first part explores which problems in philosophy this ‘vegetal turn’ is meant to overcome, namely our anthropocentric ranking of plants as inferior to us and the sharp divisions philosophers have created in order to understand the world around them. This classical thinking started with Aristotle, who was one of the first philosophers who defended a strict hierarchical order of life. The idea that plants are distinct from animals and humans was shaken up by the botanical work of Charles Darwin. He showed that plants are more active and sophisticated organisms than previously understood. The second part investigates what recent research in plant biology reveals about the life of plants. It presents three aspects of plant abilities: the power of sense-perception in plants, the way plants communicate and their abilities to store and recall biological information. The biological discoveries provide a framework for making a philosophical analysis of the reciprocal relations between plants and humans. The thesis then illustrates how it is possible to formulate an alternative approach to humans and plants which is related to the term ‘emergence’. A ‘philosophy of plants’ can help us better understand the multitude of ways in which plants make us human.