The Philosopher's Plant: An Intellectual Herbarium

by Michael Marder, Mathilde Roussel (Illustrator)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231169035
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	11/11/2014
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	725,200
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michael Marder (PhD, 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).

Table of Contents

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

Editorial Reviews

09/08/2014
In this charming, if far-fetched, book Marder (Phenomena-Critique-Logos: The Project of Critical Phenomenology) asserts that philosophy has not properly examined philosophy from the perspective of botanical life, endeavoring to rectify this with a ludic stroll through the “botany of philosophy.” Each chapter focuses on one of 12 canonical figures of Western philosophy, from Plato to Luce Irigaray, and dissects any minute allusion to flora as a proper synecdoche for the thinker’s entire philosophical project. For example, Leibniz’s claim that no two blades of grass are identical and each has its role in the perfection of the universe is embellished through theoretical legerdemain to make an argument that each plant possesses an indispensable and unique interpretation of the world. Marder draws conclusions from this anthropomorphizing slippage in various ways: plants have feelings, plants have thoughts, and (therefore) plants have rights to not be subjected to violence or murder. Sympathetic readers will find this a provocative delight. Others more skeptically inclined may still enjoy the accessible romp through the garden of ideas, and may even come away with a perspective slightly greener than what they began with. Those entirely in line with Marder are likely rare flowers, but anyone can find something of note or amusement here. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

The Philosopher's Plant is an original contribution to a concept which for too long has been marginalized. As the only contemporary philosopher working on plants from a deconstructive and weak-thought perspective, Marder provides not only another contribution to the philosophical concept of plants in general, but also adds onto his own work.

Santiago Zabala

One must give Michael Marder credit for combining the deconstruction of our traditional metaphysics with a focus on the plant world. He invites us to perceive and consider again the presence and the potential of our living environment, the thoughtless use of which has damaged both our life and our culture.

Luce Irigaray

[The Philosopher's Plant] provides provocative insight into the significance of plant life in the evolution of philosophical thought.... Recommended.

Choice

The Philosopher's Plant is an alluring immersion in phytophilia, exploring the thought of philosophers from Plato to Irigaray by way of their intimate reflections on plant life. Not only do we learn much that is subtle and profound about plants but we come to see the work of these thinkers in refreshing new lights. Humor and wit alternate with penetrating philosophical insight in this bouquet of delights.

Edward S. Casey

The Philosopher's Plant is a genuine pleasure to read and one of the most innovative books I have encountered in some time. Marder's argument is that contemporary scientific research into how plants communicate, interact with, and possibly even perceive the environment should be enriched by an engagement with how the Western philosophical tradition has already thought and continues thinking the problem of plant life for human being-in-the-world.

William Egginton

From the conversation of Socrates and Phaedrus in the shade of the plane tree to Irigaray's meditation on the water lily, The Philosopher's Plant takes us outside city walls, across gardens of letters and vegetables, grassy slopes and vineyards, to the dimly lit sources of philosophy's vitality. With distinctive depth and clarity, Marder reminds us that, far from walled in, the human community communes with nature and is itself inhabited by nature.

Claudia Baracchi

★ 11/15/2014
Philosophy's privileging of reason has come at the expense of nonhuman forms of life, but most especially it has excluded plant life from the realm of moral concern. Motivated by a conviction that "philosophy cannot be left untouched by…the ecocides of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries," Marder (Ikerbasque Research Professor of Philosophy, Univ. of the Basque Country; Plant-Thinking) confronts philosophical denigration of the vegetal. In chronological order, he recounts various botanical specimens noted by a dozen philosophers from antiquity (Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus) and the Middle Ages (Augustine, Avicenna, Maimonides), through modernity (Leibniz, Kant, Hegel) to the postmodern era (Heidegger, Derrida, Irigaray). Informed by recent botanical research and a solid grasp of the primary and secondary philosophical sources, Marder demonstrates how attending to the plants on the margins of the philosophers' reflections subverts their carefully constructed systems of meaning. VERDICT Conceptions of the relations of humans to plant life have changed remarkably over time, and, for plant's (and human's) sake, need to change now. Philosophically informed readers will reap the greatest harvest from Marder's fruitful inquiries, while philosophical novices will sometimes find the undergrowth thick and slow going, but all who get a taste of this succulent study will find much food for thought.—Steve Young, McHenry Cty. Coll., Crystal Lake, IL

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