Through Vegetal Being: Two Philosophical Perspectives

Description

Blossoming from a correspondence between Luce Irigaray and Michael Marder, Through Vegetal Being is an intense personal, philosophical, and political meditation on the significance of the vegetal for our lives, our ways of thinking, and our relations with human and nonhuman beings. The vegetal world has the potential to rescue our planet and our species and offers us a way to abandon past metaphysics without falling into nihilism. Luce Irigaray has argued in her philosophical work that living and coexisting are deficient unless we recognize biological difference as a crucial dimension of our existence. Michael Marder believes the same is true for vegetal difference. Irigaray and Marder consider how plants contribute to human development by sustaining our breathing, nourishing our senses, and keeping our bodies alive. They note the importance of returning to ancient Greek tradition and engaging with Eastern teachings to revive a culture closer to nature. As a result, we can reestablish roots when we are displaced and recover the vital energy we need to improve our sensibility and relation to others. This generative discussion points toward a more universal way of becoming human that is embedded in the vegetal world.

Reviews

Through Vegetal Being foregrounds the relations that plants enable between humans and other living things, continuing both Michael Marder's work on plant existence and Luce Irigaray's work on sexual difference and the forgetting of the world in the constitution of individual identity. This charming and beautifully written book is a two-person meditation on the philosophy, ontology, and ethics of plant life and our fundamental dependence on it as living beings. -- Elizabeth Grosz, Jean Fox O'Barr Women's Studies Professor at Duke University

Author description

Luce Irigaray is director of research in philosophy at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. She is the author of more than thirty books, the most recent of which are Sharing the World and In the Beginning, She Was. Michael Marder is IKERBASQUE Research Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU), Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. Among his books are Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life and The Philosopher's Plant: An Intellectual Herbarium.

Table of contents

PrefaceLuce IrigarayPrologue1. Seeking Refuge in the Vegetal World2. A Culture Forgetful of Life3. Sharing Universal Breathing4. The Generative Potential of the Elements5. Living at the Rhythm of the Seasons6. A Recovery of the Amazing Diversity of Natural Presence7. Cultivating Our Sensory Perceptions8. Feeling Nostalgia for a Human Companion9. Risking to Go Back Among Humans10. Losing Oneself and Asking Nature for Help Again11. Encountering Another Human in the Woods12. Wondering How to Cultivate Our Living Energy13. Could Gestures and Words Substitute for the Elements?14. From Being Alone in Nature to Being Two in Love15. Becoming Humans16. Cultivating and Sharing Life Between AllEpilogueNotesMichael MarderPrologue1. Seeking Refuge in the Vegetal World2. A Culture Forgetful of Life3. Sharing Universal Breathing4. The Generative Potential of the Elements5. Living at the Rhythm of the Seasons6. A Recovery of the Amazing Diversity of Natural Presence7. Cultivating Our Sensory Perceptions8. Feeling Nostalgia for a Human Companion9. Risking to Go Back Among Humans10. Losing Oneself and Asking Nature for Help Again11. Encountering Another Human in the Woods12. Wondering How to Cultivate Our Living Energy13. Could Gestures and Words Substitute for the Elements?14. From Being Alone in Nature to Being Two in Love15. Becoming Humans16. Cultivating and Sharing Life Between AllEpilogueNotesIndex