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Heidegger’s philosophical botany

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Abstract

Heidegger argues that for being x to count as ‘alive’ it must satisfy three metaphysical conditions. It must be (1) capable of engaging in active behaviour with (2) a form of intentional directedness that (3) offers to us a “sphere of transposition” into which we can intelligibly “transpose ourselves.” Heidegger’s discussion of these conditions, as they apply to the being of animals, is well-known. But, if his argument is sound, they ought also to apply to the being of plants (given that plants, too, belong within the domain of the living). Heidegger, unfortunately, does not supply this part of his ontology of life in any systematic detail. However, my thesis is that it is possible to interpret the nature and activities of plants, along the lines of (1)–(3), and thus to make good on Heidegger’s omission. The key to this reconstruction is a reconceptualization of plant movements as constituted by a form of representationally blind, motor-intentionality.

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Notes

  1. Over the last five or so years, this situation has begun to change. A number of popular science books and articles have brought wider attention to some recent developments within empirical botany. See, for example, Chamovitz (2012), Pollan (2013) and Mancuso and Viola (2015). The work of relevant botanists includes Koller (2011) and Trewavas (2014). But foundational issues, such as on the concept of plant intelligence still require philosophical development. Marder (2013) offers an historically wide-ranging, phenomenological perspective. This essay takes a more directly Heideggerian approach.

  2. Aristotle, Parts of Animals, 645a22. Theophrastus, Aristotle’s collaborator and disciple, wrote Enquiry into Plants. This account, though, is largely descriptive. Indeed, Aristotle himself is thought to have written a (now lost) book on plants.

  3. This neglect may be more pronounced in Western culture. The totara and kauri are sacred to the Maoris, who give the oldest and the biggest of the kauri personal names; likewise, the banyan and the bodhi are sacred to Hindus and Buddhists. See, Tudge (2005, p. 2, 7).

  4. By ‘plants’, in order to focus the inquiry, I am principally referring to the Euphyllophytes, a group that includes ferns and horsetails, conifers and the flowering plants. Mosses, hornworts and liverworts—not to mention that other Kingdom of the living, the Fungi—are deserving of independent metaphysical analysis.

  5. Heidegger (1968, p. 149).

  6. For an overview of Heidegger’s comments on plants, especially in relation to the ‘fourfold’, see Mitchell (2015, p. 97–107). See, also, Marder (2014, chapter 10).

  7. Marder (2014, p. 182) notes that Heidegger leaves the problem of the being of plants hanging. This essay outlines a trajectory Heidegger’s response to the problem might have taken, given the metaphysical constraints on life he lays down.

  8. Heidegger (1992a, p. 179).

  9. Heidegger (1992a, p. 190).

  10. Heidegger (1992a, p. 179).

  11. Heidegger (1992a, p. 188).

  12. Heidegger (1998a, p. 4). Marder (2014, p. 185) remarks that, as for Uexküll, plants, for Heidegger, are “never the centers of their own circles of significance, or Umwelten…” But Heidegger is careful to insist that plants, like animals, do have their own distinctive environments. See Heidegger (1998b, p. 248). The crucial question is how plants, in being rooted to the spot, inhabit their environments.

  13. Animals and plants should be understood, Heidegger writes, as bearing “accordingly different phenomenological characters!” (GA 73.1:414), cited in Mitchell (2015, p. 330).

  14. Heidegger (1992a, p. 210).

  15. Heidegger (1992a, p. 236). It is worth noting, however, the capacity of trees to adapt to airflow pressure, whether through the evolution of leaf shape or, when exposed to strong winds, by limiting branch development See, Trewavas (2014, p. 116) and Chamovitz (2012, p. 77).

  16. Hacker (2010, p. 79).

  17. Heidegger (1992a, p. 237).

  18. In fact, Heidegger also includes “digesting” (237) and the “beating of an animal’s heart” (239) as forms of behaviour. I assume this is a slip on Heidegger’s part. These sorts of goings on are happenings, events that the animal undergoes, rather than things that it does or actions it performs. Nothing significant appears to follow from Heidegger’s overly ecumenical concept of behaviour on this point. I note the slip and move on.

  19. Heidegger (1992a, p. 236–249).

  20. Heidegger (1992a, p. 255).

  21. Heidegger (1992a, p. 197).

  22. Heidegger (1992a, p. 237).

  23. Heidegger (1992a, p. 235).

  24. Heidegger (1992a, p. 237).

  25. Heidegger (1992a, p. 233).

  26. Heidegger (1992a, p. 202). Emphasis added.

  27. Nagel (1974, p. 439).

  28. Heidegger (1992a, p. 230).

  29. Heidegger (1992a, p. 203).

  30. Heidegger (1992b, p. 255).

  31. St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part, q. 69, art. 2.

  32. Korsgaard (2006, p. 107).

  33. Burge (2010, p. 328).

  34. Burge (2010, p. 334).

  35. Burge (2010, p. 335, ft. 62).

  36. Burge (2010, p. 326–342).

  37. Burge (2010, p. 333).

  38. This is the point at which my analysis departs significantly from Burge. Burge, despite the radical nature of his concept of primitive agency, subscribes to the Standard View in his analysis of the capacities of plants. Plants, he insists, are “not capable of behaviour” (377) The reason for this is that they lack a “centre” (306). Consequently, they lack a capacity for the sort of coordination of parts that grounds the active/passive distinction. Burge compares a natural process such as photosynthesis, which occurs throughout the plants cells, with the eating behaviour of the paramecium, which requires coordinated rotation of the body and specialised organs. The plant, Burge reminds us, has no gullet (333). Indeed, Burge goes further. Not only are plants incapable of active behaviour but they do not even have sensory systems. He compares the sensitivity of plants to the disposition of oil to ignite in the presence of a naked flame. The reason why plants allegedly lack sensory systems is that “a sensory system is a system of an entity capable of behaviour” and “plants are not capable of behaviour” (377). There are a number of points that one might make in relation to Burge’s analysis: (1) photosynthesis is, indeed, a natural process, as is the paramecium’s digesting of its food—a focus on this type of occurrence in the life of a plant rigs the comparison from the beginning; (2) recent scientific literature on plants suggests that there is some sort of loose coordination of systems within the life of a plant; (3) Burge is clear that his own account of agency, in any case, cannot be empirically read off descriptive anatomy and that anatomical specialisation is not a necessary condition for attributing action to an organism (333). Indeed, he suggests that the notion of primitive individual action is ultimately grounded on our intuitions because it is driven by examples (331). Indeed, one might speculate that, despite dismantling one traditional prejudice—that action must be guided by perception—Burge falls victim to a second traditional prejudice—that active behaviour requires a capacity for locomotion. We need to dismantle both prejudices in order to see plants as capable of self-moving agency.

  39. Darwin argues, in The Power of Movement in Plants (1880), that the root system might well act like the brain of one of the lower animals. See, Whippo and Hangarter (2009, p. 2122) Some botanists claim to have located the part of the root where brain-like integrative processing occurs, although their conclusions remain controversial. See, Chamovitz (2012, p. 168-9); Mancuso and Viola (2015, p. 132–136). Pollan (2013) provides an accessible overview.

  40. There is a tendency in the literature, e.g. Burge (2010, p. 331, ft. 59), to suggest that the nastic movements of the carnivorous plants, especially the Venus Fly Trap, constitute special forms of behaviour in the plant kingdom. Often this is a point that is relegated to the footnotes. Yet, aside from the obvious rapidity of these responses, such as the engulfing behaviour of the sundew’s inner tentacles, the exact reason why these movements qualify as at least borderline cases and slow tropistic movements do not, is unclear.

  41. Heidegger, Zum Ereignis-Denken (Gesamtausgabe 73.1:414).

  42. This thesis would also support what Nietzsche has to say about plants. In one of his early notebooks Nietzsche (2009, p. 138), arguing that a quality only exists for a being against which it is measured, proceeds to observe that “[t]he plant is also a measuring being” and concludes that “[t]o the plant the world is such and such.” In fact, Nietzsche is preoccupied with the special status of plants throughout his life. In one of his late notebooks (1885–1886), he writes: “‘Purpose’: The ‘sagacity’ of plants to be taken as a starting point” (2003, p. 72).

  43. Burge (2010, p. 333) admits that descriptive anatomy cannot be the tribunal for ascribing agency, for example, to an amoeba (which lacks specialised ‘parts’). Although empirical research into the integrative processing capacities of plants, then, is an important rejoinder and corrective to the Standard View, the case for ascribing agency to plants does not stand or fall on its basis.

  44. On our tendency to ascribe ‘preferences’ to the dodder plant, see Chamovitz (2012, p. 39-43). It would be interesting to know, using filmed point light displays, whether plant movements speeded up using time-lapse photography were readily distinguished by observers from the motion of inanimate objects, as happens with the movements of animals and other human beings. On experiments in relation to the latter, see Eysenck and Keane (2010, p. 137-9).

  45. Note that the derived nature of an artefact’s goals may complicate this point. I leave this issue for another time.

  46. Heidegger (1992a, p. 210).

  47. Heidegger (1992a, p. 204).

  48. Heidegger (1992a, p. 208).

  49. Heidegger (1992a, p. 204).

  50. Plato, Timaeus, 77b.

  51. Heidegger (1992a, p. 204).

  52. Despite recent findings in scientific botany, we have as yet no reason to ascribe perceptual consciousness (or representational abilities) to plants. Indeed, this would entail conceptualizing plants along the same lines as animals, which is precisely to cover over their unique manner of being.

  53. Goodpaster (2013, p. 388).

  54. Heidegger (1992a, p. 188). For problems with defining life empirically, see Thompson (2008, p. 33–48).

  55. I have bracketed the question of the nature of the group agency of plants, whether in the same environment or across generations. The activities of plants, of course, not only transform their environment but also involve interaction with other life forms, such as fungi. Issues pertaining to plant-plant and plant-animal communication are ripe for further philosophical attention.

  56. Heidegger (1992a, p. 210).

  57. Heidegger (1998b, p. 248). There are moments when Heidegger seems to recognise a common form of life. In (1968, p. 41), Heidegger, strikingly, remarks: “We stand outside science. Instead we stand before a tree in bloom, for example—and the tree stands before us. The tree faces us. The tree and we meet one another, as the tree stands there and we stand face to face with it. As we are in this relation of one to the other and before the other, the tree and we are. This face-to-face meeting is not, then, one of these “ideas” buzzing about in our heads” (cited in Marder (2014, p. 174). As Marder suggests, Heidegger sketches the possibility of a “radical transhuman egalitarianism” in this idea of an encounter between man and tree.

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Moyle, T. Heidegger’s philosophical botany. Cont Philos Rev 50, 377–394 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11007-016-9396-y

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