The Philosopher's Plant by Marder, Michael -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Contents Acknowledgments Prologue: Herbarium Philosophicum Part I: Ancient Plant-Souls

1. Plato’s Plane Tree

In The Shade of a Plane Tree Heavenly and Earthly Plants Desiring Plants, Rooted Animals, and Other Ideas Two Grounds, Two Plants, Two Worlds?

2. Aristotle’s Wheat

Philosopher’s Bread (and Butter) Potential and Actual Plants On Being All You Can Be (Without Becoming a Plant) Chaotic Proliferations: Collapsing Distinctions

3. Plotinus’ Anonymous “Great Plant”

A Portrait of the World as Plant Traversing the Levels of the Vegetal Mind To Stem Out the Plant In You! The Revenge Of The Plant

Part II: Medieval Plant-Instruments

4. Augustine’s Pears

5. Avicenna’s Celery

Immoderate Philosophers, Excessive Plants The Feudal Order of the Vegetal Soul, Or Aristotelianism With A Twist What Do Plants Love? The Aporia Of Knowing Ourselves (As Plants)

6. Maimonides’ Palm Tree

Arbor Sacra “A Plant or a Mineral” Or God Rituals of Purification: The Plant, The Ground, And A Perforated Pot Against a Talking Tree, Or The Unfinished Work of Disenchantment

Part III: Modern Plant-Images

7. Leibniz’s Blades of Grass

In The Bushes of a Royal Garden A Garden Within a Garden: The Labyrinths of Vegetal Infinity What Does a Plant Express? The Plant As Monad: A Theoretical Conundrum

8. Kant’s Tulip

A Flower Against The System What Can We Know About Plants? What Can We Do With Plants? What Can Plants Do To Us?

9. Hegel’s Grapes

From Grapes To Spirit(S) Adventures In Vegetable Dialectics The Sex Life of Plants, Or Beyond Oppositionality The Vegetable Kernel of the Dialectical Shell

Part IV: Postmodern Plant-Subjects

10. Heidegger’s Apple Tree

Face To Face With a Blossoming Tree The Blossoming of Being A Plant’S “Being-In-The-World” Do Plants Die?

11. Derrida’s Sunflowers

Three Scenes of Reading Plants Plastic Plants, Wasted Seeds, And Other Useless Artifacts Phytophallogocentrism The Trouble With The Supplement And The Place of Plants

12. Irigaray’s Water Lily

Contemplating a Flower With Buddha Flowering-With Vegetal Fidelities “We Still Fall Short of the Human”

Notes Bibliography Index