Through Vegetal Being - Two Philosophical Perspectives

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.

List of contents

Preface
Luce Irigaray
Prologue
1. Seeking Refuge in the Vegetal World
2. A Culture Forgetful of Life
3. Sharing Universal Breathing
4. The Generative Potential of the Elements
5. Living at the Rhythm of the Seasons
6. A Recovery of the Amazing Diversity of Natural Presence
7. Cultivating Our Sensory Perceptions
8. Feeling Nostalgia for a Human Companion
9. Risking to Go Back Among Humans
10. Losing Oneself and Asking Nature for Help Again
11. Encountering Another Human in the Woods
12. Wondering How to Cultivate Our Living Energy
13. Could Gestures and Words Substitute for the Elements?
14. From Being Alone in Nature to Being Two in Love
15. Becoming Humans
16. Cultivating and Sharing Life Between All
Epilogue
Notes
Michael Marder
Prologue
1. Seeking Refuge in the Vegetal World
2. A Culture Forgetful of Life
3. Sharing Universal Breathing
4. The Generative Potential of the Elements
5. Living at the Rhythm of the Seasons
6. A Recovery of the Amazing Diversity of Natural Presence
7. Cultivating Our Sensory Perceptions
8. Feeling Nostalgia for a Human Companion
9. Risking to Go Back Among Humans
10. Losing Oneself and Asking Nature for Help Again
11. Encountering Another Human in the Woods
12. Wondering How to Cultivate Our Living Energy
13. Could Gestures and Words Substitute for the Elements?
14. From Being Alone in Nature to Being Two in Love
15. Becoming Humans
16. Cultivating and Sharing Life Between All
Epilogue
Notes
Index

About the author

Luce Irigaray and Michael Marder

Report

"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

Product details

• Authors: Luce Irigaray, Irigaray Luce, Michael Marder
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 05.07.2016
• EAN: 9780231173872
• ISBN: 978-0-231-17387-2
• No. of pages: 248
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 210 mm x 15 mm
• Series: Critical Life Studies
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: antiquity to present day; NATURE / Plants / General, SCIENCE / Life Sciences / Botany, LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Letters, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Feminism & Feminist Theory, PHILOSOPHY / Movements / Deconstruction, Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology, Philosophy: metaphysics and ontology, Western philosophy from c 1800, Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge, Philosophy: epistemology and theory of knowledge, Deconstructionism, Structuralism, Post-structuralism, Structuralism and Post-structuralism