Heidegger's philosophical botany

Tristan Moyle

pp. 377-394

in: Continental Philosophy Review 50 (3), 2017.

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.

Cited authors

Heidegger Martin