This book charts the multidimensional course of what has come to be known as the "Vegetal Turn" in environmental humanities - a wave of theoretical and practical interest in the complexities and peculiarities of plant life and plant-human relations, consisting of increasingly sophisticated, inter- and trans-disciplinary, inter- and trans-cultural explorations of the multiple systems and networks of communication, intelligence, technical-operational capabilities, and relations articulated by and via plants, as well as the ethical, economic, cultural, and political dimensions of plant-human interactions and practices. The volume includes contributions from philosophy, from the the humanities more generally, from the natural and social sciences, as well as from engaged practitioners, artists, and plant advocates to reflect on the history, prospects, and applications of four main themes that the Vegetal Turn has brought to general attention: the mind of plants, and what their peculiar mentality can tell us about mind more generally; plant personhood and/or moral standing, and the justifications and implications of attributions thereof; plant relationships with humans, plant-based human relationships, and the ethics of human practices with or regarding plants - from agriculture to the arts, from forest management to urban design ; as well as the rights and/or political representation of plant life and the other life-forms that depend on it, human as well as non-human, present and future.

Autorentext

Marcello Di Paola is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Humanities at the University of Palermo. He works on the philosophy of plants, the philosophy of gardens, outer space philosophy, the philosophy of meaning in life, climate change philosophy, the Anthropocene, and the thought of Baruch Spinoza. He is the author of Ethics and Politics of the Built Environment. Gardens of the Anthropocene (Springer, 2017), and co-editor of Plant Ethics: Concepts and Applications (Routledge, 2018). The springer handbook of the philosophy of climate change (2023) and the philosophy of outer space: explorations, controversies, speculations (Routledge 2024).