Main entry:

Coccia, Emanuele, author. aut

Title & Author:

The life of plants : a metaphysics of mixture / Emanuele Coccia ; translated by Dylan J. Montanari.

Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, [2019]

Description:

xi, 167 pages ; 23 cm

Notes:
"First published in French as La vie des plantes. Une métaphysique du mélange, © Éditions Payot & Rivages, 2017."
Includes bibliographical references.
On Plants, or the Origin of Our World -- The Extension of the Domain of Life -- On Plants, or the Life of the Spirit -- Toward a Philosophy of Nature -- Leaves -- Tiktaalik roseae -- In Open Air: Ontology of the Atmosphere -- The Breath of the World -- Everything Is in Everything -- Roots -- The Deepest Are the Stars -- Flowers -- Reason Is Sex -- On Speculative Autotrophy -- Like an Atmosphere.
Translated from the French.

Summary:

We barely talk about them and seldom know their names. Philosophy has always overlooked them; even biology considers them as mere decoration on the tree of life. And yet plants give life to the Earth: they produce the atmosphere that surrounds us, they are the origin of the oxygen that animates us. Plants embody the most direct, elementary connection that life can establish with the world. In this highly original book, Emanuele Coccia argues that, as the very creator of atmosphere, plants occupy the fundamental position from which we should analyze all elements of life. From this standpoint, we can no longer perceive the world as a simple collection of objects or as a universal space containing all things, but as the site of a veritable metaphysical mixture. Since our atmosphere is rendered possible through plants alone, life only perpetuates itself through the very circle of consumption undertaken by plants. In other words, life exists only insofar as it consumes other life, removing any moral or ethical considerations from the equation. In contrast to trends of thought that discuss nature and the cosmos in general terms, Coccia's account brings the infinitely small together with the infinitely big, offering a radical redefinition of the place of humanity within the realm of life.

ISBN:

9781509531523 hardback
1509531521 hardback
9781509531530 paperback
150953153X paperback

Subject:

Plants (Philosophy)
Philosophy of nature.
Ontology.
Plantes (Philosophie)
Philosophie de la nature.
Ontologie.
ontology (metaphysics)
08.46 natural philosophy.
Leben
Natur
Naturphilosophie
Pflanzen
Philosophie

Added entries:

Montanari, Dylan J., translator.
Montanari, Dylan J. translator.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 309256
Call No.: BIB 254526
Status: Available