The mind of plants: Toward a vegetal philosophy in Hans Jonas

This article intends to analyze the main theses of Hans Jonas’ ontological approach to plant life in his phenomenology of life. To do so, we will start with the hypothesis that plant life must be thought of as a carrier of mind (inwardness) and that this guarantees plants’ ethical status. From there, we will analyze the two approaches Jonas developed, which, according to him, demonstrate the ontological superiority of plants in relation to animals and simultaneously their greater vulnerability: material immediacy (represented by their nutritive activity) and spatial proximity (linked to the problem of movement). From these two aspects derives the indistinction between acting and the objective of acting (which makes metabolism a process intrinsic to the vegetable being itself). We will conclude by suggesting that such a position brings Jonas closer to the post-humanists, insofar as he questions humanist anthropocentrism, opening the way for the recognition of plants not only as moral subjects but as legal entities.