Abstract
Abstract: Emanuele Coccia's The Life of Plants proposes to "reopen the question of the world" through the deceptively simple, yet radical fact that all breathing living beings breathe because of plants. Refuting the metaphysical assumption that breath as spirit ( psyché rather than pneuma ) inhabits a higher ontological order than matter, Coccia fundamentally adjusts the claim of animal superiority over plants. As original as this approach might appear in contemporary Western thought, for Indigenous traditions, it is age-old. In the middle of the 19th century, it also deeply inspired Alexander von Humboldt's Kosmos . Not deterred by the "epistemic disconcertment" (H. Verran) between disparate knowledge traditions—Western/Northern and Amerindian—the Potawatomi scientist-botanist-ecologist Robin Wall Kimmerer engages in a practice of translative curiosity which, in the age of climate disaster, is more critical than ever. What Coccia's, Humboldt's and Kimmerer's approaches share is a radically expanded, literally vital understanding of sensus communis .
Published Version
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