The Botanical Mirror of the Self in La Mettrie's Man as Plant

Abstract

In this article I argue that La Mettrie's natural history is in fact an invitation to reengage with our plant and animal roots from a materialist point of view. Returning to the root also means allowing and performing a series of identifications between Man and Nature, in order to produce a different, non-metaphysical genealogy of the "I" or the Self. The botanical analogy here allows for a radical identification with the plant that complicates and destabilizes hierarchical sexual binaries. La Mettrie appears as a metteurenscène and drag performer of the texts and ideas of others.