Forthcoming Volume - The Wisdom of Trees: Thinking Through Arboreality
Redwood trees in the Founder’s Grove, Avenue of the Giants
The volume, The Wisdom of Trees: Thinking Through Arboreality, edited by David Macauley and Laura Pustarfi, is forthcoming from SUNY Press in 2025. Please stay in touch for updates.
Abstract for my chapter:
Aboreality: Trees as Ontologically Valuable Beings
Beginning with the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle in the West, trees have been seen as merely resource or scenery for human use. Though living, trees and plants have largely been considered inferior due to their assumed lack of movement or perception. The figure of the tree is central to Western culture, thought, and experience in part due to the extent of historical forests in Europe and North America. Trees intrinsically deserve protection though humans must rely on trees and forests for our livelihoods and wellbeing. How can humans move toward mutually beneficial interactions with trees? By looking at trees anew utilizing a phenomenological approach, arboreality raises ontological questions about descriptions of vegetal reality and opens possibilities for thinking about human relationships to our arboreal neighbors while remaining within the Western legacy. Thinkers are reconsidering the status of plants within the Western philosophical tradition, and the arboreal is a key aspect of this reassessment. By drawing on the work of philosophers, scientists and scholars engaged in plant studies, I will show that trees can be considered intelligent, relational, and agential beings. This view of arboreality is grounded in a Merleau-Pontian phenomenological framework along with research in the biological field of plant behavior and signaling. If trees exhibit such capacities, the ontological status of arboreal beings deserves adjustment. By challenging the received vegetal ontology, I will further show that trees are valuable ontologically and thus are deserving of human recognition and respect. If trees are considered ontologically valuable beings, there are ethical implications for how trees and forests are treated, and such a view could assist in the move toward arboreal sustainability.