The Ensemblist Nature of Plant Plurality
A core misconception about plants underlying much of the work in both plant studies and biology to currently revise it, is the designation of plants as quantifiable individuals rather than interspecies ensembles. Despite the epigenetics revolution in biology, ushering in the Extended Evolutionary S...
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| Language: | English |
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Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago
2020-04-01
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| Series: | Semiotic Review |
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| Online Access: | https://semioticreview.com/sr/index.php/srindex/article/view/54 |
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| author | Yogi Hale Hendlin |
| author_facet | Yogi Hale Hendlin |
| author_sort | Yogi Hale Hendlin |
| collection | DOAJ |
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A core misconception about plants underlying much of the work in both plant studies and biology to currently revise it, is the designation of plants as quantifiable individuals rather than interspecies ensembles. Despite the epigenetics revolution in biology, ushering in the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, plants and other organisms nonetheless are often observed as individual specimens with which one can tamper. In distinction to animals, which are fundamentally self-contained (even if both exosemiotically and endosemiotically their composition and signals are thoroughgoingly interspecies and elemental), plants disabuse us of the metaphysics of isolated ontologies through their radical plurality. In a mature forest, for example, it would be a mistake to cleanly demarcate where one plant ends and another begins, or were the plant ends and its fungal symbionts begin. The lessons of semiotic and thus ontological plurality and porosity plants tender also in fluctuating ways to alter our understanding of human and animal ontologies as plural.
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-334ef3f4bf2748bc9e82e337b2bd29ba |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 3066-8107 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2020-04-01 |
| publisher | Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Semiotic Review |
| spelling | doaj-art-334ef3f4bf2748bc9e82e337b2bd29ba2025-08-20T03:09:25ZengDepartment of Anthropology, University of ChicagoSemiotic Review3066-81072020-04-01610.71743/jzsjd132The Ensemblist Nature of Plant PluralityYogi Hale Hendlin A core misconception about plants underlying much of the work in both plant studies and biology to currently revise it, is the designation of plants as quantifiable individuals rather than interspecies ensembles. Despite the epigenetics revolution in biology, ushering in the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, plants and other organisms nonetheless are often observed as individual specimens with which one can tamper. In distinction to animals, which are fundamentally self-contained (even if both exosemiotically and endosemiotically their composition and signals are thoroughgoingly interspecies and elemental), plants disabuse us of the metaphysics of isolated ontologies through their radical plurality. In a mature forest, for example, it would be a mistake to cleanly demarcate where one plant ends and another begins, or were the plant ends and its fungal symbionts begin. The lessons of semiotic and thus ontological plurality and porosity plants tender also in fluctuating ways to alter our understanding of human and animal ontologies as plural. https://semioticreview.com/sr/index.php/srindex/article/view/54Phytosemioticsplant pluralityontologyplant biologyplant studiesmoral extensionism |
| spellingShingle | Yogi Hale Hendlin The Ensemblist Nature of Plant Plurality Semiotic Review Phytosemiotics plant plurality ontology plant biology plant studies moral extensionism |
| title | The Ensemblist Nature of Plant Plurality |
| title_full | The Ensemblist Nature of Plant Plurality |
| title_fullStr | The Ensemblist Nature of Plant Plurality |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Ensemblist Nature of Plant Plurality |
| title_short | The Ensemblist Nature of Plant Plurality |
| title_sort | ensemblist nature of plant plurality |
| topic | Phytosemiotics plant plurality ontology plant biology plant studies moral extensionism |
| url | https://semioticreview.com/sr/index.php/srindex/article/view/54 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT yogihalehendlin theensemblistnatureofplantplurality AT yogihalehendlin ensemblistnatureofplantplurality |