Emanuele Coccia

When we talk about life and its origins, we think of humans or animals. And the plants? They are only the subject of botany, in philosophy they play no role since Aristotle’s idea of a vegetative soul faculty.

Hard to believe, because they are the actual creators of the world. They cannot move and yet they are ingenious craftsmen, they mediate between earth and sun and possess hidden second bodies in the soil. Plants are more than blooming coincidence, they are the basis of all life and therefore indispensable for our knowledge about us.

Emanuele Coccia, born in 1976, is a professor of the history of philosophy at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He received his doctorate in Florence and was assistant professor of the history of philosophy in Freiburg.

Unfortunately, the event has to be cancelled at short notice due to illness!