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Remembering Plants

Plants eat animals—at least, some plants, and some animals. Well-known, but still fascinating, the trapping of the Venus flytrap is a case of thigmomorphism, a change of shape in response to touch. Since trapping is not affected by the direction of the stimulus, it is not a tropism, like phototropism …

Perceiving Plants

Chauncey Maher February 21, 2017 February 21, 2017 books / Chauncey Maher: Plant Minds / perception

In What a Plant Knows, Daniel Chamowitz reports what plant biologists apparently have known for a long time: although plants generally stay in one place (they’re sessile), they actively negotiate their environments. Not just their cells, like all living cells, constantly do things, but whole plants and their parts—their roots, …

Do Plants Have Minds?

Chauncey Maher February 19, 2017 March 10, 2021 books / Chauncey Maher: Plant Minds / Intentionality / metaphysics of mind / naturalism / Philosophy of Mind / representation

Plants don’t have minds. At least, that’s what most people think. A few years ago, that’s also what I thought. Then, reflecting on the work of Ruth Millikan and Fred Dretske, I started wondering why it seemed obvious, and whether it should. This led me to write a short book …

CFP: Mind, Brain, and Body: A Neuroethical Perspective

John Schwenkler February 19, 2017 February 19, 2017 CFPs / Ethics

The Italian Society for Neuroethics is glad to announce the Call for Papers for the IX edition of the International Scientific Conference on Neuroethics and Fourth Conference of the Italian Society for Neuroethics (SINe) Mind, Brain, and Body. A Neuroethical Perspective Meetings on Neuroscience and Society, IX Edition Padua May …

CFP: Scientism and Consciousness

John Schwenkler February 19, 2017 February 19, 2017 CFPs / Consciousness

CALL FOR POSTGRADUATE PAPERS: SCIENTISM AND CONSCIOUSNESS A Conference at Keele University, UK, 27-28th June 2017 Keynote Speakers: Philip Goff John Cottingham James Tartaglia Keith Frankish Christopher Norris The term ‘scientism’ has traditionally been used by philosophers to denote an uncritical, excessively deferential attitude towards the (usually natural) sciences, along …

CFP: Buffalo Experimental Philosophy Conference 2017

John Schwenkler February 19, 2017 February 19, 2017 CFPs / Experimental Philosophy

Dates: Fri., Aug. 18, and Sat., Aug. 19, 2017 Keynote speaker: Tania Lombrozo (Psychology, Berkeley) Submission deadline: May 15, 2017 Conference Venue: Embassy Suites Downtown Buffalo, 200 Delaware Avenue, Buffalo, New York, 14202, United States, 716-842-1000 Paper Submissions: We invite submissions for paper presentations on any topic pertaining …

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John Schwenkler February 19, 2017 February 25, 2017 Chauncey Maher: Plant Minds

We are grateful to Chauncey Maher (Dickinson College) for blogging this week on Plant Minds: A Philosophical Defense, forthcoming from Routledge. To view all his posts, click here.