Seeing Plant Souls: Reviving Gustav Fechner’s Vegetal Vision

This paper analyzes the vegetal theology of Gustav Fechner by drawing upon the author’s original translation of his previously-untranslated 1848 book, Nanna, Or On the Soul-Life of Plants. I explore the telelogical and aesthetic implications of Fechner’s category of plant-soul (Pflanzeseele), and explore how it rests on a thoroughgoing dual-aspect monism. I put Fechner’s arguments in dialogue with monistic predecessors, including Spinoza, Goethe, and Schelling, and contextualize the uniqueness of Fechner’s methods in the context of post-Hegel Germany. Finally, I characterize my translation project as a kind of vegetal ressourcement, along the lines of philosopher Michael Marder, whose 2013 book Plant-Thinking: A Philosophy of Vegetal Life attempts to “vegetalize” the Western philosophical cannon.