Pioneering essays that reveal the significance of new interdisciplinary understandings of trees and forests, especially in terms of their philosophical and ecological dimensions and their importance for addressing the climate emergency.
This is the first book to apply philosophical thinking to trees. Through a series of sixteen diverse essays by leading scholars and writers, along with an in-depth introduction to the key issues and ideas, it examines the new and emerging understanding of trees in science and society. Contributors show how these developments encourage a revisioning of philosophical thought and a more sustainable relationship with trees and forests-a reconceptualization with important ecological and social implications for responding to deforestation, the loss of biodiversity, and the climate emergency. The interdisciplinary contributions in this collection investigate the many interconnected dimensions of arboreality, focusing on subjects related to time, mind, truth, memory, being, beauty, goodness, silence, wisdom, personhood, and death. The volume engages in a conversation about why trees matter, how they can best be protected, our obligations to them, and even what or who they are. Most of the chapters are informed by natural history or ecological science and many share a particular emphasis on continental philosophy and the environmental humanities.
Edited by:
David Macauley,
Laura Pustarfi
Imprint: State University of New York Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
Spine: 37mm
Weight: 771g
ISBN: 9798855802702
Series: SUNY series in Environmental Philosophy and Ethics
Pages: 472
Publication Date: 01 June 2025
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Foreword Joan Maloof Introduction: The Wisdom of Trees David Macauley and Laura Pustarfi Trees as Beings Interstice: Redwood 1. Arboreality: Trees as Ontologically Valuable Beings Laura Pustarfi 2. In the Beginning She Was a Redwood: Rethinking Ontology through an Ecofeminist Materialism Kimberly Carfore The Language of Trees Interstice: The Forest 3. Speaking Trees: The Language of Nature and Arboreal Communication Luke Fischer 4. The Silence of Primeval Forests Daniel O'Dea Bradley Thinking (Like) Trees Interstice: Arborescence 5. Vegetal Imagination: Schelling and Whitehead as Exemplars of Marder's Plant-Thinking Matthew David Segall Trees and Time Interstice: Rings 6. ""Old Trees Hold Memory"": Aboriginal Australian Perspectives on Memory, Trauma, and Witnessing in the Arboreal World John Charles Ryan 7. Birth and Death in Trees Alphonso Lingis The Place and Ecology of Trees Interstice: Banyan 8. The Place of Trees: Taking Trees over the Edge Michael Marder and Edward S. Casey 9. Organisms and Environments: What Alexander von Humboldt Learned from Trees Dalia Nassar Trees and Aesthetics Interstice: Cypress 10. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Tree: Appreciating the Beauty of the Arboreal World David Macauley 11. Do Trees Sing? David Rothenberg Trees and Ethics Interstice: Apple 12. The Ponderosa Pines of Gold Creek: Discerning Arboreal Values for an All-Too-Human World James Hatley 13. Wise Trees: Exemplars in the Arts of East Asia Mara Miller Legal and Political Trees Interstice: Eucalyptus 14. Philosophers with a Peculiarly Instructive Aversion toward Trees Sam Mickey 15. Trees as Legal Persons Eric W. Orts Afterword: The Sequoia Archipelago Don Hanlon Johnson Suggestions for Further Reading Contributors Index
David Macauley is Academy Professor and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Environmental Studies at Penn State University. Laura Pustarfi is a Lecturer in Philosophy and Religion as well as Director of the Certificate Program at the Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Reviews for The Wisdom of Trees: Thinking Through Arboreality
""This richly varied collection offers a fascinating path through a forest of ruminations on trees from a wide range of perspectives. Replete with vivid insights into the arboreal universe, the disciplinary range of the contributions is remarkably broad and their topics even more so. This is a unique contribution."" — Arnold Berleant, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, C. W. Post Center, Long Island University
