Vallega-Neu, DanielaKerr, Joshua2021-11-232021-11-23https://hdl.handle.net/1794/26900This dissertation reexamines the place of plants in the history of Western philosophy, drawing on the diverse philosophical approaches of Plato, Aristotle, Goethe, Hegel, and Nietzsche, among others. I suggest that a close reading of these philosophers reveals an aspect of vegetal existence that calls for a fundamental reconceptualization of life as a manner of being: in its ambivalent encounters with philosophy, the vegetative shows itself in terms of what I call hybris. By “hybris” I mean the activity by which the plant relates a proliferative, overflowing growth with a characteristic proportionality by which the plant composes a determinate manner of existence. In Part One, I trace the emergence of “plant hybris” in Goethe and Hegel’s scientific writings and Nietzsche’s philosophy of life. In Part Two, I expand and develop this concept by returning to Plato and Aristotle’s biological works.en-USAll Rights Reserved.Electronic Thesis or Dissertation