Post-deconstructive synthesis and plant phenomenology of Michael Marder

Rethinking the creative heritage of J. Derrida, A. Badiou and B. Latour led to creation of new ontological theories imbued with the spirit of metamodern neorealism in the first decades of the XXI century. In parallel with the G. Harman’s efforts to create the object-oriented ontology, M. Marder continues to transform the phenomenology and deconstruction tradition, and creates a new naturalistic phenomenology of the plant world using the deconstruction resources and the latest research in biological and cognitive sciences. Studying the Marder’s plant phenomenology is relevant both in modern ontology and theory of knowledge, as well as in historical and philosophical understanding of the origins of processes occurring in the modern philosophy. The paper reveals philosophical ontological (post-deconstructive synthesis) and historical-philosophical (phenomenology) foundations of the Marder’s position. Post-deconstructive synthesis transforms criticism of any totalizing synthetic thinking inherent in traditional deconstruction into a metamodern synthesis of part and whole making it possible to analyze the structure of reality beyond the subjects and objects conglomeration. It is concluded that Marder raises the question on the possible naturalistic expansion of the boundaries of ideas about reality, and attempts to apply the phenomenology tools to studying the plant intelligence. He proposes a new project in the plant world phenomenology to be understood by analogy with the life world in the philosophy of late Husserl. This allows exploring possibilities of the phenomenological analysis of the problems in modern biology and cognitive sciences.

EDN: BCQSFT

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