Plant neurobiology: a interspecific perspective on the debate

Abstract

This paper presents a balance of the debate caused by the ideas raised in plants sciences with the advent of plants neurobiology, highlighting from the tensions generated between different groups of scientists the elements of what Hustak & Myers (2012) call a “richer narrative”, beyond reductive focus of contemporary biology on cells and genes, or a neodarwinian evolutionary logic, and with greater attention to the organism and modes of relation. A narrative that also accounts for the way plants express themselves and reveal the entanglements in which plants and scientists are involved. Inspired by the ideas introduced in the interspecific field by the multispecies ethnography, the hypothesis is that these tensions, alone or in combination, suggest ways of accessing the perspective of the plants.