REVIEW: What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses, by David Chamovitz, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012

The strongest aspect of David Chamovitz's book is his detailed explanations of plant physiology. He does an admirable job of revealing the nature of plant awareness in clear and engaging language, thereby rendering complex concepts, which can be challenging for those with little or no knowledge of botany, into careful and accessible insights into the world as plants know it.

His engagements with the social, as opposed to biological, nature of plants, however, does not exhibit the same level of expertise. This is unfortunate, because Chamovitz is clearly a lover and admirer of plants. He cannot bring himself to fully insert them into his concept of the social, always stopping just short of doing so, or backtracking once he has conceded that plants are beings that are far more sophisticated than most people think. 

For instance, in the book's epilogue, he writes:

While we use the same terms—"see," "smell," "feel"— we also know that the overall sensual experience is qualitatively different for plants and people. Without this caveat, anthropomorphism of plant behavior left unchecked can lead to unfortunate, if not humorous, consequences. For example, in 2008 the Swiss government established an ethics committee to protect the "dignity" of plants.

If one reads the actual document in which the Swiss position is detailed, The dignity of living beings with regard to plants: Moral consideration of plants for their own sake, issued by the Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (ECNH), one finds a very temperate and, if I must say, somewhat bureaucratic document that seems neither unfortunate nor humorous at all, being quite measured and evenhanded in its discussion of the matter. 

In this particular case, Chamovitz seems to have a particular problem with the word 'dignity', seeing it as a term and concept that can only be properly applied to human beings, because plants apparently lack whatever qualities would make them worthy of respectful treatment. We can use these words metaphorically to help convey something about the nature of plants, Chamovitz argues, but we must be careful to not anthropomorphize vegetal life.

What I find peculiar about this argument is Chamovitz's apparent need to consider 'dignity', and other qualities such as 'happiness', as purely human concepts. In this view, the real meanings of words such as dignity and happiness can reference only human sensibilities, and that their use in any other context renders them 'metaphorical'. Well, I don't see why these words cannot in fact reference a larger context, one that includes plants and human beings, as well as other entities, equally. For example, could I not treat a piece of art or a book with dignity? Am I somehow corrupting the meaning of that word by using it in reference to inanimate objects?

I understand the point that Chamovitz makes in warning against making false equivalencies between humans and plants, but I think a richer and more inclusive conceptualization of the social, and a more flexible engagement with the terms that are used to discuss it, allow for a more expansive understanding of plants and the roles that they play in society, a concept that should not be conceived or engaged from a purely human perspective.

Overall, however, What a Plant Knows is a fresh and essential intervention into the discussion of the fascinating lives and abilities of the vegetal beings who are so essential to life on our planet, and whose virtues and importance are still misunderstood and under appreciated.