Philosophy of Plant Biology Workshop Program

Philosophy of Plant Biology Workshop (Virtual)

Egenis, the Centre for the Study of Life Sciences, University of Exeter, 5-7 May 2021

Organisers: Özlem Yilmaz and John Dupré

05 May 2021
14:30-16:00
Opening Talks- Özlem Yılmaz and John Dupré (University of Exeter)
Plant Phenome Project
Plant Phenomes and Climate Change
Plant Individuality: A Cognitive-Physiological Approach

17:00-19:00
Process-Sensitive Naming: Crop Descriptors and the Shifting Semantics of Plant (Data) Science
Sabina Leonelli (University of Exeter)
Ontological commitments and the working worlds of plant DNA barcoding
James W. E. Lowe and David Ingram (University of Edinburgh)
Putting Markers in Their Place: Population Construction and Improvement in Contemporary Plant Breeding Hugh F. Williamson (University of Exeter)
The proximate-ultimate causation distinction is still relevant: examples from plant hydraulics
Mark E. Olson et al. (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)

06 May 2021
14:00-16:00
Resisting the biotic/abiotic division – The case of plant immune systems
Sophie Juliane Veigl (Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas)
My plant teacher: what can we learn from plant immunology about our own immune system?
Gregor P. Greslehner (University of Vienna)
Delineating the Boundaries of Self: Modularity, Regeneration, and Individuality in Plants
Auguste Nahas and Zoe Nahas (University of Toronto and University of Cambridge)
Is a Plant a Genetic Mosaic? An Insight into Plants’ Individuality
Sophie Gerber and Thibault Leroy (UMR Biogeco Inrae-Univ Bordeaux and University of Vienna)

17:00-18:30
Keynote talk: Multi-generation plant plasticity and unscripted development
Sonia E. Sultan (Wesleyan University)

07 May 2021
14:00-16:00
Theophrastus’ Philosophy of Plants and Aristotle’s influence
Thomas McCloughlin (DCU Herbarium, Dublin City University)
Tree phenomes and the phenomenology of extinction
Ramsey Affifi (University of Edinburgh)
Living Fossils as Paleoclimate Proxies: The Case of Ginkgo biloba
Aja Watkins (Boston University)
What Shall We Make of “The Weather Plant”?
Susan G. Sterrett (Wichita State University)

17:00-19:00
How to understand and discriminate plant cognition?
Quentin Hiernaux (University of Brussels)
From signaling systems to intentionality: approaching adaptive agentivity in plants in Eco-Devo
Tiago Rama (Autonomous University of Barcelona)
Plants as agents: Against gradualism about the mind
Bendik Hellem Aaby (KU Leuven)
Closing

Note: The program is in UK time (BST)

This workshop is a part of the Plant Phenome Project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No:833353.