Aristotle thought that plants possess what he called a ‘vegetative soul’. Centred on growing and reproducing, this primordial, unthinking state of being was encompassed and far surpassed by the ‘rational soul’ of humans. Friedrich Nietzsche, however, believed that, in the overwhelming confusion of considering how we might live, there was much we could learn from plants – deeply rooted in the ground and yet limitlessly expressive as they are. Borrowing from some of Nietzsche’s lesser-known writings, this short video essay might just inspire you to look at a plant growing through a crack in the ‘inhospitable ground’ – and perhaps even Nietzsche himself – in a new light.
videoConsciousness and altered states
How an artist learned to ‘co-live’ with the distressing voice in her head
6 minutes
videoThinkers and theories
The prison abolitionist who dares to envision a world without ‘unfreedoms’
16 minutes
videoEconomics
A tour of New York’s gaudiest neighbourhood with the Marxist geographer David Harvey
13 minutes
videoChildhood and adolescence
‘Do worms cry?’ – and other questions collected from the mind of a curious child
4 minutes
videoPhilosophy of mind
‘Am I not at least something?’ A surreal dive into Descartes’s Meditations
3 minutes
videoMeaning and the good life
Why Orwell urged his readers to celebrate the spring, cynics be damned
11 minutes
videoWellbeing
Children of the Rwandan genocide face a unique stigma 30 years later
20 minutes
videoMeaning and the good life
Leading 1950s thinkers on the search for happiness in trying times
29 minutes
videoSpirituality
Through rituals of prayer, a monk cultivates a quietly radical concept of freedom
4 minutes